via www.designinginteractions.com
Umair’s post on the “shrinking advantage of brands” really has me thinking. The Net, by connecting consumers, is completely redefining marketing best practices in a way that really benefits consumers and companies that make great products.
(It’s refreshing that something good is actually happening in the world).
Anyways, there was some blowback in the comments, but I think it was mostly a semantic misunderstanding; he’s not saying that a brand isn’t an advantage, he’s saying that the returns from trying to dictate a brand image through advertising and marketing are deteriorating. A lot.
Once again, Google provides a great example. According to a recent study, Google has the “most powerful brand in the world”, ahead of huge advertising spenders like Coca-Cola and IBM.
(Google’s advertising budget is almost exactly zero.)
My thoughts on this are that, by not advertising (and working extremely well for a wide variety of consumers) Google frees itself from committing to a single “brand promise”. Its brand can then mean anything to anyone. I think the “inclusive” aesthetic choices (colors, focus on usability) reflects Google’s strategy on how to maintain this extremely valuable asset.
The mini-lesson I think I’ve learned from this is that making a specific, overt “brand promise” (especially through advertising) is inherently exclusionary. It’s better to define a company in terms of customer relationships or problem solving.
