Brands are not things; rather brands are a representation of a highly valued idea that resides in the minds of consumers and stakeholders alike. Brands represent a set of unifying principles that guide an organization’s behavior and its manner of delivering experiences customers highly value above the available alternatives in the marketplace. Strong healthy brands maintain an intrinsic value to customers that over time translates into tangible financial value for the brand’s owners.
Consumers care about what a brand represents to them on the highest emotional level. The physical properties and functional benefits that comprise and define a brand are of less importance–this explains the difference between Coke and Pepsi, Chevy and Toyota, Apple and the rest of its competitors.
Sounds simple enough. The trouble is consumer’s minds are fickle. And worse, the marketplace is a slush pile of competing brands. It’s easy for brands to lose relevance with customers quickly – especially in our age of instant connections, abundant choice and consumption. Brands with the sticking power to drive purchase behaviors over decades consistently lead their tribe of loyal advocates forward through a compelling value proposition and positioning that transcends the consumer’s inherent and natural tendencies toward fickleness for the next greatest thing.
A brand strategy's success or failure depends on how well brand owners understand how the mind operates.
Minds have limited capacity.
The mind rejects any information that does not compute. It accepts only new information that matches its current state of mind. The mind has no room for what is new and different unless it is related to the familiar.
Minds resist confusion.
People resist that which is confusing, and cherish that which is simple. People want to push a button and watch the thing work. People love simple.
Minds are insecure and emotional.
Minds are emotional, not rational. People buy things for emotional reasons. When people are uncertain, they often look to others (influencers) to help them make the right decision about how to act. People don’t like being out of the loop.
Minds don’t change often.
We are more impressed by what we already know (or buy) than by what's "new." Once a mind has formed a habit it’s very difficult to change.
Minds have difficulty staying focused.
The more variations you attach to a brand, the more the mind will lose focus. The more the brand loses focus, the more vulnerable it becomes. In toilet tissue, corn oil, or toothpaste, the specialist or the well-focused competitor is always the winner.
Strong brands need to be exceptional at one thing than good at many things. Strong brands represent a single, simple, ownable, credible, highly valued and differentiated position in the minds of the target audience segment the brand serves.
Does this describe your brand?
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Really enjoyed this piece. Thank you. One of the things that fascinates me is how closely our relationship with a brand correlates to our worldview as an individual. As you so rightly point out Thomson, we accept only new information that matches our current state of mind and we prefer what we know and feel comfortable with over that which seems radical. That implies that brands need to stand for ideas and to have and express worldviews that align at some level with those of their purchasers – or at the very least don’t conflict with them. The traditional way that marketers have dealt with this of course has been to err on the “not conflict” side and to say more or less nothing about their position on anything beyond their product lines and sector. With the rising scrutiny of social media and CSR, that’s becoming much more difficult, and this is where I think it gets interesting. Faced with consumers who do mind about what brands think, will marketers themselves have to rethink how much their brands speak their mind?
Mark Di Somma
Posted by: markdisomma | January 28, 2012 at 05:02 PM
A terrific post in terms of Strategic Brand Management.
One point to be added: Minds are typically curious. That is why new concepts of pioneering innovations make a brand to be a winner. People under the bandwagon effect does not necessarily prevent them from being different. That is why a innovative brands such as Apple are leaders.
Thanks
Ducson
Posted by: Duc Son | January 31, 2012 at 03:20 AM