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Branding is for Cattle

As a marketing term branding is a misunderstood and over emphasized concept in technology businesses. By David Meerman Scott

Marketers are a bunch of flaky wimps.

I have been speaking with many technology company CEOs recently—something like 50 in the past three months while on the speaking circuit and as part of research I am doing into how great technology companies build products and develop go-to-market strategies. Many CEOs tell me that the way marketing tends to happen in technology companies is ineffective. Some CEOs say that within the management teams and employees at companies they have worked in, marketers are focused on the wrong things. They are not aligned with the goals of the business. Yes, some CEOs tell me that marketers are a bunch of flaky wimps.

Hold on there. Why is that?

Branding.

When I see "brand" as a focus of technology company marketers I want to puke. A brand is what is burned into the side of a cow's butt. As a marketing term branding is a misunderstood and over emphasized concept in technology businesses. Marketers prattling on about the brand confuse the CEO so its no wonder marketing doesn't command respect in these companies. While the rest of the organization is focused on metrics and revenue and ROI and reaching buyers, these ineffective marketers are worried about how the T-shirts look.

Marketers who obsess about brand usually focus on aesthetics over buyers. They are more interested in the color scheme of the Web site than in meeting their buyers' needs with a content marketing strategy. They care about logos not buyers. They research color schemes instead of the market. Countless marketers got their knickers in a twist about the outward manifestation of an organization's brand--including logos, image ads, and tchotchkes--all at the expense of buyers and what they need to understand the company -- especially the content found on the company’s site. Well, they are flaky wimps if that's what they do.

What's really at stake—in fact what branding's really about—is a focus on the buyer. As each buyer builds an emotional response to a company, that emotion becomes the brand-image for that person. Fortunately, some great marketers understand that the provision of quality Web content does more to build brand than pretty logos, cool Web design, and hip color choice.

Our challenge as marketers becomes taking that understanding and selling it to the CEO and the management team in terms that they understand, like ROI and dollars and cents.

David Meerman Scott is an online thought leadership and viral marketing strategist, and the programs he has developed have won numerous awards and are responsible for selling more than one billion dollars worth of products and services worldwide. He is the author of the number-one best-selling PR and marketing book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing & online media to reach buyers directly, and has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong. He has presented at industry conferences and events in more than 20 countries on four continents. Check out his blog at www.webinknow.com.

Branding in technology companies

Posted by Ian Mapp at 2008-01-18 01:19 PM
Whilst I agree that marketers often believe that brand identity is the same as brand, this tone of this article suggests that it is an either/or situation. Surely, a great brand is built with great content and a great visual identity? Isn't it a question of balancing all of the elements of a brand building - emphasizing different aspects for different audiences when communicating with others?

bravo!

Posted by Chris Barlow at 2008-01-18 01:19 PM
Excellent article, and great point of view. I like your point about obsessing on colors and tones and t-shirts, when you should be focusing on communicating content through various touch points. Good work.

genuine branding

Posted by Don Jarrell at 2008-01-18 03:25 PM
I agree wholeheartedly with the distinction David is making, but I wish he did not throw out the baby with the bathwater. When a marketeer - or consultant - says "I'm going to establish your brand" and they proceed to talk about messages, media placement, and other optics, the Product Manager should run away, or at least quietly think about something more productive.

Brand, and I'm now talking about GENUINE brand, is the link to a valid prediction by a customer of his or her experience in doing business (product or service) with the holder of the brand. That is accomplished by *fulfilling* promises consistently, not making promises, no matter how cute, splashy or expensive.

Interesting that David uses the connection to cattle branding, because I also use it when I am presenting or talking with clients. What really mattered with a cattle brand was not the stylish symbol, but the very believable promise that rustlers of cattle with certain brands would be unflaggingly hunted down, hanged AND burned. Certainly a meaningful motivator in making an acquisition decision.

Branding Iron - or Toasting Fork?

Posted by Bob Apollo at 2008-01-21 03:51 AM
David is bang-on. In B2B marketing, in particular, brand reputation is more likely to be built through dialogue, not broadcast. It starts with a website that relates to the potential buyer's role and interests, not the vendor's history or product features.

But in the classic B2B complex sale, brand reputation comes in some large measure from trust. Having talked to a growing number of B2B buyers to try and better understand the "buyers journey", the vendor's ability to educate and inform seems to be a key determinant of trust, and therefore brand reputation.

And it's not just the responsibility of marketing, or the website - a buyer's interaction with the human beings that represent the vendor is pivotal. I think Booz Allen did a study that suggested 85% of the brand reputation came from their interaction with the vendor's staff.

By the way, I used "brand reputation" deliberately rather than just brand, because it seems to me that reputation is what it really ought to be about, not the colour of the logo, or the feebleness of the tagline or, Gawd help me, the quality of the mugs.

Making Technology Branding Work

Posted by Eran LIvneh at 2008-01-21 03:51 AM
I agree that the notion of branding in the context of technology marketing is often misunderstood. At the same time, dismissing branding altogether is the easy way out. Branding is still important; the challenge is finding a way to make it relevant in the context of technology marketing. You can find some ideas at http://www.imakenews.com/marketcapture/index000058429.cfm#a289506.

Brand identity misunderstood

Posted by Rannie B at 2008-02-27 12:39 PM
I'm sorry to say David that your article seemed to me to be a clear misunderstanding on your part of what brand identity is. This possibly coming about from some bad experiences with marketers your subjects have had. It's also worth noting that your research subjects are not usually known for grasping the finer points or marketing or communication theories ;).

Brand identity is a complex (not complicated) subject and covers many facets including some far reaching psychological ones. It is also important to not mix up B2B and B2C environments when one is addressing the relative importance of brand identity in the success of a product.

My many years as a Product and Product marketing Director have convinced me that a good brand identity, although it will definitely not make your product, will definitely boost the entire product curve along for B2C products (and parts of it for B2B products).

I hope you get the chance to read up and/or talk to folks who are in the know about brand identity (a good example would be the folks from the Identica service at Cossette Communications). This may actually lead you to someday, perhaps, realize that marketers are not ALL a bunch of flaky wimps ;).

Cheers!


Can I come work for YOU?

Posted by Lynnette Reese at 2008-03-31 01:08 PM
As a marketer in my third semiconductor company, I have seen different flavors of marketing emphasis. I am now in a position where my upline seems to think that marketing is all about neon signs and bright lights. IT IS NOT.
Technical Marketing is a serious business where the point is to get the customer through the sales process without them even realizing it. Web sites should be able to serve up relevant content in a well-organized fashion for a no-touch approach. The color of the t-shirts and the "cool" stuff is quite secondary. Fun, but secondary.

Companies don't exist for long without revenue. Technical Marketing is not about attracting new customers as much as it should be about keeping the ones you have got. It's far less expensive, and customers love you for listening to them about what they need, want and would like to have. What's the point of being flashy about vapor-ware? If it can't do the job, it won't sell anyway.

Good marketing is about the fundamentals of communicating effectively to customers and sales, creating relevant products, and squeezing as much as one can out of a marketing budget.
Technical marketing is very different from marketing, say...underwear. Branding for underwear may be critical to keeping a place in the market. But technical marketing is all about demonstrating the effectiveness of the product to the right customer - there is nothing sexy about a chip on the face of it.

Speak effectively about what the chip can do, to the correct target audience, and you have a sale. If this were not true, then we would long ago have begun making IC packages in primary colors like the iPOD and the MAC and extracting a higher price for that "added value."

Get real, guys....branding is a secondary exercise at best in Technical Marketing!

Find me on LinkedIn: Lynnette Reese