Marketing Basics
Treat your customers with the utmost respect.
Gone are the days when companies could patronise their consumers. People these days are more creative, more selective, and they feel more empowered. Witness for example the increased brand promiscuity in financial services. They're also deluged with information and opportunity. The brands they select and build relationships with are those who treat them as intelligent adult partners, not witless infantile drones.
Be customer-focused, but not customer-led.
This doesn't contradict the previous point. People need to feel that organisations are providing them with products that deliver real benefits, and with services that help make their lives easier. But they won't be your creative department when it comes to working out exactly what these things are. That is your responsibility. Remember, no one begged for alcopops, or premium adult ice-cream. But they sure picked up on these things when they were dreamed up and offered to them.
Don't get obsessive about a slogan.
Nice if you stumble upon a great one, like "Just do it". But they're not necessary. Sceptical? OK then, name me the "lines" for: Microsoft, Mercedes, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, Persil, MacDonald's.
Remember your place in people's lives.
People are busy. They don't respond well to brands which have lost that human perspective, and are the equivalent of the saloon-bar bore. However, they do respond well to a brand that clearly "knows its place" in people's lives - a brand that spells accessibility, flexibility, humanity, and often a sense of humour. Allow the customer to have a major say in how and when he drives the brand relationship. And move from traditional CRM to CMR (customer relationship management to customer-managed relationships).
ESPs are more powerful than USPs.
It's difficult to create a genuine unique selling point these days. It's even more difficult to keep it unique. If it's a good one, the competition will follow. There's a further issue - own label brands are often stronger than branded brands. I remember once talking to a marketing person at Shell. "Who's your key competition?" I asked. "Easy," he said. "Esso, BP, Texaco. To a lesser extent Jet and Elf." When I asked him where Tesco stood in all this, he gave me an old-fashioned oilman's look. You can build genuine, enduring differentiation through an esp (emotional selling proposition). That's essentially about a distinctive and attractive personality, with which people feel they can engage. Customers want to know: "Do I like these people?"
A brand needs a seat at the high table.
You won't build the brand you want unless the entire company is aligned. And that's not as simple as it should be. First, there's the over-arching responsibility of every chief executive to maximise shareholder value. Which all too often is measured only as far as the next six month's numbers, not in terms of prospects for the next six years. Hats off here to the Halifax, for reworking the interest structure in favour of its account holders. That needed boardroom support. There's a second point here, which becomes evident if you talk to hi-tech companies. The boffins are invariably doing extremely clever stuff. Problem is, this is often entirely tangential to their prospective customer's day-to-day lives. Far better to ensure all development work is within a clear brand agenda.
If your own people don't get it, no one will.
A simple point that's often overlooked - especially in service companies. Real brand reputation is created at the point of delivery. If your own people don't know the agenda and understand the central role they play, it won't be delivered. So have very clear internal processes which inform and involve the front-line staff.
Brands are primarily what you do, not what you say.
It's more than just having motivated people at the point of delivery. It's also about demonstrating the brand's commitment - launching new products that make the point. Examples include the BA flat-bed in long-haul business class, and Tesco's returns policy. These can reach beyond the traditional provision of better products and services. "Good citizen" sponsorships which are clearly of value to the communities they serve can be very potent. A standard-bearer was Texaco, with its child safety activity in the late 80s.
Be consistent with your presentation.
There's been a lot of talk about integration. Quite right too. A strong brand needs cohesive communications and delivery. Yet the most likely breakdown of the alchemy that represents a powerful brand is inconsistency of approach. Not only mismatch between rhetoric and reality, but also different messages, with different tones, personality and core values disseminated and therefore consumed through different channels. And there are now plenty of those channels. Online and offline, paid and unpaid media, broadcast and narrowcast... the list goes on.
Stick with it.
Brand-building needs to transcend the rational. It is a head-and-heart thing. If there was a logical equation, everyone would be brand leader. However, it's not physics - it's alchemy. Resist the temptation to chop and change. Evolve, progress, innovate, grow - but always remember to nurture the brand.
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