LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE
There's an entire body of work, based on an entire school of thought, that branding is a flaming load of BS.
Branding is all about one thing: attracting customers so you can separate them from their hard earned cash.
But why stop there? In the end, ALL advertising is little more than a form of legalized deception, right?
Read any of the surveys of consumer attitudes towards advertising.
They say that a majority of people don't trust advertising.
They think that, in terms of respectability, an advertising professional is on par with a wart-nosed carny shouting at the entrance to a midway freak show.
And in the end, these consumers believe ANY kind of marketing is an exercise in lying through one's teeth in order to attract customer.
HOW MANY OF THESE PEOPLE WENT IN SWINGING ON BLACK FRIDAY?
Yes, advertising is a low profession predicated on abject greed, avarice and deceit.
But there's nothing wrong with breaking down the doors of a Best Buy and trampling one's fellow man to save a few bucks on a 60-inch TV.
Not that I have any proof of this. I'm just sayin'.
So, what has inspired this venting of spleen?
Frankly, it was reading the most recent entry in a seemingly endless progression of pundits wagging their virtual tongues against brand-based marketing.
It steams me.
The punditry can be annoying.
But not as annoying as the brands that actually commit the crimes against marketing integrity that fuel the punditry.
Because yes: there are indeed some advertisers whose marketing brings into question the integrity of all marketing.
See also: any huge company that promises you a better experience that it is incapable of delivering.
(Hey, airlines, are you listening?)
TRUTH IN ADVERTISING IS NOT AN OXYMORON
Nor is truth in branding.
In fact, most businesses thrive only if they have repeat business.
Therefore, it's arguable that truth in advertising is essential to the survival of a business.
Without truth in branding and advertising, the end result is failure.
Because if you promise something you can't deliver, you lose.
Misrepresent who you are and what you sell, and ultimately, you will fail.
But, if your goal is failure--if you've set up a company with the idea you will fleece as many prospects as possible before going bankrupt--well, this screed is not for you. You have many more problems of a much greater ethical nature than we can possibly address in this wretched weekly harangue.
No, we're talking here about people who are trying to do the right thing.
The kind of advertising that I practiced for over a decade at national radio network, and the kind of brand-based marketing that we proffer from Slow Burn Marketing, always was and always will be based on exactly one thing: essential truth.
The essential truth not just of what the advertiser is selling, but the essential truth of who the advertiser is.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE LONG-TERM HEALTH WITHOUT ESSENTIAL TRUTH
There have been times in my career when I've seen people trying to advertise a business that was incapable of delivering on its promise.
As advertisers, they were not yet ready to take their message to the public.
Yet, they insisted. And sales managers, being what they are, were happy to enable it. (That's a whole other rant for another time.)
These advertisers were good people with good ideas--but they were fooling themselves.
And do you know what happened when they tried to sell their businesses to the public?
That's right: the public wasn't fooled, either.
The advertisers wasted a lot more money advertising a business upon which they'd already spent a lot of money.
That great sucking sound is never more pronounced than it is when it happens in a local radio station to a small business with shallow pockets.
UNLESS ONE IS A CON ARTIST, IT'S NOT AS EASY TO FOOL PROSPECTS AS ONE MIGHT THINK
It's much easier for advertisers to fool themselves.
They can fool themselves into believing they're ready to serve the public.
They can fool themselves into believing their business is Mecca for whatever they sell.
They can fool themselves into believing that whatever is causing their advertising to fail, it has little to do with themselves.
What they can't do is fool customers.
Customers can smell the rot of ineptitude, delusion and dishonesty.
Is that harsh?
Possibly.
But then, so is spending thousands or even millions of dollars in an effort to convey an untruth.
BECAUSE IF YOU MAKE A PROMISE UPON WHICH YOU CAN'T DELIVER, THEY WON'T BUY IT
Your brand must convey the essential truth about your business.
That truth, especially in a small business, reflects the attitude of whomever is at the top.
Any business with whom we work understands this. They're already practicing it to some degree. What Slow Burn Marketing brings is focus, refinement and packaging to that sensibility.
But it's not unique to us, our clients, or small business.
You can see it in successful big businesses, as well.
Wendy's is still a reflection upon its late patron and founder, Dave Thomas.
Southwest is still the emobodiment of Herb Kelleher's no-frills, "We are the low-cost airline" directive.
Virgin Atlantic and its line extensions are all a reflection of their edgy and adventurous founder, Sir Richard Branson.
BRANDING AND ADVERTISING CAN BE BASED IN DISHONESTY AND DECEIT
But you will never see a good company do it.
The ones who do it are dysfunctional. Dysfunctional businesses that deliver dishonest messages will always limp along until they die.
The really big ones will become fodder for late-night TV comedians.
And they will be the businesses whose advertising creates legions of consumer cynics who believe advertising is the province of grifters and thieves.
In the meantime, the smart marketers, the ones who understand brand and can convey the brand through emotionally-evocative and benefit-driven messages, they'll be something else.
They'll be the success stories.
They'll make money.
And they'll be the ones whose advertising makes the consumer cynics say, "Oh, well, that's not the advertising I was talking about. That's a business I like."
Branding and advertising are all BS.
Until they're not.
And all of us here? We win.
|
