For a brand to be long lasting, there has to be substance behind the brand. The brand really does have to deliver the unique brand benefit that it promises to deliver to its target customers. Each year a host of new brands are launched. Many of those brands do not deliver what they are supposed to deliver, and they eventually fail in the marketplace. Abraham Lincoln was correct in saying, “You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.” If a brand doesn’t deliver over time, it won’t fool enough people to survive. What do we call brands that don’t have substance and don’t survive and yet we still remember them? Fads. Many fad brands have appeared in the toy product category: Hula Hoops in the 1950’s’; Pet Rocks in the 1970’s; Cabbage Patch Kids and Rubik’s Cubes in the 1980’s; Tickle-Me-Elmo in the 1990’s. However, other product categories aren’t immune to brands with huge short-term popularity but little substance to survive the long-term:
· Fashion apparel: LA Lights lighted athletic shoes and
Skinny Jeans (still very popular, but I think that we’ll look back on them as a fad)
· Household goods: Laval Lamp, Chia Pet,
George Foreman Grill (still popular, but post peak), and Onion Blossom Maker.
· Food goods: Heinz EZ-Squirt colored ketchups.
A brand is also behavior. In business-to-business product categories, target customers are economically motivated, and salespeople represent the brand. Do your sales people just push what they’ve got to sell or do they deliver your brand promise to reduce your target customers’ costs and/or increase their revenues? Have you prepared your sales people with tools to demonstrate your brand’s economic benefit, such as ROI calculators?
In consumer goods product categories, target customers are motivated by the need to satisfy internal wants/needs. Where marketers have owned distribution, they have control over the retail behavior. In my opinion, Apple computers are horribly over-priced; but the outstanding retail experience at their stores provides a value that justifies the purchase. Unfortunately for most marketers, they are often separated from their customers by intermediaries in the channel of distribution, for example, wholesalers and retailers. The marketer often has little control over these middlemen. The retailers represent to consumers both their retail brand -- Wal-Mart, Target, Dillard’s, Best Buy, etc. – and your brand. Is your retail distribution consistent with your brand’s unique brand benefit and its brand personality? Influencing the behavior of independent middlemen in the channel is difficult, but a task that marketers must undertake to ensure that retail behavior is consistent with their brand.
Service is one element of the human face of the brand. In business-to-business categories, service is generally controlled by the marketers and can be a distinguishing feature in their offering. In consumer goods categories, many marketers often don’t control the service element of their offering; the retailer or a third party does. Is the service provided by the retailer consistent with your brand’s unique brand benefit and its brand personality?
The learning point in all of this is make sure that your brand really does deliver its unique brand benefit to your target customers in terms of substance, behavior, and service.
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