Re: Branding

From: James Santagata <jsanta_at_audiencetrax.com>
Date: Wed 05 Mar 2003 09:14:05 -0600

At 11:07 AM 3/3/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Good brand: People will urge their friends to use the brand. Take
>a personal interest in the brand. Buy it even though it costs more
>than its competition.

But a "good brand" by itself doesn't guarantee success nor does it
guarantee that the brand will be around even if all the current users
take a personal interest, urge their friends to use it and are willing
to pay a premium. The recent Wall Street Journal article on Slide Rules
comes to mind to illustrate that.

Some brands have all that and more and still no longer exist.

>People will pay FEDEX twice what they pay the U.S. Postal Service for
>an overnight package. The package gets to the same place in the same
>amount of time, but FEDEX makes them feel better about it, so they
>can charge more bucks. Pure good brand.

It's not that Fedex makes people feel better about their package
getting somewhere on time, it's that Fedex invented the concept
of a package doing so, made the promise to its customers
and continually and reliably delivered on that promise.

With Fedex, you are paying a premium price for a premium service.
USPS doesn't hold a candle to Fedex in that arena. In recent, years
though, USPS has made some gains with their Express and Priority Mail
classes of service which are fast and cheaper than Fedex. However,
the strong Fedex brand has continued to make Fedex more popular with
people willing to pay a premium with Fedex either for a perceived better
quality of service or to cover their own behinds.

And here is test of that brand. Two lawyers are working on a critical contract.
Lawyer A on the East coast needs to send a set of original documents
asap to a Lawyer B on the West coast.

Assume that Lawyer A sends the documents by USPS and USPS screws
up and loses the documents or delivers them late. What is Lawyer B's
response? How about, "What the hell were you thinking sending those by USPS?
Why didn't you pay a few bucks more and get it delivered right!!!"

Even though there is no guarantee that Fedex would have done a better job
that is what we can expect Lawyer B's response to be.

Now consider the same situation where Lawyer A sends the documents
by Fedex and Fedex loses the documents or delivers them late just like
USPS did in the first hypothetical.

Again, Lawyer B gets on the horn to Lawyer A and raises caine. Lawyer A
replies,
"I did the best I could - I sent them by Fedex!! What more could I do?"

Exactly. End of story.

>Successful brand: For most, it means a money maker. Microsoft is
>successful at making money and selling product, but almost everyone
>hates the brand.

What studies support this notion that almost everyone hates MSFT?
And what segments of people hate MSFT? The current users, former
users or non-users?

Obviously most/all Mac users hate MSFT. Perhaps many/most Linux users
do, but that's not everyone. And it surely isn't every who buys MSFT products.
If they hated MSFT that badly, they wouldn't buy those products, let alone
try to pirate free copies. I don't copy software or music that I hate.

And they would switch to other solutions as there are plenty of options
available.
It's just that those options are not as good as the current options they
enjoy under
MSFT which is why they don't.

Many people surely vent their frustrations on MSFT but for most people what are
their options if they consider the alternatives? Use Linux/BSD which is "free"
but much more difficult for the average person to use and has orders of
magnitude
fewer applications available for key vertical markets?

Or switch to the Mac which is
more expensive and again lacks many applications (or is much slower to market)
for key applications in business and in the key gaming markets?

> In fact, many MS users would gladly switch out of
>MS if they could do so transparently and easily, even at a price
>premium.

That's true for most products. Heck, if I could drive a hydrogen fuel-cell
powered car that was as reliable, as cost effective on an mpg basis as
gasoline, had a nationwide refueling infrastructure available I would
pay a premium to switch.

Problem is it doesn't exist.

The problem is, there is no brand that offers the ability for MS users who
are thinking about switching to do so transparently or easily even if they paid
a premium (depending on various vertical markets).

Heck, even the Mac campaign of a few years back "think different"
pointed out the problems of switching to potential switchers, although that
wasn't
the intention of the Mac ads.

How and why? Because thinking "different" is not the same as thinking
"differently".

In our networked, information-sharing computer world, being "different"
means being
difficult and inaccessible. I don't want to be different, I don't want
problems, I
don't have time to dye my hair purple. When I use a computer, I want to get my
job done, make money and move on.

I didn't select my computer to change the world. I did it to make _my_life
better. Now, some people think that "different" makes them special or feel
better, and for the most part those are the people that will select the Mac
and there is nothing wrong with that. But it is a small minority of people
which is why the Mac has a relatively small marketshare of users.


James Santagata
A U D I E N C E T R A X





Received on Wed Mar 05 2003 - 09:14:05 CST