Brand and Feelings…

A few thought starters…

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Introduction

• Frequently marketing communications is characterised by numbing

sameness, commoditised product feature wars, and laundry lists of product

benefits.

• It’s often a sea of noise, parity, clutter and dullness...

• Branding helps cut through the morass of the market, get noticed, and

connect with the customer on many levels and in ways that matter.

• A strong brand becomes the customer’s “shorthand” for making choices in a

complex, risky, and confusing marketplace.

Is this rational???

• What we actually think or why we buy a particular brand of product is based

on stored memories, images and feelings – which is what a brand is all

about…

– Will we really belong to some rebel tribe by buying a Harley Davidson

motorcycle?

– Does every woman identify with Audrey Hepburn because her gift came

in a Tiffany light blue box?

• It is one of the key reasons we operate from feelings over facts, respond to

emotion over reason, and choose great brands over their service or

commodity substitutes.

The search for meaning...

Our material needs have been met...

• We’re fed up with being told

• We get too much information and not enough meaning

• There’s too much choice, so we can’t try everything

• We have too little time, but want more from life

We expect an emotional exchange with the companies we work for and the brands we buy...

“The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of similar

companies, employing similar people, with similar

educational backgrounds, coming up with similar

ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and

similar quality.”

Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale, Funky Business

“The idea that business is just a numbers affair has always struck me as

preposterous. For one thing, I’ve never been particularly good at

numbers, but I think I’ve done a reasonable job with feelings..

And I’m convinced that it is feelings – and feelings alone – that account

for the success of the Virgin brand in all of its myriad forms.”

“I never, ever thought of myself as a businessman. I was interested in

creating things I would be proud of.”

Richard Branson

Passion

Paul Nelson and Dan Ratner

Question: What is the primary difference between the top 20% and the middle 70%.Answer: “Passion, they care more, they want to win more. Passion. It’s always the difference. Passion” Jack Welch - ex Global CEO GE

In Summary…

• Companies act just like people when it comes to evaluating products or services

• B2B buyers are overwhelmed with myriad logical choices, features, benefits, information, data, metrics – parity and clutter.

• Along with explicit rational criteria, a powerful irrational impulse is always present to influence the purchase decision.

• A strong brand with an effective positioning strategy speaks to and taps into the totality of these buyer needs.

• Brand matters when supplier teams are doing business with buyer teams. Through effective internal branding efforts, the brand becomes the “glue” that binds the supplier culture and organization together

Businesses like consumers want to make an easy, safe and right choice.

“Brand” becomes their compass for navigating the purchase process.