thefunnel

I came across an interesting article about brand loyalty. Basically, the notion is that in the current “participation economy” traditional marketing attention and interruption marketing paradigm) is obsolete and that “movements” needs to be generated instead of communication. The reason for this is that most products are good enough, for what they are intended to do, and the way you succeed in branding is to “achieve or create a loyalty without reason”. This means finding that emotional connection by attaching a level of mystery to the brand (the more the consumer knows about the specifics of a brand the less interesting it becomes), because people are today looking for things beyond rational value. The article claims that this applies equally to B-2-B products, and that intimacy, a story, a relationship leads to “unreasonable loyalty”. In addition marketing should be aiming to measure the return on involvement, rather than the return on investment. The above is one of the reasons, for example, why traditional approaches to market research, based on information, knowledge and data, often fails to provide an accurate prediction on the success of a new product. Marketers should forget about focus groups, because in a focus group environment, customers hide their real feelings towards a brand, and therefore, aspects of “unreasonable loyalty” are never uncovered.

A few nuggets (with my own twist) from an article (Arruda) about personal branding in the Social Media era, that I thought were valuable, but also apply well to company branding and the basics of marketing.
- Don’t be a fake. Strong brands are about authenticity (value proposition)
- Wishy-washy. Don’t try to be everything to all people (segmentation and targeting)
- Think before you act. Have a plan before you engage with social media (planning is everything, plans are nothing)
- Talk, and more talk. If you have nothing better to do than just re-tweeting everything, just stop
- Quality is better than quantity. Better to have a few right followers / participants / visitors than lots of the wrong ones
- Don’t switch tools all the time. It’s not about the tool. It’s all about the content (the latest hype)
- Don’t forget traditional marketing vehicles (you customers might spend most of their time off line)
- There’s a temptation to do everything cheaply with low quality to save some money, after all the Social Web is all about CGC, but what perception will this portray on your products and company. Don’t confuse amateurs with professionals
- Talk about what you can do for your customers rather than what you do (we, we, versus them)
- Don’t measure anything. Everything can be measured (outcome based marketing)

This post might be a bit different to the ones than what I written before, but here’s a question for you all. In B-2-C, who is the stronger brand? The brand manufacturer itself, or the distributor of the brand (assuming it’s not the manufacturer)? There are plenty of articles about this topic (who has the power) and what tactics can be used to deal with it, but I thought this, my particular personal experience was interesting enough to bring up. At my work, I used to have a computer, brand X, that I was really happy with (it actually still works, but it’s a bit limited in speed and capacity). Then I got a new one, brand Y, because I needed an upgrade. Brand Y turns out to be a real disaster. Hard-drive failures, motherboard failing, sluggish, you name it, several times. Some of the software problems probably hasn’t anything to do with the computer itself, but every time I log on, what do I see. Not the operating system,or the network, or the virus checker, but yes, brand Y. So, brand Y is doomed. I will not recommend, actually, I’m an active detractor spreading the bad news, and I will never, ever, buy brand Y again (spending my own money), ever. And all this is confirmed by my organization, who has now signed up with brand Z. Anyway, I need a new personal computer (compatibility, need at least one non, you know), and it’s on sale at one of the distributors of brand Y. To my big surprise, I find myself considering the never, ever brand! Why? Because I trust the distributor, I trust their no questions ask return policy. In fact, I trust the distributor brand way more than the brand (Y) itself, go figure, to the point that I’m willing to take the risk, with my own money! And, I’m a marketing guy who should know better. I think this just shows the real power of the a brand, or  the brand of the carrier of a particular brand. How about that for a Porter’s Five Forces example? Or maybe brand Y was smart enough to even fool the most seasoned marketing guy. Only time and google  side wiki will tell. By all means, like to have some comments for a change.