| LIKE IT OR NOT, YOU'RE IN THE BRANDING BUSINESS By Steve Cuno
Earth to Direct Marketers:
Like
It Or Not, You’re In
The Branding Business |
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| If you rank
among direct marketers who excel at pronouncing “branding” with
a sneer, it’s time to relent. Though once immediate sales reigned
while branding was fluff, like it or not, today legitimate branding has
become a big part of the business you’re in. For a number of good reasons, responsible DM-ers care very much about branding these days. For one thing, markets respond to strong brands. If you don’t believe me, try getting a consumer to pay a Sharper Image price for an air purifier at Wal-Mart. For another, though brand perception is not its primary calling, direct marketing leaves an impression among far more people than those who respond. While we throw wild parties to commemorate a four percent response, non respondents — the 96 percent — also receive an impression about the brand. And, for yet another, branding is the hot marketing topic these days. If you don’t know anything about it, sooner or later, you’re going to look dumb. Or, worse, capture short-term sales at the expense of the long term. To be fair, abuses in the name of branding deserve a sneer. Every day, one more branding charlatan convinces yet another trusting client that a brand consists of a cool logo and a lame slogan. Or a company tries to convey a brand that doesn’t reflect practice, like the store that promises you a great shopping experience, even though |
everyone knows the aisles are cluttered, the
lighting is insufficient, and the minimum wage clerk would rather prolong
a personal call than answer your question. But branding — real, bona fide branding — is powerful stuff. It’s what lets you walk into Nordstrom expecting first-rate quality and service, and into ShopKo braced to fend for yourself. It’s what tells you that Starbucks ice cream will taste great, and that the store brand will be this month’s lowest-bidding knock-off. It’s what makes a teenager eschew or swear by one particular brand of jeans. That kind of brand arises from a company’s consistent values and behavior. Advertising and direct marketing, powerless to create it, can only reflect it. But the wrong advertising and direct marketing can weaken a brand. That presents an interesting problem. As a direct marketer, you’re hired to pull a profitable, measurable response, not to build the brand. But if you don’t recognize the impact your work has on the brand, and, perhaps more importantly, that the brand should have on your work, you’re being naïve, and you will lose sales in the long run. Died-in-the-wool DM companies understand this, and have built strong brands. Consider Time Life, Sporty’s, Ronco and others, each with its distinct practices, product lines, customer profiles, and look and feel. The moment |
Sharper Image starts acting like Ron Popeil, they will
lose loyal customers. |
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