Brandweek Caption Contest

...and just when I thought life couldn't get any better...

Tonight I'm getting caught up on this week's pile of mail and I opened up my current issue of BrandWeek to see that I won the caption contest (in the August 21 issue). The ad for TechnoMarine watches shows the following picture:



A few weeks ago BrandWeek editor, Jim Edwards, asked readers to submit captions that best fit the photo. My winning caption, "Sometimes I just want to cuddle" beat out the other entries.

Now if I could only figure out that world peace thing.

;-)

Thanks, Jim!

Brand Awareness: What's The Deal?

A customer of mine with whom I've been corresponding recently asked a question that I think is cogent to the point of being worthy of posting to this blog.

Question: "...[Y]our thoughts are clarifying and as you know I read your book (How to Build and Maintain A Powerhouse Brand) with much interest. I very much like the concept of "Strategic Awareness"-- it makes sense.

However, I am still intrigued about the importance and relevance that is given by marketing professionals to the concepts of "Awareness" and especially "Top of Mind - Awareness". I have always been a bit skeptical about their correlation with market performance.

How come so many professionals tout "Awareness/Top of Mind" so much????"

Answer : In my opinion, it is because traditional ad agencies and marketing consultants can relatively easily measure awareness and can demonstrate to their clients their ability to increase brand awareness. Further, ad agencies tout awareness as the ever-important metric because that is how they make their money from clients.

Agencies create very creative and catchy ads, spend lots of client money to get the ads out there by saturating the media and then, not surprisingly, consumers can recall the brand because they've been exposed to it many, many times.

Creating strategic awareness and brand preference, however, is more difficult and they are also more difficult to measure. To do both while simultaneously increasing profits is extremely difficult. To do so is also the core of what good brand builders do.

To quickly review some definitions, Brand awareness is simply when consumers recognize your brand. Top of mind awareness occurs when you ask a person to name brands within a product category and your brand pops up first on the list. Strategic awareness occurs when not only does the consumer recognize your brand but they also understand the distinctive qualities that make it better than the competition. Brand preference happens when those consumers then prefer your brand over competing offerings.

If ad agencies promised increases in strategic awareness, brand preference and increased profits, then most of those agencies would go out of business because their clients would fire them. The agencies simply could not deliver on their promise.

Awareness is a much easier--and much more certain--needle to move so that's what agencies promise.

This week's Top 25 Marketing Blogs...

...according to Viral Garden:

1 - Seth's Blog
2 - Gaping Void
3 - Creating Passionate Users
4 - Duct Tape Marketing
5 - Marketing Shift
6 - HorsePigCow
7 - Coolzor
8 - The Viral Garden
9 - Church of the Customer
10 - What's Next
11 - Emergence Marketing
12 - Brand Autopsy
13 - Diva Marketing
14 - Jaffe Juice
15 - Beyond Madison Avenue
16 - New School of Network Marketing
17 - Logic + Emotion
18 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing
19 - Marketallica
20 - What's Your Brand Mantra?
21 - Marketing Headhunter
22 - Daily Fix
23 - Movie Marketing Madness
24 - Experience Curve
25 - WonderBranding

The list with working links to all found at
http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com/2006/08/viral-gardens-top-25-marketing-blogs_21.html

If you like my blog (Branding & Marketing by Dave Dolak), then please tell Technorati that it is one of your favorites by clicking on this link http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://davedolak.blogspot.com.

Today's worst marketing job in the world....

Chief Marketing Officer for any airline.

How in the world do you make any airline sound good these days?

Turning around a laggard brand?

I've been reading a lot of business articles from marketing experts lately who talk about ways to build strong brands. They talk mostly about carving out unique positions in the market, delivering superior value and making brand promises that resonate with the target market. They go on to discuss how these brands can then enjoy strong word-of-mouth advertising and gain lots of publicity that will make advertising less important in the success of the brand.

What they don't discuss is how difficult these things are to do for already established brands that are lagging.

What I believe needs to be said is that your branding must absolutely be considered during product development. Preferably, you will define the brand before you even begin product development.

You must begin the process of creating a product or service with the clear vision of what the final brand will look like, what promises it will make, and how you will deliver on those promises. Only then will you consider all the elements of a powerful brand and marry them with the required intimate knowledge of your customers. Only once you know what the brand *must be in its final state* can you then start to create a product or service that meets the requirements.

For established brands that are lagging, it can be very difficult if not impossible to create a strong brand from a weak product or service. A strong brand starts with a strong product or service.

Sometimes slick marketing and advertising just can't help a loser of an offering. You can't always put a fresh face on an old dog and make it do tricks. Sometimes you need a new dog.