Comment on "Crystal ball gazing 2010"

My friend has posted some thought-provoking views in his blog - http://www.promofaqs.blogspot.com/ - I would strongly recommend all to visit his blog. His remarks has inspired me to pen a few thoughts of my own.

The fundamentals for creating a brand remains immutable – differentiation and relevance. If your brand is not differentiated – the BAV talks of this as real or perceived distinctions of one brand vs its competitors – then it dies. The BAV talks of relevance as the actual and perceived importance of the brand to the consumer

If we agree with these, then the rest is a lot easier to handle. “Reason to buy” and “Value” are related, IMO actually the same – because neither is necessary logical and purely economic in the consumers’ eyes. The consumer does not necessarily buy in most categories because of a functional reason; irrational motivators get into play, and the whole combination of “reasons” provide the customer value equation in the consumer’s mind, which tilts in favour of a particular brand during the decision process.

The brand value indeed determines, and sometimes, is the differentiator. If Pepsi is the iconoclast, then that is the differentiator, which drives the advertising, and other marketing initiatives. But the important thing is to understand that Pepsi is indeed the iconoclast, not ‘youthful’, which is what I have found as the answer given by most b-school students that I have encountered. “Being youthful” is a category imperative – not a brand differentiator.

The key problems that I see in the market place today are

• marketers are not clear about the values, differentiators of their brands
• marketers and creative directors are not clear about how to make the differentiators relevant, in the most dramatic, memorable and sustainable way. This is essentially due to two reasons

1. not enough work done in understanding the consumer – hence so called consumer insights are superficial at best
2. not enough quality control in the creative ideation stage

I don’t agree with the statement “they don’t need to know you to love you.” They still do need to know you to love you, except that consumers can fall in love quickly, sometimes it can indeed be love at first sight. But, that can happen only with the right kind of stimuli – which is why creative directors and marketers are hired.

I would like to change a couple of things my friend has written – customer retention is customer care. IMO, it’s the reverse. Customer care is customer retention. And customer forums can be leveraged to spread the good word fast, really fast. On the downside, if you don’t care for your customers, the word will spread just as fast – so you got a choice to make, buddy! That’s where the community forums on the net become so important and effective.

I fully agree with Experience, Education, Engagement and Excitement – the four E’s of brand building today. I would go so far as to say that the last three E’s can be subsumed in the first – EXPERIENCE. Education, Engagement and Excitement are parameters which can define the contours in which the Experience is to be delivered.

Finally, it all boils down to – Values, Differentiation and Relevance. If you got it right, you’re on the winning path.