“…so, what is a Brand?”
You’d be surprised at how many times that question is thrown at me while I’m trying to explain a go-to-market strategy. This comes from startup founders as well as successful leaders of legacy businesses. Hence, it’s an ambiguity that’s present across the business landscape, which is why I respond by throwing it right back at them because it’s their product, service and organisation we’re talking about.
For many legacy businesses (especially B2B) Brand is superficial, albeit decorative ‘good to have but not worth spending time and money on’ component, with an output of some basic elements which most kids with MS Paint can put together. Which sets an idea in their head about how much ‘branding’ should cost, adding to the inherent disrespect, disregard and scepticism towards creative businesses, processes and practitioners in general.
On the other hand, a whole lot of startup founders, high on gigantic gulps of the ‘product product product’ Kool-Aid, consider Brand, Brand Design and Branding (yes, they are different things!) an afterthought. Something that’s there somewhere, like another atom in the universe that needs to adapt and change and evolve with every update and bug fix the product team puts out because <insert relevant digital economy jargon here>.
This extreme lack of understanding about a Brand, on either end of the apathy spectrum, is akin to self-harm for the business at the hands of the business leader. Refusal to accept this lack of understanding is usually swept under the rug on account of high costs and labelled as frivolous indulgence. In other instances, it’s deferred indefinitely to the “if we’re going to do it, let’s do it right… (when we have money and there is nothing better to do with it)” desk in some dimly lit corner of the business ecosystem behind a door marked ‘Well Dodged’ which if you ask me is just corporate euphemism for ‘Self Goal Imminent’.
You may ignore the brand and focus on the just the product for now, but you are the future million-dollar clients for consulting companies and creative shops for a much-needed lifeline in the form of a RE (rebrand, repackage, reborn, remake, reinvent … take your pick) positioning to give you a ‘connect’ with the customers of the day. This usually happens after some underwhelming performance meetings, followed by expensive market research.
Alternatively, the smart ones will make the effort to learn, rely on experts and realise a brand is not just a name, logo or tagline. They’ll figure that there are more ways and means and touch-points to define a brand, than just big-ticket advertising campaigns, gimmicks or stunts. They understand that a brand is the heart and soul of the business model and the one thing that aligns every element and stakeholder in the business. (The diagram is badly reconstructed but the point is valid)
A brand is never a calculation of how much you can spend but a calculus of how your people, customers and vendors feel about your product, service or interaction. It’s the personality, tone of voice, first impression, collective experience and cumulative EQ of your ‘product product product’.
A good product, that is easy to use, is aesthetically sound and does a good job of whatever it is claiming it can do, is hygiene. It’s what the customer pays for. A great brand is a feeling that stays long after the business is concluded and crystallises into a belief about what this particular purchase decision says about the buyer.
A brand is not a stimulus, that’s the role of the product. A brand is a response that empowers businesses to short circuit their customer lifecycles and moves the conversation from the who and the why to the what and the how of the business; shifting the decision making from price to value. A brand defines and justifies, by the power vested in them by the customers, the premium a product can charge, the profit the company can make and the cool social status it can achieve.
Take the epitome of brand ecosystems for instance – Apple. For them, it’s not a question of the millions spent on branding. Rather they focus on the product features only and never on creating content or campaigns pushing their brand story or ‘corporate vision’. It’s the hours, months, blood, sweat and tears they put into defining, aligning and sustaining their approach towards design, product, employees, developers, vendors and customers. It’s this intensity and consistency across every touchpoint, with a story of its own, that becomes their brand story.
The rest is all bells and whistles and cherries on top which an army of loyalists fill in on their own. That’s the power of a brand. Clutter cutting, impacting cultures, behaviours and belief systems beyond the socio-economics and geopolitics of the world. A great brand will visualise, define and commit to what they want to achieve, and then put everything they have into empowering everybody around, from employees, customers and haters to propel them there.
A minimum viable product (MVP) is a great product strategy but entering the market with a minimum viable brand (loosely defined, poorly designed & meagrely aligned) is bad customer strategy and betrays a lack of self-belief or foresight or both.
As a customer, in most instances, I’m exposed to the brand environment of the product or service before I arrive at the transaction environment, where it really matters for the business. The brand environment is where the conversions happen, and I decide whether I want to proceed on a leap of faith or turn back and move on. The decision should have been natural and logical but now rests upon how inclined I am to walk through an unpainted hallway and buy what’s behind door number one, helping generate money for the hallway to be painted for the people who come in after me. The average customer might not articulate the absence of branding correctly, but this pretty close to how it feels.
Whatever the customer may decide, here’s the one thing to remember – people pay for products, but they buy brands.