Brand vs. Brand Relationship: Let’s Not Confuse Them
Last night on our weekly PR 2.0 chat on Twitter (anyone can join this weekly chat Wednesdays at 8pm EST. Search on hashtag #pr20cat and join in!), we discussed branding and PR 2.0 and why PR folks (and marketers, that’s a topic on integration for another day!) need to understand branding and how it affects their interactions with constituents (or publics).
If you’ve hung out in social media circles long enough, I am sure you’ve heard “you don’t own your brand, your customers do.” Nothing can be further from the truth and why we need to be very careful with how we phrase this as marketers, consultants, agencies, etc.
FACT: You do own your brand and brand messaging
FACT: You don’t own relationships customers have with your brand
I kicked off by asking people’s definitions of branding and a lot of people responded with a brand relationship definition, which is great but I think it also leads us to, as marketers implementing social media, to want to easily hand over the keys to the castle a little too easily.
For some people it’s a chicken and egg situation. Do you love the logo or the company that produces the product/service first? Vanessa French asked me (paraphrased) “what if your mom gave you Pepsi as a kid, you’d have a relationship with Pepsi (based on emotion).” My response was “what if your mom served you Pepsi in a plastic cup and you never saw the bottle?”
People tend to identify with a brand (i.e. logo, message, etc.) first and then they relate to it. I think it explains why there are so many fake bags (Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Kate Spade, Hermes, etc.) not to mention other products on the market. It’s not that people relate to the company that owns the brand it’s that the brand (in this case a logo) gives them a perception of inclusion without the sting of the price tag. If they truly had a relationship with the brand they would never by fakes. Unfortunately, the perception of others is what spurs on the fakes market.
From “Driving Brand Value” by Tom Duncan & Sandra Moriarty (what I shared during the PR 2.0 chat):
Brand relationship is driven by:
- Trust
- Consistency
- Accessibility
- Responsiveness
- Commitment
- Affinity
- Liking
(Sounds a lot like what we talk about with social media, huh?)
Five Levels of Bonding:
- Awareness
- Identity
- Relationship
- Community
- Advocacy
I think we also tend to mixed up brand perception with branding and brand relationship. My perception of a brand comes after my relationship with the brand. For example:
I bought a Jaguar and it was a piece of junk that could never be fixed. The Jaguar dealer and Jaguar wouldn’t do anything about it. I bought based on the brand (awareness/identity), my relationship was affected by lack of trust, consistency, accessibility, etc. My perception is that Jaguars are bad cars. I am sharing my story (WOM) on my blog (social media).
So, if you are Jaguar’s PR folks and I had consistent blog about this and chatted on forums, you might want to pay attention. I would hope.
The tenets of branding are still viable, but just like everything else with social media they are more visible today and brand relationships and perceptions are out in the open.
But we DO have control over our brand and messaging! You might want to reconsider using “trust” in your brand (logo) or messaging if the case is that the brand relationships and perceptions indicate that you are not an organization to be trusted.
By the way, Driving Brand Value was written in 1997, and yet offers lessons that we still have not learned. It’s available on Amazon starting at $0.38 USD. I suggest you snap up a copy.
Also, grab Integrated Branding by LePla and Parker while you’re at it…
What do you think?
[Image: David Armano]
Tags: 24 Responses to “Brand vs. Brand Relationship: Let’s Not Confuse Them”
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We are living in a world where online search often tells a different story about a brand than the official marketing does.
Distinguishing between the ownership of a brand and its messaging from a brands relationship with its customers makes a tonne of sense.
The message I have taken away from this is we, as marketers have to keep the idea of brand ownership at the front, ensuring a proactive approach. Proactive implies a two way flow. Proactive also implies looking ahead and real-time understanding verses “reactive”.
Taking control and being proactive is our mandate. Sometimes all the talk of “soft” benefits can lead to a loss of positive momentum and proactive brand building. It’s not one or the other, it’s both.
Thanks for the prod.
Alasdair Munn´s last blog ..It is still Marketing
Hi Beth,
I’m so glad you pointed out the difference between a company’s identity and their brand (or a consumer’s perception of the brand).
There’s been a long running debate on just that topic over at #brandchat. Just because people know who you are (identity) doesn’t mean they are loyal to you or would buy your product over a competitor.
@brandingexpert and I had a really interesting conversation about Starbucks. He felt they had a weak brand, but a very strong identity. For me, Starbucks offers the best quality coffee. That is why I continue to go there, even with the lower cost options now available (McDonalds, etc). Starbucks = quality coffee. That’s a great brand, right?
He suggested their brand is weak because if I asked 10 other loyalists, each answer would be different and even Starbucks’ employees would have varying answers. The cafe experience, the service, the groovy music, etc..
Does that confusion eventually lead to a weak brand perception and relationship because the company isn’t focused and consumers aren’t clear? What do you think?
Maria
Beth, great post.
I was really interested to explore the different perspectives I saw in #pr20chat, but I have to say this (the company owning the brand) is the best way of looking at it. The other ways of looking at it, I thought, were just playing with semantics and bending the meaning of the word “branding.”
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I agree with Rex. I’m abit confused with the definition of your case of “brand”, as well as the three “brand” in FACT 1 & 2.
If I’m at what you get at:
Yes, you raised a good point in recognizing that a company cannot own customer’s relationship with its product/brand. By keeping that mind, marketers and PRs can continue to do their part in producing their msgs while knowing they have to “let go” when it comes to how the public would react and interact and embrace whatever ends up being said and done. Or else, they would continue to fill social network with neutral/official/controlled msgs and platforms that people tend to ignore.
Thank you all for sharing.
Agnes in Hong Kong
Interesting article. It’s true that the principles of brands still hold true today, however they carry a much higher level of visibility to the consumer.
The things that really caught my attention of this article were the 5 levels of bonding:
Awareness
Identity
Relationship
Community
Advocacy
I think these levels work in both directions but can either build in a positive or negative light. A negative relationship leads to a squeaky wheel within the community and ultimately that customer advocating against the said product/service.
Glad I found your site!
Travis´s last blog ..Twitter Value: Community or Business?
I went to see U2 in Dublin a few weeks back and stayed in the 4 seasons. I could barely tell you what their visual identity looks like but i could talk all day about the experience – amazing. arguably one of the finest hotels in the world – and nothing to do with their logo (i do know what it looks like – but it wasnt the reason it stood out for me)
7 ps in marketing? only 1 P…PEOPLE. Not logos, not sonic triggers, nothing else. People create experiences that are talked about.
One idiom in marketing, unless you are hitler…treat people the way you would like to be treated
Beth, what a fantastic post and I couldn’t agree more. Organizations own their brands, not the consumers. Brand isn’t a logo or a tagline. Brand is your business. It’s your core distinction in the market and you must provide evidence of that distinction via all functional areas of your company…every day. Brand isn’t simply marketing. Or PR. Brand crosses the entire organization and must be internally adopted and embraced by the entire organization. If it’s not, brand delivery will fall short.
Another book to add to the reading list is Building a Brand-Driven Business: Operationalize Your Brand to Drive Profitable Growth by Scott Davis and Michael Dunn.
@KimBrater
Beth
Very good post. I think at times folks lose track of what branding is and get tied up with the identity and also the fear that they might not continue to own their brand. Certainly they will continue to own it and the messaging however some lose control of it. A pizza place can tell you everday that the have the freshest ingredients and until there is an incident then generally it is not disputed. Once a pie leaves the shop with wilted spinach or brown pineapple, the shop loses control of the customer reaction and a part of the messaging.
Owning and control are 2 different things that probably need to be explained and explored more.
Suzanne/@Lvadgal
Couldn’t agree more. While it is very PC to wax on about how our consumers own our brand, it’s just not true. To think that a marketer introduces a brand to market and then can do nothing to influence perception of that brand seems to indicate a lack of understanding of how brands work and the toolset companies have at their disposal to manage those brands.
@TomMartin
Tom Martin´s last blog ..How much is knowledge worth?
Ok, I’m gonna be the guy that takes issue with the thrust of this post. I’m a huge fan of Beth and Marketing Profs so that’s where this is coming from.
The sentiment about “not owning your brand,” I believe derives from a Neumeier quote: “A brand is not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.” I have to say I still agree with Marty.
Does that mean you should halt all messaging and let customers have the only say? Does that mean you don’t have tools at your disposal for leading yourself out of “brand hell?” No to both. But ownership of brand and messaging is I think more fluid than static and one-sided. If message doesn’t match perception and experience, we’re in trouble, and we’ve lost ownership right there.
I’m not sure its so simple to create markers between brand and brand relationship. They are interconnected. They are more than symbiotic. But I’m a simple country marketer,
so I may be missing something.
Beth, thanks for opening up this conversation. Good stuff!
Craig´s last blog ..Community Banking is a Local Treasure
[...] Beth Harte added an interesting post today on Brand vs. Brand Relationship: Let's Not Confuse ThemHere’s a small readingIf it’s not, brand delivery will fall short. Another book to add to the reading list is Building a Brand-Driven Business: Operationalize Your Brand to Drive Profitable Growth by Scott Davis and Michael Dunn. @KimBrater … [...]
[...] Read this post at: http://www.theharteofmarketing.com/2009/08/brand-vs-brand-relationship-lets-not-confuse-them.html [...]
We’re experiencing a subtle but meaningful shift in the role of a brand manager, and I think your post reveals that shift — namely, that managing brand perceptions and brand relationships is becoming more of a post-market activity.
Before the self-publishing era, the bulk of the brand management process took place BEFORE a brand hit shelves. There was research, logo and tagline concepting, market testing, etc. Careful thought went into developing visual and verbal brand elements that conveyed a brand’s “essence” and brand values/attributes.
That work still exists, but maintaining the link between a brand’s elements and the values it wishes to convey is a more arduous task than it once was. Now, managing brand perception is as much about public relations as it is about branding.
I agree with you that some marketers are too quick to hand over “ownership” of a brand’s perception to the public. Consumers may “own” their perceptions, but the best brand managers are those who nurture relationships with consumers to help influence those perceptions in a positive way.
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Excellent description of the different ways marketers think about “brand.”
It’s unfortunate that there is such a lack of consistency in what marketers mean when discussing that part of marketing.
Since marketers are supposed to be great communicators, you’d think that we’d have this problem solved by now! Glad you’re helping solve it!
Cliff Allen´s last blog ..Turning Marketing Strategy into Marketing Program Plans
Beth, I hadn’t thought of separating the brand and the brand relationship so clearly before. I think this is an especially critical message for those in service industries, such consulting or financial services, where there is no physical “product” that is purchased.
While it is important for service firms to have strong materials (logo, company image, presentation materials, etc.) I think the most important element is the brand relationship as you’ve described, that the clients develop with the company. I think this is where to top service firms shine.
Of your list of brand relationship drivers, I would say that trust and commitment lead the way followed by responsiveness and consistency.
Great post! Very thought provoking.
OK I’m confused, and I am also biased. I’m biased because I believe that marketing today is often synonymous with managing marketing campaigns – promoting stuff rather than helping an organisation manage the whole brand experience.
To me, sending out the “messages” is branding, and branding I think is dead since social media doesn’t need or respond to “messages” and positioning. It’s because of this thought that I can’t find myself agreeing with Scott that “managing brand perception is as much about public relations”. I think that is trying to “manage” the unmanagable – it’s potentially fake and pushing messages which aren’t going to hit fertile ground in the social media.
Of course “brand” is alive, and is very well in many companies.
But what is brand? You gave two sets of characteristics, or hierachies, and they are both useful. I think they overlap in various ways, and as you noted also useful frameworks for thinking about relationships in the social media in general.
I’m preferring to think of “brand” as simply “brand behavior” – holistically, as Kim states. That need to operationalize the brand also fits in with what some of Craig says. And if I am interpreting Craig correctly, translated into my mindset, brand is defined by customers’ experience which is “what THEY say” about how the brand behaves.
Craig also says “if message doesn’t match perception and experience, we’re in trouble, and we’ve lost ownership right there”. Brand does have signals and presence. “Messages” I am not so keen on as a term – it smacks of marketer and PR push. But for sure when the ads and the brand behavior don’t gel then we have zero “brand depth”. Personally, this lack of brand depth has reached plague proportions in say the airline industry and sections of the retail industry in my opinion.
Scott also says “the best brand managers are those who nurture relationships with consumers to help influence those perceptions in a positive way” and that makes sense to me. I put that into “brand” not “branding” because it is not sending “messages” in a marketing or PR sense. It is being part of the behavior – participating and contributing – that’s exactly what we talk about in social media isn’t it.
So this is where I have reached, my perhaps uniformed summary:
1. Brand is brand behavior; Brand promise is the expectation of brand behavior;
2. Therefore brand has to be managed across all touch points, holistically, and this has to be well operationalized;
3. Therefore, where social media is part of the brand behavior it also has to be planned and managed across all touch points, holistically, and this also has to be well operationalized;
4. Most “marketing managers” “marketers” and “marketing” is simply promotion, bankrupt promise, same fake ads, and a complete disconnect from (a) the rest of the organisation, (b) the holistic brand behavior, and (c) brand.
5. Buyers now don’t like the marketing of (4), don’t trust it, don’t believe it, and immediately sense its incongruence with brand behavior and REPORT on this in the social media. That is why I say “branding” a la (4) is dead – and those marketers, the majority, have a big problem as a “profession”.
6. Marketing and brand management, done “properly” in the big picture holistic way as a guardian of brand value, through assuring brand behavior, has a bigger role than even given the advent of social media.
7. But marketing as branding is the walking dead.
Do I have the right end or the wrong end of this brand stick?
Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia
http://www.socialmedia-academy.com.au
Walter Adamson´s last blog ..Social Media Academy first AU Graduates
Beth, I’m going to throw my hat in with your side and the rebels to a degree. Talking about social media as a new channel that redefines branding is like saying telemarketing or radio advertising or PR redefines the whole of marketing. No one communication channel redefines an entire business discipline.
I’d challenge those that say marketing is getting turned on its head by social media to spend 5-20 years in mainstream marketing before they challenge decades of research, statistics, case studies on mass human behaviour.
When Forrester released its research, “The Broad Reach of Social Media” that stated 80% of Americans use social media, you have to go on and really read the Executive Summary to get the context of that 80%, “Now more than four in five US online adults use social media at least once a month, and half participate in social networks like Facebook.”
So with the other 50% that is online once a month not using Facebook (plus 45 age group prefers to make quick check-ins and visit news social media based groups) when does the remaining percent have time to turn branding and marketing on its head? In addition Forrester shows that large groups are not participating in brand related activities, they are social networking – hanging out with friends.
It is clear social media is not a fad and year on year the usership across all ages and demographics is climbing with an average visits of 1 to 5 times per month per person for a matter of minutes per session (split between searches, video usage, browsing and social network visiting). So, who and when are people taking time to redefine branding for the hundreds of millions not engaged in business related social media?
Also consider GFK Retail and Technology released a study in August stating, “87 Percent of Consumers Prefer Face-To-Face Interaction Over Social Network use; 65 Percent State They Do Not See Friends Enough”.
So… before we throw decades of what all the elements of branding are on its head lets keep perspective that SM is definitely a change in how businesses and their consumers interact but as a percentage of the total population participating in discussion the reality is the percentage is fairly small. Don’t worry, one day there will be a report that does an overlay and takes the guess work out of these statistics and suppositions.
Last point Beth… I’m presently writing a book on social media monetization from a marketing perspective. Let me know if you somehow would like to be involved as a quoted resource. I’m writing the book for Pearson, an international publishing group and would like to find a way to quote some of your perspectives. Please contact me by email.
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Beth,
You make some very interesting points, particularly about brand relationships. However, I am a believer that while you have control over your brand to influence perception, and must continually focus to build and consistently market it, your clients/customers own it. I recently posted an article on the topic of brand ownership, touching on the relationship aspect. If you’re interested:
http://robwolfemba.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/your-clients-own-your-brand/
Rob Wolfe
twitter.com/wolferob
Rob Wolfe´s last blog ..Your Clients Own Your Brand