Some time back, I looked at what it took to get a brand promise right. Today, I want to examine the converse: when (consumers feel that) brands have not lived up to what they said they would deliver. What happens to generate customer disappointment?
Great products sell themselves. No they don’t. But equally, people don’t just buy brands because they’re brands either.
As marketers we take brand promises for granted. We just accept that every brand in its right mind has one and that it is committed to keeping it. As consumers, we have no such awareness. We don’t wander around with the strategies of our favorite brands on our devices checking that, wherever we see them, they are doing what they said they would do in the strategy.
I was talking with a business associate of mine today. She is working with an organization that has grown from a start-up to a company with more than 1,000 employees. The organization produces high quality products and is growing rapidly however to the CEO’s credit, he is noticing chinks in the company’s armor, chinks that are due to organization growth and size.
In The Blake Project’s line of work (brand consulting) we spend most of our time helping organizations identify and develop the most advantageous brand strategies and brand promises. But of equal, and perhaps greater, importance is consistently delivering on those strategies and promises over time.
