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Jack Gordon is CEO of AcuPOLL Research Inc. Mr. Gordon began his marketing career with Procter & Gamble in 1981. His first ten years in consumer products focused on successfully managing established brands and shaping new ones across the globe.

In 1991, Jack left his post as Vice President of Marketing for My Own Meals, Inc. to become the CEO of AcuPOLL Research, Inc. in its founding year. He remains in this role today, leading the company’s US business and serving as the global coordinator for multi-region initiatives.

In 1994, Mr. Gordon was instrumental in launching AcuPOLL’s global business. Initially securing licensing agreements with credentialed partners in key regions, then creating successful subsidiaries to handle this growing business segment.

Before demonstrating his talents as a leader in marketing, Mr. Gordon spent eight years in the US Army, attaining the rank of Captain.

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Which Is Declining, Brands - Or Branding?

Written on
July 17th 2007
Author
by Jack Gordon  |
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commandments21.jpgThere has been some concern voiced lately about the decline of brands, with a variety of news articles appearing in major publications and editorials, most recently in Wired Magazine, prematurely reporting their demise. Hidden agendas aside, a number of different causative factors have been attributed to this decline, ranging from the unbalanced strength of retailers vs. manufacturers to increased consumer savvy, strengthened through information gleaned on the net. But, does this purport to the eventual demise of brands as we’ve come to know them?

I believe most of these news articles and editorials are missing the real point. It’s not the brand; it is the expertise of branding that is declining. Line extensions, SKU proliferation, product cannibalization and snippet advertising have converged in a rush to market among “me too” products – costing sales and costing brand managers their jobs.

This is not the first time we’ve lamented brand survival. Think back to the turbulent ‘80s, where the growth of store brands and the pressure on pricing were certainly going to kill established high-priced branded products. However, we failed to see the demise of brands and instead, successful brand managers were able to grow and strengthen their brand, and we also witnessed the rise of major new brands like Starbucks, Verizon, Dell, Lexus, the IPOD and many more.

It is true that pressures existing on today’s brands make it hard to sustain strong franchises. The recent economic pressures affecting consumers’ pocketbooks will influence many to “trade down” from their high-priced brands; but many will return, if given sufficient incentives in a continuing rebounding economy – and remember, competition is a good thing.

We have seen significant improvement in recent years in both the quality, and more importantly, the messaging of that quality, among “store brands.” Many chains actually brand their own products – Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Choice, Sears’ Kenmore or Craftsman, for example – seeking to increase trial and approval for these products. This would appear to be a positive sign of acknowledgement of the importance of branding. In some cases these chains seem to understand the importance of brand messaging better than some established manufacturers.

What we might be seeing, in fact, is the decline of branding, not brands. The proliferation of line extensions, and the resulting effect of “line advertising;” the fact that over two-thirds of many brand budgets are now spent on consumer and trade promotions; and, reliance of many brands on fifteen second advertising has led to the creation of labels, not brands. No emotional connection is built, and much of the traditional product testing, Internet testing and focus group activities are terribly outmoded and archaic.

The solution is to redouble efforts to personalize brands, find the emotional connection with a brand and go beyond the “go/no go” mentality of product testing. The ability to reasonably and objectively predict product and advertising success that motivates a consumer and builds long term connections is the future of branding.

It falls upon manufacturers to own up to their responsibility to strengthen brands to meet today’s consumer needs. Adding line extensions that fail to enhance current franchises; spending increasing amounts of money on short-term promotions that do not build or worse, tear down, a given brand; and, failing to develop brand-building objectives all need to be addressed to ensure brand longevity. It starts with proper idea or advertising testing, with methodologies that will allow a brand manager to be more successful – seek clear, actionable recommendations based on normative databases that can identify opportunities in subsequent product or advertising development. Strategic and executional recommendations should be coupled with the ability to ask open ended questions to a pinpointed target audience. 
   
Although validated testing is key, creative brand-building is the overall answer. This comes from selling benefits proven to be important in the category and among current brand users, while, even more importantly, bonding emotionally with the brand’s customers. In categories consisting of mainly parity products, how consumers feel about your brand is more important than what they think about your brand. It is precisely this emotional reaction to the brand that leads to consumers spending more money for a particular product. Understanding and reinforcing the brand’s emotional appeal is every bit as important as understanding its functional benefits.

Many of our great brands were built over a long period of time by using strong and consistent advertising and public relations messages. As we all know, the purpose of marketing communications is to build brands over time. Consumers use specific brands because they trust that brand to deliver what they are looking for, consistently. Consumers form brand opinions from the advertising messages they see. When the promises made and inferred in these messages, both functionally and emotionally, are satisfactorily delivered, loyal customers are born and reinforced.

We see a lot of new product ideas and advertising campaigns, and are provided opportunities to study Brand Equity. While few come up with sustainable long-term advantages versus their major competitors, the successful ones reinforce their brand image and brand promise with strong new products that enhance rather than detract from their equity, coupled with advertising campaigns that fit with their images and give consumers what they have learned to expect from the brand – both functionally and emotionally.

Good marketing companies use this availability of consumer information to their advantage.  They reinforce their basic brand messages and keep these messages up-to-date and relevant.  They may change their advertising medium to keep up with consumer viewing, but they don’t change their basic communication objectives – and, when most successful, these objectives include an emotional element. 

So, are we seeing the beginning of the end of brands? No. There are still enough good marketers and sharp advertising people out there to set creative direction that builds brands over time. The question is will they have the resources to continue to accomplish this critical objective, such as up front testing before going to market, or a proper budget to achieve the communications tipping point. If not, we could just be seeing the decline of branding – not because consumers have changed – but because companies themselves have changed.

Using marketing dollars more efficiently is a good thing, but must not be done at the expense of building and maintaining a brand. Organizations and agencies must be able to test a variety of stimuli in a single study, which often saves time and money versus other methods that require multiple steps. Just one study can be designed to test a broad range of marketing stimuli, which helps you get more return on your research investment. Fail to support the brand, and the vicious circle of lower sales revenue and slashed marketing dollars becomes self fulfilling.



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Reader Comments.

Sorry…but brands are losing out. The rise of measurable direct response advertising is demonstrating the power of moment in purchasing choice.

Do people still respond to brands? Of course they do. And they will continue to do so. But the mass segmentation of product and marketing opportunity, measured in milliseconds of consumer view, will remove the vast majority of branded products relying solely on name recognition from the group of selectable options.

The plethora of options in each and every product category, coupled with instantaneous access to deeper content about multiple new entrants will continue to siphon branded product interest.

Direct response sucked hind tit in the world of advertising through the entire 20th century. Branding worked, but with little ability to measure it’s impact vs. ad spend. But it’s a new world. Brands will suffer until they merge their iconic messages with compelling reasons for people to respond…Now. Every non-brand with a great message, strong offers and credible persona competes on equal footing. Brands can no longer rest.

Posted by Marc Saxe a.k.a. Hunter Gatherer | 2:24 am on July 18, 2007.

The frequent problem with brand vs. acquisition spending is that control over the dollars often rests in different hands. This is particularly true in B2B markets but the phenomenon can also be found in consumer markets as well.

The acquisition and lead people are given a budget and expected to provide a measurable return. More often than not, they provide that return.

When the CMO or brand people try to pry control of that budget away from line managers, they often get nowhere. That’s because the line people can run circles around the CMO with ROI data. The CMO has… what? The latest tracking study or a summary of some focus groups. It’s not going to fly. Generally, except at the most enlightened and established companies, management tends to come down on the side of the measurable revenue generators.

Now those “revenue generators” would like to believe that their success is the result solely of their wisdom –when in fact we all know that any brand spending has given them a real but frequently unmeasured lift.

I’ve seen this dynamic play out at many companies. To gain greater control of ALL marketing dollars a new breed of CMO will have to create studies that quantify the exact lift achieved by a variety of spending levels.

While the branding people may have right on their side –until they catch up with the metrics, many companies will continue to under-support their brand spending.

Posted by Bruce Carlisle | 6:34 pm on July 18, 2007.

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