Reacting to brand-reactionaries...
“Brand” is one of those words like “paradigm” or “interaction” that gets thoughtlessly thrown around so much that its content and value begins to wear thin. When this happens, the reactionary curmudgeons out there invariably roll their eyes, cry “pretentious” and claim that it was an empty word to begin with. Sometimes this comes down to a real frustration with loose, largely vacuous talk. Often it’s a desire to simply be in on the next big thing early. Ultimately, though, people just love being the first to shout “The Emperor’s naked!”
The inevitable reaction to the whole idea of “the brand” as something over and above your product has begun in earnest. The gist of the reaction is a return to the old identification of the brand with product (commodity?) quality. By this account brands aren’t consumer ideas or DNA or essences or stories or vehicles for consumer self-expression, etc. Rather, a brand’s only as good as its product and that’s that; any brand equity it might have is a result of and identified with whatever it is that’s actually produced.
Frankly, I agree that the use of the word “brand” is getting out of hand. Most of the time it’s simply a catchall for those tough to quantify or seemingly immaterial aspects of your commercial worth. However, just because the word’s getting a little stretched out of shape through rough use, that doesn’t mean that it’s not an important or real feature of the commercial landscape. Though tied inextricably to your product or service, brands most definitely ARE something beyond your material product or service.
To be sure, offering a materially relevant, quality product has an immense impact on your brand’s strength. However, of two equally relevant products of identical high quality, the one that engages consumers at a deeper level or with greater cultural authority will be the one that sells better. Maybe it even sells at a premium.
To suppose that rational consideration of real value wholly governs consumption is to commit the same error that many usability advocates commit. Human animals, as a matter of evolution, just aren’t wholly rational. People’s engagement with the world is only partially governed by rationality. Most of our interactions, reactions and decisions are the result of what Don Norman has taken to calling “affective information processing”. Before most “perceptual data” works its way up to the level of awareness, there has already been a gut reaction or affective response. Affective processing considers things like aesthetics, quality of interaction, “professionalism”, etc, i.e. all those tough to quantify bells and whistles that are only supposed to negatively affect usability. Recent research has shown, however, that the situation isn’t quite so clear cut. Elements producing positive affect have a very real and powerful impact on perceptions of usability, use-intentions and overall good feelings about a site. So, though all quality sites must be usable, usability doesn’t guarantee quality; a satisfying user experience requires something more than just usability. In a nutshell, satisfaction and a truly satisfying consumer experience are far more than the sum of efficiency and effectiveness.
Similarly, supposing that consumers only consider real, material value propositions is to deny the fact that we, as a species, are very susceptible to and reliant on non-rational modes of communication and consumption. Sure, we want and demand good product, but more than that we want good product that makes us feel good, or that proclaims us part of an idolized and idealized sub-group, or that looks cool, etc. It’s this extra bit beyond the base commodity or service that people generally mean when they discuss “the brand”. Products fit into people’s lives in ways other than sheer use value. To deny this is to deny a fact.
To get even geekier, we could say that a quality product is necessary but not sufficient for a strong brand. In other words, there are a lot of strong products out there that aren’t strong brands, but probably not vice versa. However, there’s no escaping, and no real reason to try escaping, this little bit extra that can make a strong product into a strong brand. Even open source applications, those paragons of un-branded people’s-products, are branded “open-source”, with all of the utopian-with-’tude, stick-it-to-the-MSN rhetoric that goes along with it. Sure, the movement’s founders really wanted to share and share alike and it has flourished at a product level primarily because people just dig free stuff. But as a movement, a large part of its success is based on what the products “mean” or “stand for” over and above what they actually do; the movement is strongly branded.
Of course, I could be missing the point and the whole anti-brand reaction is based on a vocabulary issue. It may be the case that “product” should be understood as encompassing all of the ideas supposedly captured by “brand”. For example, Starbucks could claim that its product is the whole Stabucks experience including but not coextensive with its commodity, coffee. If this is the case, we could say that the product is a combination of that extra, non-commodity bit discussed above, i.e. what we’ve called the brand, and the commodity, i.e. the coffee. But then the product becomes partially immaterial and just as hard to quantify as the brand supposedly is, giving us no net gain by dropping the word “brand”. Anyway, it seems that for anti-brand rhetoric to really work it should be about something more than just vocabulary, more than just a call to replace “brand” with “product”.
So, although the hype surrounding “brands” is ripe for ridicule, the powerful insight provided by the core concept of a brand is still very valid. Just because the legend becomes a little over-inflated doesn’t mean it’s not based on a true story.
4 Comments:
I think the truth of the matter lies in between (or perhaps buried deeply within) both of these points-of-view. Conley was right in FC that "branding" (the verb) has become overused to the point that half the people using it don't have a clue what it means anymore. They apply it to everything willy-nilly.
On the other hand, Bain was correct at Armchair Media that it is more than simply the product.
In my very humble opinion, branding is how people feel about your company and your products. So, everything you do affects it. (Which is why I so frequently say that marketing is so much more than simple sales and advertising.)
So many of those people applying the branding name to everything are doing so in an attempt to control (and I mean control-freak control) their brand. You really can't do that too well. All you can do is start the conversation and carry on your side of it in the best manner you're able. The public will respond in their own way. You can't force them to love your brand, but you can deal with them in such a way as to make them fall in love with it. Those are the ones who have a great brand.
As Darrin says, many people using the term "branding" improperly has diluted it to the point where it's lost its meaning, becoming something akin to advertising. By citing White Castle and Jiffy (who don't advertise), Conley seems to be implying that people aren't swayed by companies with large advertising budgets. But when you walk into a White Castle, you are getting the same experience no matter which one you enter. And when you buy a Jiffy biscuit package, you know exactly what you're going to get as well. If that's not branding, then what is? Perhaps what he's missing is a case of a company like Starbuck's, which as you say, has turned a former commodity product that uses consistent experiences to brand its stores--the logo, the packaging, the tables, the naming scheme (latte, etc.). Starbuck's really doesn't do that much advertising on a scale as those cited by Conley. But it is consistently branded. On the other hand, though advertising extensively, I think McDonald's has diluted its brand in an attempt to stay current by branching out beyond its original "burgers, fries" concept.
To Quoth Timothy:
"On the other hand, though advertising extensively, I think McDonald's has diluted its brand in an attempt to stay current by branching out beyond its original "burgers, fries" concept."
So true. Look at Hardees, who diluted their brand and product, then re-focused - to great success - and is now diluting the product again.
So sad....
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