Do you know who I am?

Imagine this: You're walking into an exclusive event only to be stopped at the door by bouncers. You look at them, exasperated, and demand to speak to the organiser. 

They refuse your request. 

"How dare you! Do you know who I am?" you demand.

The bouncers continue to look ahead, ignoring your presence. 

You retreat to the valet and hand over your ticket stub, looking dejected as you watch everyone else enter the event while you awkwardly wait for your car. 

You spot that pesky nobody- or at least you thought they were a nobody- with those tacky patent leather shoes they wear everywhere, being let in by the bouncers. 

"Unbelievable", you shake your head in dismay and wonder.  "How did I go from being the talk of the town to the sidelines?".

Now, replace yourself in that scenario with a brand, the event with the buying moment, the organiser with the consumer, the bouncers with their consideration set, and that ‘pesky nobody’ with a competitor. And those tacky shoes? They're the TikTok videos (or podcast or whatever new comms channel) you won't attempt to use to tell your brand story. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Brand vs Performance Marketing

There's a trending case where brands are investing less in brand building- especially startups and e-commerce sites- and more in performance marketing in the name of growth. In addition to the flood of vanilla brands advertising their products online, it feels like we're scrolling through the shopping network.

With digital/social platforms comprising over 70% of media spend, I'm not saying you shouldn't spend on performance marketing, BUT it shouldn't be your sole focus or the bulk of your budget.

When a business doesn't prioritise brand building or allocate sufficient resources to brand marketing, what ends up happening is they:

1. Erode consumer trust.

2. Don't give consumers a reason to want to associate with them.

3. Limit consumer spending potential.

4. Look and sound like every other brand trying to grab attention online.

There are also assumptions that 'brand' is a logo and a tagline and that brand marketing is expensive; both those assumptions are untrue.

Where does your brand stand today?

Before we tackle brand marketing strategy in The MKTG Detox, we first need to examine the state of your brand.

Here's a five-point checklist to evaluate your brand foundation:

1. Do you have a brand vision, mission and values? If so, are you and your employees living up to them?

2. What do your customers currently associate with your company's brand? Does it match up with what you had in mind?

3. What messages have you communicated through your ads or content in the past year? Was it consistent, or did it change often?

4. How often did you run awareness campaigns or post brand content (i.e. storytelling without a call-to-action to buy something)?

5. What's your Net Promoter Score (N.P.S.)? How often are you measuring this?

These are difficult questions to answer, and if you're struggling to do so or don't like the answers that are coming up, it's a sign to review and build your brand strategy- starting with a brand audit and ending with a brand book that everyone in your organisation can reference- to set your company up for long-term success.

If legacy brands can’t afford to stop brand building, can you?

In September 2017, I attended DMEXCO, where Marc Pritchard- P&G's Chief Brand Officer- got up on stage and boldly declared that they stopped investing in YouTube advertising earlier in the year, citing platform transparency issues. I remember hearing about many marketers following suit, but here's the plot twist- P&G resumed advertising on YouTube shortly after that keynote. Did YouTube make leaps in improving transparency to meet P&G's standards? Maybe. But even P&G, with its portfolio of robust brands, could only afford to stay off a massive brand awareness platform for a short time.

Why am I telling you this? 

Because if you want your brand to be the "Apple/Uber/[insert well-known brand here] of [your industry]," you need to have a solid brand strategy and invest in consistently building it over time. That is key. 

Brand building is a long-term endeavour that requires patience for the effects to pay off.

Of course, no brand is immune to changing consumer behaviours. But for most companies- if they live up to their brand values and avoid being problematic- investing in long-term brand building is like providing a tree with enough sunlight. Otherwise, its potential growth is stunted.

Before consumers give you a share of their wallet, they need to know who you are, if you align with their values and whether they want to associate with you. If you keep going down the path of focusing only on performance marketing, not only are you eroding trust with consumers over time, but revenues will plummet as soon as you reduce or stop spending. That's not a sustainable way to run a business. 

In the next edition, I'll break down the foundations of brand strategy to help you get started.

Happy Strategising,

Nagham

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