In Today’s World — What Really Is a Brand?
By: Bob Morris
Tags: Branding, Branding Strategy, Marketing, Brand Strategy, Customer Experience

In Today’s World — What Really Is a Brand?

Let’s start with “we’ve made a mess of brands.”

In the 1950’s, the discipline of brand management was created by CPG companies such as P&G, Unilever and Kraft. That discipline was based on the need to distinguish a product or service from others by creating an identity. Identity entailed functional and emotional benefits. Emotional benefits were conceptualized to differentiate when functional benefits effectively became parity with other products. So, now you have a bit of the history — Cliff Notes version, without going into all of the details.

Today, what defines a brand is starkly different depending on organization, agency partners, channel focus, product management strategy, supply chain structure, etc. The reality is how we define a brand and the responsibility of a brand itself has changed. Let’s look at a number of elements that make up the brand equation.

A brand is only as good as the quality of the product or its ability to meet the expectations of the brand “promise.”

Who the brand is associated with matters (e.g. the retail distribution, brand influencer strategy, etc.).

The quality / responsiveness of customer service is a direct extension of the brand perception.

A brand can be either functional or aspirational.

A brand is accountable.

The role of a brand is a voice in support of a position.

The last item above is the most controversial. So, what does “being the voice” mean? In today’s fractured, highly partisan world of opinions, brands have taken a “stand” on many items — social justice, gender, equality, environment / sustainability, politics, etc. Effectively, brand management, executive leadership and agency creative / strategy have stepped into the abyss in order to align to a demographic or psychographic vs. the historical approach of focusing on the functional or product / service aligned emotional and aspirational benefits.

Today, brands have a tendency to be very selective about what they’re willing to address within the scope of what they stand for based on those responsible for the narrative. Let’s use, for example, Apple. The brand is valued at $205.5B¹ as of ’19. With the power of their brand and the depth of their product dominance within specific categories, Apple has the ability to influence perspectives and change behaviors. Apple has historically stayed true to its core as a brand by focusing on the features, benefits and experiences uniquely delivered by the company. Apple’s executives understand the implications of choices related to their brand. If Apple elected to position itself as an “environmental leader,” the issue of rare earth materials and the impact to the environment caused by the mining of these elements would quickly put the brand messaging out of touch with the reality of the business. This isn’t to say that Apple or any other company that relies on techniques that impact the environment are wrong or misaligned to the “common good.” It just means that they should be careful not to step into a conversation with their brand that creates dissonance. The same could be said for outsourcing / offshoring, pricing, packaging, product distribution, channels, etc. Each decision a company makes has a correlated implication.

We can look at brands including REI, The North Face, Nike, Under Armour, Chobani, Ben & Jerry’s, and P&G for a reference point. The reality is — what brands stand for and represent today is a far cry from the past. The time when a brand owned its ecosystem, which included everything from R&D to the manufacturing plants, to distribution and ultimately messaging and customer service is for most companies, a thing of the past. It you look at the model today, a large portion of companies don’t R&D their own products — instead relying on third-party manufacturers to do both the product design and manufacturing, while the distribution is managed by third-parties and the customer support is outsourced. So, what does that leave behind as the “brand?” — Finance, Ops, Marketing, Advertising, Sales and core IT. Unlike companies such as Russell Athletic, which still owns manufacturing facilities and where the conversation still revolves around terms such as “looms,” most brands are now focused on sales, trends, social data, etc. which drives behaviors.

The former Chief Marketing Officer of Unilever use to say, “A brand is the contract between a company and consumers.” It’s this statement that leads to the thesis: Does a brand matter? Is this a controversial statement? Possibly, but let’s look at the factors that serve as the input to the question.

Are buyers driven by an affinity to a brand or to the following?

Price sensitivity

Availability (Where can I buy it online?)

Time sensitivity

Perspectives of quality (Reviews)

Features and Benefits

Let’s use Amazon or Jane as an example. Yes, I have a house w/ 2 girls and my wife. The reality is, the products sold aren’t known by their brand. They’re recognized by style, price, availability, etc. If you search on Amazon for a bathing suit or for me, a set of hinges for a cabinet door, I couldn’t tell you who the vast majority of the brands are, but I can tell you whether I would buy based on 1. Product Reviews — this is the most important factor; 2. Customer Service / Support Reviews; 3. Product features; 4. Price; and 5. Availability / Delivery Date. In the end, what matters, especially in the digital world as it relates to a brand, is the quality of the product and the supporting service.

With quality driving a number of factors, brand price sensitivity / elasticity is eroded. When you look at Dacor, Viking or Miele vs. Electrolux or Hair, or Delta vs. Waterworks, you see enormous price differences, and in many instances, feature, function and perceived quality of the brand name. In reality, when you search and find 1-star review and comments regarding quality, reliability and customer service responses that reflect a brand’s self-entitlement, the perceived value of a “brand” is diminished.

So, what does all of this mean? First, a brand is complex — built from an intricate interdependency on vision, leadership, quality, value, support and aspiration. Second, the digital world easily exposes the weakest connections within the brand ecosystem. When we ask a CMO and their team to deliver increases in sales volume, improvement in Net Promoter Score (NPS), etc. while not addressing quality, timeliness, product innovation, etc., it’s the equivalent of pushing a boulder uphill. Third, and not least, a brand can easily be perceived as disingenuous when it takes a stand and projects a voice if at the core it can’t live up to the basic tenets of value, quality, meaning and experience. It’s this intentionality that matters — otherwise, a brand stands for nothing more than a logo, tagline and supporting visuals.

Whether you agree or not, I welcome your thoughts.

You can reach me on Twitter — @digitalquotient or on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobmorris/

¹ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2019/05/22/the-worlds-most-valuable-brands-2019-apple-on-top-at-206-billion/#732e3f6537c2