Whenever I examine the failure or the disappointing results of what seemed to be a promising startup, I often come to the same conclusion: a poorly defined brand that led to poor marketing campaigns and consequently poor business results. Many brilliant ideas for products and services continue to fail because their founders underestimate the importance of investing the right amount of time and effort in defining the elements of the brand that will carry their business to the world.
So how important is defining solid brand elements before running your marketing campaigns?
Imagine you have a speech to make to thousands of people. Your speech is going to be only few seconds long and those people have hundreds of other similar speeches to listen to. You want your speech to stand out and make an impact. How much time and effort would you spend on preparing it?
In today’s world, building a brand is quite a similar challenge. As consumers are subject to approximately 5,000 advertisement messages per day, you have, at best, only a few seconds of their attention span and these few seconds are likely to determine the survival and success of your business.
Here are three essential questions that will help you achieve a strong brand definition:
1- Is the benefit offered by my brand Distinctive and Differentiated?
Think about what your brand can offer that will make it stand out from competitors.
At the Stanford GSB, career advisors ask students to build a “spiky identity” through their resumes, by defining personal attributes that make them differentiated from a pool of competitors. Think about what makes your business “spiky”. If you can’t find at least one meaningful aspect, then you may need to rethink the product you’re offering.
Let’s take a straightforward example:
Say you are planning to start a new dry-cleaning business. Avoid generic brand benefits such as “the best dry-cleaning service your money can buy” or “what dry-cleaning is all about”. Think about what makes you different. If you want to speak about superior cleaning then you could use a comparative statement such as “removing stains regular dry cleaners cannot remove”. If your cleaning is not superior to your competitors’, you may chose to make your business stand-out for something else, perhaps speed, if your business is based in a busy town. You can then go for a bold claim such as “the fastest laundry service in town”.
2- Is it also Relevant and Desirable?
Your business and consequently your brand, should offer benefits that are relevant to what your consumers or clients need.
Ask yourself, am I offering a benefit that is really desired by my target?
Back to the dry-cleaner example, offering to “purify clothes from bacteria and viruses” is surely a distinctive benefit however clients may not need it. It may however become very relevant in case of a disease outbreak that raises awareness on the need to purify clothes. Otherwise, your dry-cleaner can perhaps offer adding a choice of natural floral scents to cleaned clothes. The benefit could then be worded as follows “refreshingly clean clothes with natural floral scents from Provence”. The main benefit remains cleaning clothes however the extended benefit of perfuming clothes with natural scents is what makes your brand stand out to be distinctive as well as desirable.
Great brands have the ability to evolve based on changes in needs. Google are one great example. On their website, they speak about the 10 things that define what they “believe”. Number 1 is “Focus on the user and all else will follow”. This statement clearly illustrates the strong user-centric approach to ensure Google’s products and brands are constantly relevant and desirable.
However, some of Google’s “beliefs” don’t seem to apply yet to one of their acquired companies. Earlier this year, Motorola launched its Moto X flagship phone backed by 500 million dollars of marketing budget (according to the Wall Street Journal). The new phone comes with some interesting features that top competing brands such as the iPhone and Samsung S4 don’t have. Instead of focusing on these differentiated features, Motorola decided to focus the launch campaign on giving users the ability to customize the phone by choosing the color and shade of the front and back covers. This is basically saying to users: “choose Moto X (and not other leading smartphone brands) because you can customize its color and shade”. How many users are desperatly in need for a phone that allows them to customize the cover, to the point they will switch from the iPhone or the S4? Not only is this benefit highly not relevant to current needs, but also users can achieve the same customization on any phone by paying 10$ for a separate cover. Also on the main Moto X webpage, there are a series of claims in bold that are supposed to entice users to buy the phone. For example, one of them is “It just fits” and speaks about how the phone “fits in the hand”. Again, highly not relevant benefit. Sounds like Motorola are comparing the Moto X to the DynaTAC cellphone model they launched in 1984!
The example of the Moto X launch perfectly illustrates the point of my article: instead of spending time understanding users’ needs and building the product and positioning the brand accordingly, Motorola rushed into launching an extensive marketing campaign and investing considerable resources on it. Although the Moto X had interesting features, the one they chose to communicate to users was neither distinctive nor desirable. The fact that Motorola believe they can win market share with such a brand definition shows that competent brand and strategy work is sometimes lacking even inside some of the leading multinational companies.
3- Is it as Simple and Clear as it could be?
“Find a place to stay”, AirBnB. “The easiest way to blog”, Tumblr. “Provides your life’s work wherever you are”, Dropbox. Simple yet brilliant campaign ideas that communicate the core benefit of the product only in few words. Campaign ideas are the foundation for building marketing campaigns; the more simple and clear they are, the more successful marketing campaigns that stem from them will be.
Yet, simple is not enough. Last year, GM launched a new seemingly simple campaign platform, “Find New Roads”, that was supposed to re-position their Chevrolet brand globally. It was brought to life through a marketing campaign that includes several expensive TV ad productions with the following voice-over: “Why just go from A to B when imagination can take you everywhere? Chevrolet, Find New roads.”
So what does this campaign tell us about the brand and why we should choose it among tens of other competing car brands?
Not much.
The marketing folks at GM fell for a trap common to marketeers all around the world: pursuing overly creative and emotional ideas. I don’t mean to preclude the importance of building emotional connections with consumers, which I consider an art that lies at the heart of brilliant brand building. However, when you’re a startup brand or when you’re a brand like Chevrolet with no clear differentiation and a sliding market share, you have to first focus on communicating your core benefit in a simple fashion i.e. explaining how your product will add value to the lives of your consumers. Remember, at the end of the day, your objective is to build your business not win creativity awards.