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I have been reading a lot lately about brand value, and different ideas around how you go about making sure that the market is aware of, understands, and embraces your product and brand. It is an intriguingly complex topic that reinforces an axiom: “Keep it simple”.
Let’s face it. Every consumer expects everything they want, when they want it, on terms which are best for them. Blame it on the proliferation of choice, the commodification of every product and service, and the continual erosion of price. Why pay full price when there are discounters? Why pay sales taxes when you can buy on the internet? Why pay for shipping on goods purchased on the internet when Amazon (or another etailer) will waive the charge? Why pay for shipping on goods returned to the internet etailer when so many sellers are willing to pick that up? Why buy from multiple online etailers when you can get the low price, no sales taxes, free shipping, free returns and loyalty points from just one internet purveyor? So what will come next?
Consumers (and B2B customers as well) have set new, ever-elevating minimum standards for doing business. Those that were ground-breaking only a few months ago quickly become table stakes in modern day commerce. Never before has innovative technology, logistics and supply chain management played such a massive role in determining the success and longevity of a product or brand. Assuming you are sophisticated and sufficiently creative in the aforementioned qualities, and you are positioned to leapfrog yourself (and your competition), you are granted the opportunity to deliver your message to an audience, probably global in scope, which is ready to do consider doing business with you.
This is great news. Brands like Samsung, Zip Car, Ugg, and Del Frisco’s seem to have it down. Each of these have risen above the crowd, or created a category unto themselves, in their respective businesses of consumer electronics, rental cars, footwear and premium restaurants.
In the case of Samsung, product quality, extraordinary logistics, inventory management, and highly targeted marketing have helped reinvent the brand, which not that long ago was considered second-tier. Zip Car pioneered an entirely new urban concept for a very mobile generation, addressing an old need using a lot of technology to deliver a simple solution. Ugg took a product that was considered bohemian and made it trendy and sought after. Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse was started by a relentless Texan named Dale Wamstad who parlayed it into the highest grossing prime steakhouse in Texas, multiplied it and then sold it so that it might become a nationwide standard for its category.
In all of these examples, and countless other successes in the marketplace, the brand message is simple, easy to understand and to buy into, can be visually demonstrated, and is anchored to a sensory-driven emotion. Samsung = awe. Zip car = freedom. Ugg = comfort. Del Frisco’s = actualization.
Quick: Think of some brands that failed and why… How about Volkswagen’s Phaeton (a $75,000 VW)? Recall Exxon Office Equipment (a copier from an oil company)? More recently, there was Hooter’s Air (at least hot pants and airlines worked for Southwest, but that was forty years ago). And don’t forget all of the Harley-Davidson branded products that were eminently regrettable from cake decorating kits to perfume. You can’t reliably connect any of these products with an emotion other than confused frustration.
Can your brand promise be summed up in one simple graphic? Does that visual ignite a universal emotional core? If it does, you’ve got something of extraordinary value. Will it insure success? Not necessarily. Lots of potentially iconic brands have struggled or died because they lacked adequate propulsion to overcome new competition or financial viability (example: Amtrak).
Simple. Direct. Visual. Relentless. These are the qualities that are common among many enduring products and brands. Do they describe yours?
Image may be NSFW.
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