Building a brand is about the consistency of action thought, and expression over a long period of time, and only the CEO can ensure that this happens.
The CEO must be the chief brand manager, as the brand is the business, it is not the packaging, or advertising, it is everything that a consumer sees, feels and consumes.
This also opens the question to boards, “Do you have the right CEO”?
Market research now has a pretty sophisticated set of tools, all sorts of ways to tell you what to do, to provide a crutch for decision making, to take away the responsibility for making a courageous decision.
However, it boils down to the option of qualitative, collecting behavioral patterns, and quantitative collecting numbers.
Many years ago, as the one responsible for the marketing of Ski yogurt in Australia, I struggled with the reality that we were number two in the Australian market, just ahead of a swag of alternatives and the leader had nearly three times our share. Whatever we did, however much we spent, the number did not change much. One day, in a supermarket talking to a young Mum buying yogurt in a 1kg container, I noticed she had to use both hands to pick up the round container of Ski, complicated by the fact that her youngster was insisting on being carried. The solution was blindingly obvious, use a rectangular container, she could pick it up with one hand, and the side benefit was that it now fitted in the door of a domestic fridge, and gave retailers better shelf space efficiency.
The result of the launch of the new rctangular pack was a huge increase in Ski’s market share, and an appetite for innovation that enabled several other ideas to hit the market, resulting in leadership in a relatively short time.
The lesson is that the quantitative data did not tell us this stuff, it told us consumers, both the ones who preferred Ski, and those whose loyalty was to Yoplait, the market leader, were happy with the product, loved the taste, consistency, packaging, and so on, but the approval of the product just did not translate into sales beyond a modest market share. However, the behavioral insight coming from just watching how the product was handled, qualitative data, gave us the insight, it answered a question we had not thought to ask, and with which the consumer had no experience, as all tubs to that point were round, and nobody had suggested any alternative.
November 10 was the 40th birthday of “Sesame Street” perhaps the most influential television program ever produced, and it still brings adults a laugh, amongst the serious messages to kids.
I noticed early in the day that Google had Big Bird on their masthead, but did not know why, then about lunchtime, the Cookie Monster appeared, then later, the whole gang, by which time, I had realised the significance. This brought a smile, but more important, engaged me, a 58 year old bloke, with their brand in a way I would not have thought possible.
Search engines are now pretty much all the same, they all do a good job of finding stuff, but only Google has become a verb! This is because they have done a superb job of engaging their consumers around the world in a range of ways, and have innovated relentlessly to ensure they remain the first point of call on the net for most.
The determination creativity, and discipline of this effort is exemplified by the attention to detail that must have gone into someone dreaming up the idea of changing of the masthead three times during the day. It is easy to do, very hard to think of, but hugely engaging to anyone who opened Google on the 10th, probably half the connected world.
Every brand to be successful has two dimensions.
A Rolls Royce is not a Hyundi, yet they are both cars, they both provide reliable transport, and have 4 wheels, but the differentiators, for which some are prepared to pay enormous amounts are what makes the brand. A swatch is not a Rollex, but they are both watches, just different types of watch that appeal to different people for different reasons.
A brand is not a brand without the distinctive characteristics, it does not matter how much advertising is spent, without the differentiators, it is just like all the others.
The path to free will be a major challeneg for the current century, as the price of stuff follows the marginal cost of producing it down to virtually free.
Music is effectively free off the web, despite the best efforts of the music industry, yet the other parts of the industry are doing well, tours, merchandise, the amount of product is increasing, devices like the iPod are booming, just the sales of the CD’s are tanking.
Software is now largely for free, you can still pay full whack for Windows or Office if you like, but few outside corporate do so, and there are thousands of “apps” emerging for devices that are very cheap, approaching free, and streaming of movies is increasingly happening, although as the penetration of Blue-ray increases, it will slow the “free” uptake a bit as people figure out how to beat the security.
What about games?
They are still $99 from the retailer in the mall, and when a new blockbuster comes out, the retailers are packed with kids buying them, the same kids who would not pay for a new song from their favorite artist. Why are the games not yet for free?? Will it happen?? Inevitably.
Anything that can be digitised will follow the road to (almost) free, the money will be made in the value adding products and services, the way Red Hat Have made a business providing service to free Linux software users, and Apple have made a business out of selling the iPod when the music is essentially free.
However, you will probably still have to pay for your carrots down at the green grocers.