Insights

Marketing gets you noticed, but Brand is why you’re chosen

Marketing leaders are often asked, “what is the difference between brand and marketing”? Companies may consider ‘marketing’ as what they can see, touch and understand. The campaigns that they can view, collateral that supports sales and the digital assets that can be measured for the leads they create. While this over simplifies what marketing is, it can also mean that the importance of brand can get left behind.

While the focus can be on rapidly delivering marketing, the importance of building a Brand Strategy can be overlooked. A strong brand strategy not only acts as your blueprint for future decision making, but makes your marketing and sales efforts more effective.

What is brand and what is marketing?

Although I will argue that brand is a core component of the entire marketing spectrum, the old marketing analogy succinctly explains the relationship of brand and marketing and is one I have used many times;

Marketing is asking someone on a date. Brand is the reason they say “yes”.

And to extend that, the experience will determine if you’ll get a second date.

As any marketer will tell you, brand is much more than a logo. It is why your business exists, what it stands for, how you act and interact. A great example of ‘more than a logo’ is the recent Lego World Cup ad. While this is a high budget ad, the logo is hardly seen nor the product name mentioned. Without the power of the Lego brand, the ad will need to spend its time telling the customer what Lego is, what it stands for and how it works. Instead, this ad does what marketing should. It creates an emotional response and the desire to buy more Lego. What is also clever, is that this targets adults by bringing back the emotion of creating with Lego.

Putting ‘brand’ into commercial terms means that by having a strong, recognisable and consistent brand strategy makes it easier for your customers to buy from your business. As evidenced in recent Kantar research that analysed 6.5m data points, from over 20,000 brands and identified brands with a strong brand predisposition had x9 more volume share. 

In simple terms a clear brand strategy will;

  • Reduce the customer decision making process as they recognise and trust your brand

  • Make it easier for your sales teams to close the sale

  • Equip your staff to advocate for your business, products and services

  • Provide a blueprint for your teams to simplify decision making

Evolution is important, consistency is key

While a strong brand strategy makes it easier for your teams to advocate, sell and form decisions; the power this delivers is consistency to customers and in turn, it makes it easier for customers to make the desired purchase decision. A brand needs to remain relevant to customers, but the customers must be able to recognise the brand and its values.

Looking back at the Tropicana package repackage failure is a great example. What they saw as the modernisation of their packaging and brand position, led to consumers being confused, leading to a 20% / 30 million USD drop in sales. Within a few weeks, the decision was reversed and the old packaging returned to shelves. Of course you can analyse the design itself, or the campaign put around it to educate customers, but ultimately the decision was made on the supermarket shelf. Customers didn’t recognise it as the orange juice they knew, trusted and liked.

A recent study by System 1 and IPA revealed that least consistent brands need to spend x 1.75 more on media than consistent brands and only 18% achieve large profit gains, compared to 55% of the consistent brands.

While a brand must continue to evolve to meet changing customer behaviours, a strong brand strategy allows a business to evolve and grow without losing sight of what its core values are, simplifies decision making on what the evolution should be and remains true to what customers recognise and value for the brand.

The power of brand plus marketing

While a strong brand accelerates the power of marketing, strong marketing works to keep a brand front of mind and relevant in its customers eyes. Going back to the analogy, you won’t get the date if you don’t ask (market yourself), but you won’t get the “yes” if they don’t know what you stand for (your brand).

This isn’t just important for large brands, but it’s crucially important for smaller organisations unlikely to have the marketing resource of the larger brands. To build a strong brand a business should;

  1. Define what your business stands for, what is your Value Proposition and what makes you stand out

  2. Confirm what you are and are not to your chosen customers

  3. Be clear on your customer groups and how you service them

  4. Build a brand strategy that aligns to your business strategy and goals and that can provide an anchor not just for ongoing marketing, but to support your sales growth, customer experience and future decision making

Without these fundamentals your customer proposition remains confusing, your sales team spend more time explaining what you are instead of building relationships and the buying decision is harder for customers.

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