"What if our brand promises more than we can deliver?"

“What if our brand promises more than we can deliver?”

This question both shocked and amazed me when I heard it. Not only because it showed a remarkable lack of understand about how a brand should make a promise, but because it also illustrated a level of arrogance that simply will not be tolerated by consumers any longer.

In order for any brand to be powerful and enduring, it must be authentic and deliver on its promise every single time.

Authenticity requires an introspective look at your organization during the brand audit process (described in more detail in my Top End Alignment^TM article). This introspection will ensure that you do not promise more than you can deliver. Your brand promise must be based on the experience you can deliver fully and consistently.

If you fear that your brand promises more than your organization can deliver, immediately change your branding strategy or change your organization. Period. No questions asked and no shortcuts, please. Your brand must accurately communicate the unique value it will deliver…without question and without debate.

Building a powerful brand is a two-way street. Not only must your brand promise unique value that reflects the best of what your organization can deliver, but your organization must be willing and able to adjust and evolve to ensure that it continually delivers on your brand’s promise.

Everyone in your organization must not only understand your brand’s promise, but also embrace it and be committed to consistently delivering on that brand promise. Call it internal branding, organizational alignment, or Top End Alignment, but your people must understand and be committed to your brand’s promise so they are motivated to deliver on it and propagate it as deeply as possible to your target market.

Your brand simply must keep its promises or it will be summarily rejected.

From Brand Loyalty to Brand Preference

Top U.S. brands
Harris Interactive reports the favorite brands among U.S. adults:

1. Sony
2. Dell
3. Kraft
4. Coca-Cola
5. Ford
6. Toyota
7. Honda
8. General Electric
9. General Motors
10. Microsoft

High tech brands enjoy greater loyalty while traditional brands are losing it

The recent issue of Brandweek contained the results of Brand Key’s “Loyalty Leaders Rankings” survey that ranks brands according to customer loyalty established by the brands.

The top 10 brands with the highest consumer loyalty according to the survey of 21,000 consumers are:

1. Google
2. Avis
3. Yahoo!
4. Treo
5. Samsung mobile phones
6. BlackBerry
7. Verizon long distance
8. Canon office copiers
9. Miller Genuine Draft
10. Marriott Hotels

It seems that technology brands are gaining the most ground in terms of loyalty--which makes sense. We are all becoming more and more dependent upon technology and much of it is very personal to us including PDA’s, cell phones, and search engines. Many of these brands allow us to personalize them according to our wishes to the point where we simply cannot live without them or easily switch to a competing brand. The pain involved in switching is just too high. Just think about how we organize our lives in PDA’s and keep extensive lists with names and addresses in our mobile phones and handheld devices. These brands become almost a part of us and we are very loyal to the brands that serve us well.

Some of the biggest losing brands in the survey are Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Sprint. These brands are losing loyalty because of category commoditization, too many line extensions, and losing focus on core brand values. Sprint, for instance, always seen as a technology leader, is now focusing on low price—which almost always leads to loss of loyalty and commoditization. Coca-Cola and Starbucks have seen much competition enter into their markets with a myriad of “me too” products that seem indistinguishable and have also suffered from line extensions that lead to brand dilution.

Strong brands enjoy high consumer loyalty and it seems like the technology sector is doing the best at brand-building these days. Traditional brands are struggling to deliver unique value that consumers are willing to reward with their loyalty.


Links:

Brandweek
Brand Keys
How to Build and Maintain a Powerhouse Brand & How to Brand and Market a Commodity