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Who are you? Saying a marketing message is part of a branding campaign doesn’t make it so. By LAURIE FREEMAN
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randing is like pornography: Marketers can’t describe it, exactly, but they know it when they see it. Even the most down-to-earth industry leaders trade the concrete for the conceptual when discussing the nature of brands and what they mean to consumers. “A brand is a promise that a marketer delivers upon consistently and over time,” says Linda Wolf, CEO of Leo Burnett USA in Chicago. “It’s a partnership between the company and the customer in that the marketer says ‘This is who we are, and based on our in-depth knowledge of who (the customer) is, this is what our brand offers you.’” “Brands are both a commitment and a community,” asserts Gary Stibel, founding partner of New England Consulting Group, a Westport, Conn.-based marketing consulting firm. “The marketer has to deliver over and over again over time what a customer expects, which in turn creates a community of passionate consumers about that brand.” “Branding is the distinguishing factor of products and services that are often parity products and are perceived by consumers as parity,” says Allen Rosenshine, chairman and CEO of BBDO Worldwide ad agency, based in New York. “But the brand also establishes the ‘who you are’ relationship—that is, it gives the end-user an opportunity to say, ‘This brand is a reflection of me; this brand delivers to me the same benefits on a consistent basis over the long-term.’” Rosenshine goes on: “Information isn’t branding. E-commerce isn’t branding. Branding, at the end of the day, is how you
make the customer feel about the product or service, (how they) think about it and how it relates to their lives. The delicious irony is that the dot-coms are realizing that it’s not enough to throw their names at consumers. Now, they actually have to explain why they exist.” What isn’t clear is exactly which marketing programs further brand management’s mission and which do not. The issue has become more key as the technological revolution hits marketing. Not only are consumers and customers getting their marketing messages from more media than ever before, but more companies are trying to get their messages across. The dot-coms are trying to establish in a matter of days—rather than months or years—who they are and what benefits they deliver. They are trying to establish themselves as brands. “But saying it don’t make it so,” says Robert Passikoff, president of BrandKeys Inc., a New York brand and customer loyalty consultancy. “Sure, some of them have an image, but no one seems to have a clue what they represent or whether they can deliver consistently over time benefits that exceed the customer’s expectations.” The dot-coms should take notes, then, on what marketers say when pressed on the issue of branding—when they reach a consensus, of sorts, on what it is and what it isn’t.
What branding efforts are Marketing experts say a true branding effort is a communication that inspires a reaction—an emotional response—on the
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consumer’s part. It does not sell a specific product, but explains what a brand stands for. These campaigns often are called “image campaigns” or “image ads.” “Image ads are those ads that aren’t trying to sell you on a specific product but evoke an emotional response to a particular company, product or service,” says Carol Davies, managing partner of Kane, Bortree & Associates in New York. “Most of these branding campaigns are associated with corporate campaigns, like Archer Daniels Midland’s ongoing effort, ‘Supermarket to the World.’ The company is clearly trying to influence the consumer’s attitudes by setting themselves up as significant to that consumer’s life.” These nonproduct selling campaigns play an important role in branding a product or logo or company name in viewers’ minds. “It is an attempt to establish a particular image, one that will evoke a positive emotional response in the viewer,” says Allen Adamson, managing director of Landor & Associates, the brand and marketing consultancy of Young & Rubicam ad agency. Some other examples of branding campaigns evoking that emotional response include: • U S West’s recent executions of its ongoing “Life is better here” campaign. These two new spots each show particular uses of U S West products—such as fax, wireless and Internet—in rapid, quick edits. The spots aim to show exactly how the Denver-based telecommunications giant can handle all of one’s communications needs, from telephone and fax to directories.
ANNUAL EDITIONS “This clearly shows what this company can do for you, the consumer,” Davies notes. “And they’re presenting this information in such a way that, while (the commercials don’t) mention any one particular product or specific payment plan, (they) will establish in a positive way in the consumer’s mind that here is a telecommunications company well-positioned to handle all present and future (telecommunications) needs.” • “Intel Inside,” with its musical signature, differentiates computers containing the Intel chips from all other PCs, indicating that “when you buy a PC with Intel, you have made the top choice in terms of product quality,” says Landor’s Adamson. “It’s all about reputation, that PCs with Intel inside are top-quality machines.” • Hewlett-Packard Co.’s new campaign featuring new CEO Carly Fiorina explains where the company has been, what its future is and how it will continue to live up to its reputation for innovation. “The company is trying to convince its customers that, headed up by a new CEO—and one that is a woman in a maledominated industry—this company is ready to be competitive in all respects,” Davies says. Another type of branding effort is one that gives the consumer not only a strong sense of what the brand stands for, but proceeds to hard-sell the consumer on that basis. For example: • Altoids. A strong branding message that tells you both that it is minty, powerful and strong as well as quirky, hip and daring to use. “When we started working on the Altoids brand, it had a small, but loyal, following,” says Leo Burnett’s Wolf. “What consumers loved about the mint was that it had this unique, strong flavor, so we chose visuals and context that would appeal to that sense of strong-yet-quirky and remained consistent in presenting that message in every placement.” • Neutrogena. It stands for simplicity, health and beauty—“particularly beauty that comes from good skincare,” Davies says. “The advertising seamlessly covers all of the Neutrogena line because the message is the same whether it’s body, facial, bath or, now, the new cosmetics line.” • Pepsi. The maverick, cutting-edge soft drink is young in age, young at heart and meant to appeal to those individuals that are “youthfully enthusiastic,” says
BBDO’s Rosenshine. “In all of the Pepsi Generation campaigns over the years, whether it’s been Michael Jackson or the older folks who drank Pepsi and found the fountain of youth, the campaigns strive to make an ongoing distinction between Pepsi and its primary competitor, Coke, and that is that Pepsi is sexier.” • The Gap, especially with its “swing” campaign featuring a cast of young, multicultural young people dancing to the new swing sound. “it really gave you the feeling that this was a brand that was young, fun and hip, but that you could really move around in these clothes,” Davies says. “It works as a branding campaign because it added another layer to the Gap’s aura, that Gap is a hip place to shop.”
What doesn’t qualify Just as important and more controversial than discussing what branding campaigns are is the issue of what campaigns don’t further the brand mission. At a time when it is becoming exceedingly common to hear marketers label something a “branding effort” or a “branding campaign,” it “becomes even more vital to recognize whether an effort is helping move the brand forward or whether it’s not,” says Peggy Berenblum, marketing director for North American Sauce for Mott’s, a division of Cadbury Schweppes based in Stamford, Conn. “It’s okay to run an ad that’s designed to move product off retailers’ shelves that afternoon, but that’s not a branding message,” she says. “That’s promotion.”
Not every marketing effort helps build that all-important relationship Some examples of nonbranding campaigns: • Price ads. The ubiquitous ads that car retailers/marketers run promoting a particular car, truck or van on price are simply price/rebate messages. “Price is not an emotional connection—there’s no relationship being formed, no promise being made with the consumer,” says Burnett’s Wolf.
• Many of the ads run by dot-com companies. They tell you what they offer but give no compelling, differentiated reason to come to their site. Some branding executives, such as Landor’s Adamson, believe that the problem stems from the name on down—that is, such names as Stamps.com, Pets.com and drugstore.com “are commodities dressed up as brand names, and their advertising reflects that,” he says. “This is not branding. They’re simply running advertising.” • Most department store ads. They’re usually one-off ads that promote a sale or a price or perhaps an exclusive line of merchandise. “They’re not conveying an image or giving you a reason to shop here,” says Scott Crawford, senior vice president and creative director of Howard Merrell & Partners in Raleigh, N.C. “There’s no communication about what makes this store special, the place to go out of your way to buy Levi’s jeans. A communication that is not attached to the brand promise, is a promotion,” Crawford says. “It’s not a brand-building effort.” “A brand is all about character, and if you don’t convey a clear distinctive difference about what that character is, then it’s difficult to say that you’ve invested in building a brand,” Crawford continues. A branding message can be conveyed to the consumer through any number of media, such as promotional giveaways (caps, pens, keychains and such), product packaging and even trash. (Consider a fastfood bag spied by passersby on the side of the road.) Brand-building, brand equity and branding all come down to consistency in customer contact, Berenblum says. “It could be a (freestanding newspaper insert) with a coupon, it could be the new graphics on the Mott’s apple juice boxes, it could be the TV advertising—it all has to work together as one overall branding effort.” “A brand is built message-by-message, ad-by-ad, over time,” says BBDO’s Rosenshine. “People remember brands by the ads that create an image and an emotional response. Those are the ones that you remember every day when you’re making small talk around the office water coolers.” Laurie Freeman is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer.
Reprinted with permission from Marketing News, February 14, 2000, pp. 1, 9. © 2000 by the American Marketing Association.
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