It was a great start last week. Taking together what was discussed: brands exist as symbols in popular culture with their meanings contingent on particular cultural contexts; brands embody stories constructed by the companies that produced them, and by their consumers; brands have histories. I like Dr. Morgan Gerald’s post which talks about brands entering a “performative” stage. I think this is a great piece to set the stage for my second week presentation on “Managing Brand Meanings”. Morgan is an anthropologist by training so his view is refreshing without any coloring from the ad world. You can read it here without having to dig deep into the posts:
Performance is the experience and expression of identity, image, emotion and experience. It is also an elaborately choreographed type of behavior. But it’s bigger and better than the sum of those parts because it’s creative, (de)constructive and, in some cases, transformative. When we perform something – particularly in ‘public’ and with or for other people – we transform that something, ourselves, those near us and, however modestly or briefly, the world (society, culture, reality, whatever) around us.
Brand as performance would:
- be a celebration of cultures and meanings made as much (if not more) by consumers as by boardrooms
- be more collaborative, more about opening participatory folds of design, packaging, retail, advertising, marketing etc within and between (how consumers actually consume) brands
- generate symbolic, ritual power through play and display by providing a stage for social dramas: scenes, parties or spontaneous mobs that – on streets or online – forge greater alliances, extend word-of-mouth through the tribe, make meaning through co-participation and can be fun
- use that power to mobilize corporate and consumer communities for social transformation; above donations or sponsorships, beyond Just Do It and Be All That You Can Be and with accountability becoming more central to success than authenticity, take a leadership role in championing causes and affecting them.
Here’s the week two presentation. I was trying to cut down a full day’s talk into a smaller deck, and I’m not sure if I’ve been successful. It takes quite a while to go over all of it (72 slides) as you might need to stop at certain points to think about the questions I’ve put forward.
I started looking at brands from a historical perspective and it helps to explain how the meaning of a brand changes over time and how managerial intention intersects interpretations made by multiple constituencies. A good brand strategy is about finding ways to tap into emotions and connect with others. That’s when they transcend products or even the product category. A brand is also a metaphorical story that connects with something very deep — a fundamental appreciation of mythology. Stories create the emotional context people need to engage themselves in a larger experience.
There are basically no theories for branding. Surprising isn’t it? You might ask why we need a theory for strategic brand management. It’s simply because theory is eminently practical. Managers are the world’s most voracious consumer of theories. Every time a brand strategy decision is made, it is usually based on some implicit understanding of what causes what and why. The real problem is they often use a one-size-fits-all theory. There are many ways to build great brands. Here are the four basic approaches:
Here companies put the role of brand building into the hands of customers. This has long been practiced by industries such as luxury and sporting goods as well as the fashion industry, where there’s never enough time to build a relevant and meaningful brand that keeps pace with fast-changing customer needs. Consumers also do not want to use the brand to endorse or reflect his or her personality; rather it contributes to building a personal or individual brand. In another words, strong brand identities deter customers because they are dominant. The user uses the brand as a maker of status in a society, but they add in their own perceptions of what they want to say as to who they are and how they see things. The brand only requires some associated meaning so customers can pick, mix and match with other values he or she identifies with as part of building for his or her “Me” brand. The user is actively participating in creating meanings for the brand and using it as a symbolic representation of his or her inner self. This is becoming key due to the rise of social media.
Here branding is being approached in a more functional manner. Usually advertising agencies take a leading role and advertising is linked to branding. The levers of brand building consist mainly of TV commercials, big posters and print advertisements etc. In some cases, a first showing of a 60 second TV spot during the Super Bowl is a milestone of the brand building effort. Or the visually stunning posters and magazines supplement in national magazines such as Vogue or Vanity Fair. Marketers and agencies closely link the brand to advertising creative execution. Sometimes the burden is given to a celebrated photographer. Calvin Klein’s success is hugely indebted to Bruce Weber and Benetton as well as Oliver Toscani. These photographers gave those brand meanings. The risk here is advertising failure means brand failure. However, a great campaign produces a very desirable brand and many products and advertising agencies came to fame with just one highly memorable campaign and the marketer continue to enjoy the benefits for years.
Companies see customers taking functional benefits, product qualities and a positive brand images as a given. What they want are products, services and marketing communications that dazzle their senses, touch their hearts and stimulate their minds. Here the customer becomes the most important part of the brand. Over the years many brands have transformed themselves into experience brands by creating a compelling customer experience. Starbucks and Body Shop did not use mass advertising to build brands. Instead, they put their resources into designing and delivering unique experiences. The Tiffany experience consists of not only the purchase experience, but also the whole experience of giving and receiving something special. The Tiffany trademark experience is inseparably linked to the ageless elegance and quality that defines the brand and the blue box serves as an identifier and sensory reminder. In a similar case Hermes has the orange box and the ribbons which both serve as a sensory reminder. Google, eBay and Amazon.com set the standards for online experience by relentlessly improving user experiences.
Here branding is approached as part of a formal strategic planning process. Most of the time this occurs in the context of strategic marketing planning. The typical approach uses portfolio and product life cycle concepts together with overall market overviews and competitive intelligence. The information is distilled and analyzed through each individual brand’s performance in terms of market share and margin contribution. The heart of the exercise is positioning to ensure that products cover all necessary profitable or emerging segments and use brand to achieve these objectives. These are usually multi-brand organizations and category managers that normally assume the ownership role of the brand portfolio and manager of the brand architecture. The key is to articulate the overall brand strategy and approach (e.g., a master brand approach using targeted sub-brands in target markets). This entails far more than just organizing the brands as individual performers. To truly optimize their value requires a dynamic framework that makes the most of their inter-relationships under a system of brands working together to drive clarity in the marketplace and synergy and leverage within the company's portfolio.
I will post some questions tomorrow and see if we can have another good exchange of ideas.
