Too often people buy a “branding” service that is nothing more than advertising. And, the two things aren’t the same. Advertising can reinforce your brand, but it can’t create it and it most definitely isn’t the brand itself.
Another respected voice agrees:
As brand has become more central to the success of most major clients, it has moved further away from the core competencies of advertising agencies.
Niall FitzGerald identified this separation while he was chief executive officer at Unilever. Nine years ago, he gave the keynote speech to the European Association of Advertising Agencies and noted the “alarming discrepancy developing between what our brands are going to need and what contemporary agencies are good at.” His prediction has proved to be accurate.
Today, brand strategy requires a fundamental knowledge of business operations, finances, employees and internal culture - subjects most ad agencies, which often struggle even to understand how their clients make money, are ignorant of.
There are whole subsets of brand strategy that most agencies are completely unaware of. Consider brand architecture, for example. It is probably the single-most important brand issue for most major branded companies, yet most ad agencies would have trouble even identifying what the concept means, let alone advising their client on a major brand consolidation or co-branding strategy.
This is not to deride or diminish advertising agencies. There is plenty of money to be made and work to be done in the area of marketing communications. Indeed, with the gradual disintegration of terrestrial TV advertising and the fragmentation of the market, there has arguably never been a more challenging or interesting time to work in advertising.
But it is time for agencies to recognise that [brand consultancies] offer inherently superior systems, people and solutions when it comes to branding. Just as I would never recommend that a client work with [a brand consultant] to create a communications campaign, I would be equally aghast if they asked an ad agency to work on their brand strategy.
In the long and twisting journey to building a brand, the external communications stage usually occurs late in the day, if at all. Consequently, the initial research, positioning and engagement work will always occur long before an ad agency has any reason to become involved.
Read more here.
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A brand is the most valuable asset of any organization:
Chief executive officers (CEOs) around the world today believe that the brand should drive the business. This is a far cry from the days when most corporate leaders subscribed to the view that the business should drive the brand.
This is borne out in a report in the McKinsey Quarterly. According to the report, in 1984 and just 22 years ago, when the top 150 companies in the world were valued, 75 per cent of their worth was ascribed to hard assets. Today those companies’ hard assets account for only 36 per cent of their equity; the remaining 64 per cent are intangible assets. And leading the list of those intangibles is the brand.
Read more about how your brand should drive your business here.
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We talk.
Earlier this year we called out Visa for their new Life Takes Visa campaign.
OMMA Magazine noticed.
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The New York Times points to what could be an effective brand position for Czech tourism — the Ultimate Beer Run:
Going to the source is an emerging pastime for beer lovers. The wine trails of Napa, Bordeaux and Piedmont need no introduction. The same, however, cannot be said for the beer trails of Bohemia and Moravia. And yet, in recent years, amateur beer hunters have begun carving their own paths through these ancient Czech kingdoms, tapping into the same passion for local hops and barley that drives oenophiles to cross the globe for zinfandel and nebbiolo.
Wine snobs might call this overreaching, but great beer is inextricably tied to its environment in much the same way that a great Burgundy displays a characteristic terroir. Real Pilsner, for example, is made with the low-sulfite, low-carbonate water of the Czech city of Pilsen, its original home. Many have tried, but it’s nearly impossible to make a good Pilsner elsewhere without doctoring the water, and even then, it will never taste the same.
The Czech Republic could redefine and own the market conversation by focusing on a story as the birthplace of beer:
[T]he Czech lands are, in some ways, the birthplace of modern beer making, with a brewing history that dates back more than a millennium. Today there are some 450 Czech beers made by about 100 breweries, ranging from golden Pilsners to black, Baltic-style porters. It is also the beer-drinking capital: Czechs consume more beer than any other country in the world — more than 320 pints annually for every man, woman and child.
“…It is the fountainhead, if you like, of most beer in the world.”
It is a story to separate the Czech Republic from ALL other tourist destinations, and a story that instantly answers each of the following:
What is it about the Czech Republic that separates the Czech experience from other tourism alternatives?
How does a visit to the Czech Republic fulfill a passion not satisfied elsewhere?
Why should we care about the Czech Republic?
True, there is far more to the Czech Republic than the history of beer. However, to tell the broader story any brand must first stand for a single uniqueness, prompting any audience to care long enough to stop, and stop long enough to be influenced.
An authentic story of a brand that is engaging, not heard elsewhere, and that matters is by itself unique. And that is Czech tourism’s golden opportunity.
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From Business Times:
For the past two years, Chief Executive Magazine has published a list of Top 25 Brand Leaders…
[C]ommon among these CEOs is the belief that successful brand building “… takes more than marketing and advertising alone … it requires coming up with innovative products that go way beyond the ordinary…and developing…marketing messages that break through the clutter.”
The Top 25 CEOs will tell you that the brand is their companies’ strongest asset. As the article points out, the CEOs embrace the notion that “stewardship of the brand is their responsibility”. They live, eat and breathe the brand every day. And they expect the same of their C-suitemates.
We agree. Branding is more than advertising.
And, as potentially the strongest asset of any organization, a brand is the world’s most powerful business tool. It is a multiplier of value, and represents a substantial advantage for its owner - as good as money in the bank. You can borrow against it, buy it, sell it, invest in it, increase it or decrease it through good or bad management.
Ask any top CEO.
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Friday, August 18th, 2006 - 1:02pm |
Brand Management + Branding Resources + Branding v Advertising |
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