Who or what is the consumer?

“The consumer isn’t stupid, the consumer is your mother”
- David Ogilvy

Who decides what your brand is?

“You don’t decide what your brand is, the consumer does”
- Marty Neumeier

Do you read ads?

"People don’t read advertising, they read what interests them, and sometimes, it’s an ad”
- Howard Luck Gossage

PR and Advertising in Branding

I've heard very strong arguments that public relations is the way a strong brand is truly established and advertising is how the brand is maintained. In fact, not too long ago, authors Al and Laura Ries devoted an entire book, The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR, to reinforce and illustrate this idea (Harper, 2002).

If you think about this theory for a moment, it makes a lot of sense.

If a brand is successful in making a connection with people and communicating its distinct advantage then people will want to tell others about it and word-of-mouth advertising will develop naturally —- not to mention writers in the press will want to write about the brand. Once that type of differentiation and story telling is established in the market's mind, advertising can help maintain and shape the brand.

Just don't confuse organic word-of-mouth with "buzz" marketing or Paid-For Word-of-Mouth. If you have to pay people to talk about your brand, then what you are really doing is investing in advertising. Don't let the new-fangled agencies out there make you believe that it is anything else.

The Top 25 Marketing Blogs

Top 25 Marketing Blogs according to Viral Garden.

As of Nov. 7:

1. Seth's Blog - 8,987 (-27)(LW - 1)
2 - Duct Tape Marketing - 2,264 (-17)(LW - 2)
3 - Search Engine Guide - 1,427 (+72)(LW - 3)
4 - Daily Fix - 1,088 (+2)(LW - 5)
5 - Logic + Emotion - 1,081 (-14)(LW - 4)
6 - Diva Marketing - 991 (+17)(LW - 6)
7 - What's Next - 965 (+6)(LW - 7)
8 - The Engaging Brand - 759 (+2)(LW - 8)
9 - Influential Marketing - 722 (+6)(LW - 10)
10 - Brand Autopsy - 709 (-8)(LW - 9)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 704 (-8)(LW - 11)
12 - Converstations - 669(-10)(LW - 12)
13 - Church of the Customer - 651 (+2)(LW - 13)
14 - Jaffe Juice - 584 (+3)(LW - 14)
15 - Conversation Agent - 567 (+4)(LW - 15)
16 - The Viral Garden - 538 (-13)(LW - 16)
17 - Marketing Roadmaps - 533 (+2)(LW - 17)
18 - Branding and Marketing - 526 (-3)(LW - 18)
19 - Marketing Headhunter - 521 (No Change)(LW - 19)
20 - Customers Rock! - 451 (-8)(LW - 20)
21 - Servant of Chaos - 439 (-16)(LW - 21)
22 - CK's Blog - 436 (-1)(LW - 22)
23 - Experience Curve - 402 (+6)(LW - 23)
24 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 380 (-3)(LW - 24)
25 - Chaos Scenario - 348 (+1)(LW - 25)

The goal of marketing

A brief review of current online discussion reveals that few marketers can succinctly describe to non-marketing people what the primary goal of marketing is.

The goal of marketing is to drive sales.

Is that too succinct?

Let me try a slightly longer version to clarify.

The goal of marketing is to drive sales over the long-term.

I hope the latter was not too verbose.

Discussions about the marketing function typically involve how to choose the best marketing tactics and utilize and coordinate those tactics to drives sales. Sure there is a lot to it as there is a great deal involved in acquiring new customers and maintaining positive relationship with existing customers and doing so in a way that is profitable over the long-term.

True marketers realize that marketing is a long-term strategy that must also involve product development and an ongoing effort to satisfy customers to ever-higher levels of satisfaction while at the same time ensuring that one's offering represents unique value that cannot be found in competitive offerings.

Marketing to drive short-term sales is termed "sales promotion". Marketing to drive long-term sales is called, well, "marketing", but there should be no doubt that the goal of marketing is to drive sales.

Original knockoffs?

The Oct. 22 issue of Brandweek had an article about how Wal-Mart commissioned an agency to redesign the packaging for its private brands of soda: Choice Cola, Twist Up and Mountain Lightning.

Now, I've linked to the article above and since I don't have the rights to any of the photos of the product, I'll have to direct you to Murray Brand Communication's site so you can see the new designs for yourself. (Murray had enough sense to not show their design for Mountain Lightning at their website but InventorSpot.com has a photo with some great tasting notes from many fine, house brand sodas.)

I'll give Murray Brand Communications a little credit for the new look of Sam's Choice Cola, but their other two designs are a complete joke.

According to Brandweek, the strategy was "not to 'knock off' the national brands" and the ideas was to come up with designs that were "confident, distinctive and innovative".

What a joke!

There is nothing distinctive or innovative about the new package designs for Twist Up or Mountain Lightning. They are completely unoriginal and look like they were the result of a bar mishap where the barkeep mixed Pepsi's Mountain Dew with Coors and Tropicana's Twister with a dash of 7-Up.

And for Tom Kane of Murray Brand Communications to whine publicly in the Brandweek article that "we had only 90 days to develop three concepts for each sub-brand" is shameful. I'm not sure if Murray Brand Communications realizes how bad they look right there in the pages of Brandweek.

Murray Brand Communications ought to be ashamed of themselves for their lack or originality and for their public whining about their client's requirements.

Oh, but I guess if sales increased 10% then all is forgiven.

Maybe to some, but give me a break.

This is an example of the worst that advertising agencies have to offer and I'm not entirely sure how Brandweek chose this case study to hold up as a shining example.

Although, now I have new product ideas for Coors Dew and Sprite Twist. I must go to my lab and start mixing.