Answer These 3 Questions To BOOST Brand Preference

In the US, we habitually jump right to the answer.

We forget the value of stopping to ask questions. The value in spending time exploring the questions. And ignore the fact that our answers can only be as good as the questions we ask.

Questions force us to take different perspectives.

They stop us from automatically reacting.

But not all questions are created equal.

And it’s necessary to ensure we’re asking the right questions.

This week's newsletter focuses on three branding questions that I’ve found are critical for increasing preference—and market share—for your brand.

1. Where Is the Market Moving?

Conrad Hilton almost lost it all during the Great Depression.

80% of hotels went out of business. And Hilton's hotels were on the verge of being another casualty.

But Hilton knew that once the Great Depression was over, there would be a travel boom. That he could be perfectly positioned to take advantage of it if he could make it through.

He believed a bright future was ahead.

Hilton:

• Got loans.

• Merged with another company.

• Avoided defaulting on his loans.

It looked like he’d make it out.

However, his partners in the merger refused to uphold the agreement, and Hilton lost control of his hotels.

He worked to gain them back, one by one.

And when the Great Depression ended, the boom came.

Hilton’s holdings helped propel him to become the first international hotel chain.

Hilton knew where the market would move and did everything to be in a position to take advantage of it.

Figuring out where the market is headed is something marketers often miss.

They spend a lot of time analyzing where the customers were and where the customers are.

However, they spend little time understanding where the larger market forces will push customers tomorrow.

All the focus is on the present. None on the future.

When I consulted with Kohl’s on marketing strategy during the Great Recession, we spent a lot of time answering the question, “Where is the market moving?”

Making educated guesses and planning alternate scenarios led Kohl’s to beat its main competitors coming out of the Great Recession.

Macy’s and JCPenney pulled back their marketing efforts. They were hesitant to invest in an uncertain environment.

At Kohl’s, we doubled down on serving budget-conscious customers.

We knew that when the Great Recession ended, the budget-conscious customer would be looking for places to spend their money in a smart way.

We:

• Positioned Kohl’s to be that place.

• Invested more in marketing.

• Didn’t let up.

And when the time came for them to resume spending, Kohl’s won.

Kohl’s overtook JCPenney and Macy’s in market share and increased their revenue by $790 million the year after the Great Recession.

Although it’s important to know where your customers are, it’s essential to understand where the market forces are pushing your customers.

It’s too easy to get left behind if you get stuck in the present and don’t look ahead.

Ask:

“Where Is The Market Moving?”

And then figure out how you can meet your customers there.

2. What Should We Be Trusted For?

Brands are not built in boardrooms.

Brands are built one customer interaction at a time.

Over time.

Not instantly.

Brands are measures of trust. And trust doesn't happen overnight. It accumulates.

A brand says to a customer, "You can trust us to solve this problem for you, always."

The strength of your brand is the strength of that trust.

And when brands break that trust, they also fail one customer interaction at a time.

Any brand strategy that doesn't seek to accumulate trust over time is not a brand strategy.

Not every brand needs to be trusted for everything.

And not every brand needs to be trusted for the same thing.

But every brand has to be trusted for something.

Without that trust, you fail to do something fundamental to branding: improve preference.

Because it's impossible to prefer something that doesn't consistently deliver what it claims.

Branding increases the likelihood that a customer will choose you. It increases the likelihood that they prefer you.

Preference starts with trust.

It’s something that almost every agency that promotes rebrands misunderstands.

Their rebrands look like fancy design projects with clever copy.

They act like one campaign will instantly change how customers think and feel about a brand.

But brands aren’t built that way.

Trust builds brands.

And trust accumulates over time.

It’s not instant.

So, when building your brand, ask:

"What should we be trusted for?"

Figure that out. And constantly reinforce it.

Because without that trust, your brand is only a boardroom pipedream.

It doesn’t exist where it counts: with your customers.

3. How Will Customers Respond?

It's easy to think you know better than your customers.

You:

• Spend all day working in your company.

• See the data.

• Live and breathe it.

But you're not your customer.

You may have created a powerful message.

Everyone in the company may go googly-eyed over it.

But the ad may be for you. Not your customers.

Just because you like an ad doesn't mean customers will respond how you want.

Building ads from customer insights is a great start. But it's just a start.

Most companies:

• Gather insights.

• Hold a brainstorm.

• Make a decision.

• Flesh out an ad.

• Refine an ad.

• Approve it.

But almost every company forgets to do one thing: They forget to ask how the customer will respond.

Aside from using customer insights to set the context initially, most companies don't bring the customer back into the decision-making process.

They filter the ad through their eyes.

Not the customers' eyes.

A lot of ineffective ads (ads that don’t sell or change preference) would be avoided by taking the time to take the customers' perspectives.

So, next time you're developing an ad, take time along the way to ask:

"How will the customers respond?"

You can build it into your agenda.

Or, you can do what Amazon does and leave an empty chair to represent the customer in a meeting.

Without that perspective, you can never accurately judge the potential of your ad.

Onward

Putting the customer first is key when it comes to branding.

Today’s questions help ensure that you keep them at the center of all your decision-making:

Where Is the Market Moving?

What Should We Be Trusted For?

How Will Customers Respond?

P.S. If you need help building a process that ensures everyone in your organization always puts the customer first, just respond to this email, and I’ll help you get started.

Bonus: David Ogilvy's Little-Known Thoughts on Branding

Last week, I had my most popular LinkedIn post since August.

So, I thought I’d share what seemed to resonate with the LinkedIn crowd:

Here it is:

David Ogilvy did not believe in the long-term effects of advertising.

But, over time, he changed his mind. And this article helped.

When Ogilvy gave a talk to the American Association of Advertising Agencies in October 1955, he confessed:

“I used to deride advertising men who talked about long-term effect. I used to accuse them of hiding behind long-term effect. I used to say that they used long-term effect as an alibi—to conceal their inability to make any single advertisement profitable.”

He didn’t stop believing that every ad needed to be effective.

But he did start to believe ads also had long-term effects.

An article published by Burleigh Gardner and Sidney Levy seven months before Ogilvy gave his talk significantly affected his attitudes toward long-term branding.

He quoted it in his talk:

“Every advertisement is part of the long-term investment in the personality of the brand.”

Here are 7 big takeaways from Gardner and Levy’s article:

1. Brands are built by all the interactions customers have with the brand

“It is a complex symbol that represents a variety of ideas and attributes. It tells the consumers many things , not only by the way it sounds (and its literal meaning if it has one) but, more important, via the body of associations it has built up and acquired as a public object over a period of time.”

2. Every decision can influence the perception of the brand

“Knowingly, or not, management makes this decision. … To illustrate: Some time ago a less sophisticated advertising man wanted to know why it was that instant coffee had come to be regarded as an inferior substitute when it was originally thought of an expensive concentrate. It did not occur to him that his own agency had for a long time been instrumental in offering a brand of instant coffee with constant emphasis on savings, bargains, deals, economies.”

3. A brand isn’t what you say it is

“It is not enough for management to say to itself, ‘Of course we want a favorable brand image. So having decided we want one that will appeal to all groups, that will have all good qualities and no negative ones, let’s tell the world this is what we are.’ … For management to be able to handle this problem effectively, it should evaluate its brand’s current public image, the difference seen by different important consumer groups, and the images of competitive brands. otherwise, it does not know just what it is working against, what limitations in image must be overcome, and what strengths it has to build on.

4. Brands don’t exist separate from business goals

“Understanding the brand problems and the manufacturer’s goals (and remember that his objective is not always just to sell the most goods the quickest) is a basic requirement.”

5. Every ad must sell. But its selling power isn’t determined by that ad alone

“In many advertising conferences someone will ask: “Which of these campaigns will sell the most packages?” This is not an irrelevant question, certainly, since presumably advertising that does not sell is unproductive. Nevertheless, a single campaign is not the manufacturer’s only salesman, and he usually intends to remain in business for many following years. From this point of view it is more profitable to think of an advertisement as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image—as part of the long-term investment in the reputation of the brand.”

6. Product categories set limits on brands

“Basic attitudes toward products may set limits on the kind of image that might be developed or in the kinds of satisfactions that the product image may imply. Or a given brand may have such a strong image in some respects that it is more feasible to accept these than to change them.”

7. Reasons people give for their preferred brand are similar across a category

“For one thing, the reasons people usually give for using a product are inclined to be either strongly rationalized or related to the product’s more obvious purposes…. Thus you find drinkers of any brand of beer justifying their preference in identical terms: “Millers is better because it’s dry,” “I like a dry beer, so I prefer Bud to Millers.”

Gardner and Levy’s article is just as relevant today as it was in 1955.