It’s the next thing out of most people’s mouths the moment I tell them I work in marketing. They hate ads, there are too many of them, and who’s got time to watch television or read mainstream media these days anyway?
While many businesses have woken up to the need to align the language in their marketing comms with their broader brand DNA, they often fail to fully integrate that language into their broader operations.
There’s an interesting polarisation going on right now in terms of brand size. Companies that have expanded are now consolidating their brand models in the hope of getting closer to consumers and achieving greater brand growth.
Small brands are edgy, attuned and preferred. That seems to be a common sentiment right now. But there is nothing to suggest that any of this makes it easy to win as a small brand today.
As brands seek to stay in touch with consumers, some are saying the future of brands depends on them looking less manufactured. That feels like an overstatement.
In uneasy times, the most powerful thing a brand can do is to define its place, value and opinions in the world. That way, everyone knows where they stand.
Brands drive attention and income off awareness, but they derive their real value from their ability to shift and sustain longer term sentiment.
The ethical consumer may be a well identified buyer in the marketing press, but customers themselves seem somewhat confused by what counts as a responsible brand.
It’s happened to Doc Martins, Burberry and others over the years: groups turned their brand into a symbol of something the brand itself did not believe or endorse.
Some time back, I looked at what it took to get a brand promise right. In this post, I want to examine the converse: when (consumers feel that) brands have not lived up to what they said they would deliver. What happens to generate customer disappointment?
