Know-How Exchange : Branding

Dear snicholson64,

About two years ago I asked a senior and much respected adman what he'd recommend when it came to driving home the value and importance of branding.

His five word lesson changed my life.

Prior to this I'd been a dyed in the wool brand junkie. I was convinced that the brand was everything and that everything ought to reinforce the brand. But by doing this, I'd missed on vital piece of the puzzle, the fact that by putting branding first I was, in effect, putting the cart before the horse.

What was it he said that changed my life?

He said: "Forget branding, concentrate on sales!" When I read
that a lightbulb flicked on in the dark hallways of my imagination,
a lightbulb that suddenly cast a bright light across my career and a lightbulb that lit up all kinds of possibilities.

He went on to tell me that brands don't really get created until people's needs are met. It sounds so obvious and I kick myself now for having missed it for so long, but it's true.

I offer the same advice to you now. Forget branding, concentrate on sales.

Here's why:

Regardless of how great your product is or how wonderful your message is, until you make sales, nothing happens.

Until you begin to make sales, no message is taken on board; no feelings are created; no good will is generated; no benefits are felt; no value is passed on; no needs are met; no promises are kept, and no brand is created.

Brands come into the world when needs are met and when expectations are exceeded, not before. Brands come into being when promises are made and kept, when guarantees are honoured, and when goods, services, and products do not just what they're supposed to to or what's been promised, but when they OVER deliver.

A brand is a vivid picture of a need that's been massively met; it's a fantastic story shown on the wide screen in glorious surround sound and vivid colour that lingers in the imagination.

So your brand is the thing that the use of your product conveys: eternal youth, lasting beauty, admiring glances, questions about "How do you manage to look so young?", and so on.

Paint these pictures in your sales material, pictures that then deliver RESULTS when people buy, and you reinforce the notions of what your product can do and will do. This then creates social proof and credibility, both of which then go on to drive demand. Demand then goes on to generate greater belief in the promise of the product, and so on and the off shoot of this, the holy grail, is customer loyalty which in turn creates repeat sales.

And repeat sales THEN reinforce the notion—the promise—of the benefits and values your product offers and THAT'S what becomes your brand.

So, focus on the promise to your ideal customer. Create the desire to buy. Reinforce the feelings of trust with great back end services and fulfillment. And focus on sales. Sales will then help you to create your brand for your customers' sake.

Your customers will be buying the promise of lasting beauty, the message that's inherent in your sales copy, and what they GAIN from that then becomes their notion of delivery, of the promise being kept.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Dear snicholson64,

All fine and good so far. I'm happy to offer as much advice as you might need, but remember, mine is just one opinion in an ocean of many.

As to the research you've already done, naturally, I don't know what you've been told, or by whom, and having blotted my copy book once this week with an issue of logos I'm tempted to take the fifth amendment (anything I may say might incriminate me).

However, please don't confuse having a logo or a look with your brand: one (the former) is packaging and corporate identity; the second is deeper, richer, more fulfilling, and therefore—potentially more valuable. It's the value in a brand that people are referring to when they talk about a brand's equity. This might at times be difficult to put a financial figure on, but even so, the worth of your brand (for the promises it makes and keeps) is a precious thing.

Because your primary buyer fits into the mass affluent niche, your brand will need to do so much more of the heavy lifting of saying the right things about the user: that she's this, that she's that, but never the other, whatever those qualities might be.

This means that for this crowd, it's a worthwhile exercise to come up with a list of five key adjectives that describe your ideal client.
And here, the more personality you can give this imaginary person, the more real she will become. And in an exercise like this, the more real your ideal client becomes the easier she will be to visualize, and so the easier she'll become to talk to in your sales material.

That's another key: talk to clients, but resist the urge to sell to them. Clients will buy on THEIR terms, when they are ready. Not before.

And as your client relationships develop, it's important to remember that it's YOUR responsibility to remind them to buy—it is NOT their job to remember you: you must take the message to them: frequently, classically, elegantly, with style and with verve.

Were I launching a range of cosmetics right now, and a range aimed at your target group of well-to-do buyers, the words that spring to mind for me are elegant, classy, sexy, passionate, and driven. A woman who isn't afraid to speak her mind, who knows what she wants, who has already been through the mill of life, and who finds the mounting bullshit of other people less and less to her liking. A woman who is young at heart, independent, gutsy, sassy, giving, and compassionate and who doesn't take any crap from anyone, but a woman who still wants to be romanced.

As a descriptor, this might not be right for your ideal client, but it might at least be worth adding to your list as outlined above.

The differences between your descriptors and the ones I've just outlined are that yours talk of things (the cars, where she works, and so on), while the ones I mention might speak more to the inner woman: what she thinks, feels, wants, and values. Each approach has its place and neither is right or wrong: they just speak to different parts of the mind.

One of the golden rules I've learned over the years is this: when your message speaks to your prospect about you (the company), the prospect might listen for a while, but might soon get bored. But when your message talks to the prospect about her needs, wants, desires, dreams, and aspirations, she'll listen longer, more intently, and then act with more passion because you've engaged her interest and KEPT it—because you were talking to her about her and the woman she already knows she is, or about the woman she knows she'll become because you've shown that woman to her in the theatre of her mind.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

P.S. And lest anyone accuse me of being sexist throughout the entry above, change the "she's" and "her's" to "him's" and "his's" and change the product and the result is the same: to gain attention.