The
purpose of a marketing firm that focuses on brand is to maximize the impact of your marketing investment and drive up your company's total value.
I've yet to meet a CEO or leader who did not feel their job was to drive the growth and value of their company. These folks get this message on the importance of brand value right away.
The objective is to make your brand work the hardest it possibly can. This is because your
brand is independent of the money you have available to support it. So the
greatest single value to be gained from a marketing firm that focuses on brand is the best brand
positioning and communications that your product or service can support on a
sustainable basis.
Look at it this way, both you
and your competitors have a marketing budget.
Your advertising and media
agencies are there to make your money work as hard as it can. They can choose
different media, or schedule the media differently, or have different
advertising and packaging.
But no matter how hard they try, their ability to
increase the power of your marketing investment is limited. This is because it
is your brand that will most determine whether your prospect will choose your
product or that of your competitor.
How is
the brand so different and so important vis a vis your marketing budget? It's
quite simple, really. You might say that your marketing investment is a means to deliver your brand into the minds
of your prospects. But it is what the brand does in the hearts and minds of
your prospects that will determine whether they become your customer, instead
of someone else's.
A brand
is the sum total of all user experience with a particular product or service, building both reputation and future benefit. It's an emotional trigger.
It's the meaning that your product or service can have in the lives of your
prospects. The more meaningful, i.e., the more important the meaning it has,
the more thoroughly it is entrenched in your prospects hearts and minds. This
meaning is what is called positioning in the marketing profession.
Positioning
is the specific location in the emotional and mental map of the prospects mind.
If your brand's positioning has the highest emotional and mental ground in that
map, it is much more likely to endear your product or service to your prospect.
So the
brand is what is delivered into your prospects' hearts and minds, through your
budget, and your other
communications like promotions and packaging. These means can deliver a brand
that works very hard for you, or it can deliver one that doesn't.
Brand is
where the rubber of your efforts meet the road of your prospects hearts and
minds, where their preference for your product or service is determined.
So, when
evaluating or choosing a marketing firm that focuses on brand or an ad agency, you really have only one question. How
powerful can they make my brand, so that it multiplies the power of everything
else I do, like the media I choose, the scheduling pattern I use, the
advertising I use, the promotions I use, and the packaging I use? More simply
put, how much bang can they give to my marketing buck?
Some of
you might be wondering, why do I need a marketing firm that focuses on branding at all? After all, my
advertising agency says they do brand. Good question. But here's the answer.
And it is a very simple one.
Because only a branding firm focuses on brand.
Your advertising agency must sell you the budget, they must sell you the media,
they must sell you the scheduling plan, they must sell you the ad campaign,
they must sell you the ads, the promotions and perhaps, even the packaging. And
it's very easy for the brand to get lost among all these things they have to
sell you.
But you
might say, my ad agency doesn't charge me for any work they do for my brand.
They cover it with the money they make from the advertising budget.
Good point.
Here's a question to consider. Do you want to risk the most powerful single
point in your marketing effort, the only one that can make the difference
between your million bucks working as hard as five million bucks - just to save
a few hundred thousand bucks?
You get the point.
In a
nutshell. You need a marketing firm that focuses on brand.
It is your best way toward making sure you get the most bang out of your marketing investment and build brand value which equals company value increases.