Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense about Branding

Citation

Paswan, A. (2005), "Brand Babble: Sense and Nonsense about Branding", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 211-212. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610420510601094

The book starts with questions such as: “Who owns the brand?”, “Why do firms engage in branding exercise?”, “How much does branding cost?”, and “How does one estimate the worth of a brand?”. The starting premise of the book is that brands are supposed to make money for the brand owner, and they are “identifiable by both the buyers and the sellers and creates value for both” (p. 14). This does not mean charging high price; for instance, “Wal‐Mart grew to be the 800‐pound gorilla of the retailing world, not by charging more, but by charging less” (p. 17). Legally, a brand is owned by the seller, but in reality the ownership issues is not so simple. After a quick tour of branding history (starting in the 1930s with P&G, Unilever and FMCG brands), the authors argue that because of marketplace changes, the old branding laws do not apply as well as they used to. For one reason or the other, the notion of brand loyalty or commitment has changed. “Today, the consumer doesn't want to ‘own’ the brand. That's too much of a commitment. They just want to ‘borrow’ the brand, use it, and then, in many cases, trade it off for something else. Or, at worse, return it to the market for another model” (p. 24).

This is particularly crucial for people‐based brands, e.g. banks, hotels, restaurants, dot.com firms, etc. These “brand's personality is more often defined by how real, living, breathing employees serve customers, not by some ad agency creative team trying to create a fictional ‘Never‐Never’ land” (p. 26). Herein lies the headache for brand managers of today's day and age – people are not consistent, nor are they infallible. However, if understood and harnessed well, these brand elements cannot be copied or owned by the competitor, and they are truly unique to one brand. In summary, a brand is owned by the owner but nurtured by several stakeholders. In addition, brand is a shared value because it's built on a base of relationships” (p. 29).

However, brand equity is not everlasting and changes with time. The key to successful branding is to start with a sound business model, differentiation based on meaningful value proposition, and delivering what is truly important to consumers. Only then should one entertain a discussion about advertising and promotion‐related issues

Yet, the authors suggest that our current concepts and related research philosophy is somewhat arcane. Most of the theoretical foundation is based on the works of Pavlov (conditioned behavior) and Skinner (effect of repetition on behavior). These cause‐and‐effect models that led to paradigms such as DAGMAR are too simplistic and static, and they do not link the psychological constructs to brand return. Focusing primarily on the attitudinal change, they do not answer the “Why?” question.

The authors suggest that the “cognitive models better describe how the brain, the mind, and the people work” (p. 55). These truly capture the dynamic nature of consumer thinking, motivation, and behavior, and suggest that a brand is: “what it delivers on a regular basis, not on what it promises. Brand promises are nice for brand marketers, but brand experiences are what drive continuous sales” (p. 56). The authors also criticize the much used (and abused) learning or “S curve” by arguing, “Learning and doing are two different things” (p. 57). Plus, consumers multitask and get their information from multiple sources.

If brands are relationships, then relationship marketing should be seen as a crucial tool. Relationships are based on “personal contacts, conversations, dialogs, and ongoing experiences, not marketer‐initiated and delivered monologues, sell‐ups, or sell‐ons” (p. 65). However, the current technology‐driven CRM practices leave much to be desired. The authors argue that “Relationships are not computer‐generated, no matter how sophisticated the software or how exotic the customer classification schemes” (p. 66).

On to the topic of positioning, Schultz and Schultz argue that it suffers from similar problems associated with the extant advertising models – rooted in stimulus‐response models and not on the more recent thoughts using cognition, neural network, and multitasking. “Brain is a network of loosely related concepts, ideas, experiences and the like that are constantly changing, being re‐arranged, distorted, adapted, brought back together, reorganized and the like” (p. 74). Positioning assumes that there a slot in consumer's mind that can be filled, and once filled will remain so until it is dislodged. The authors argue that Vaughn's “think‐feel‐do” model is a better way of developing an outside‐in approach.

So how do brands take on a brand personality? The answer is controlled creativity: “Creative implementation should always be focused on the product or service being promoted and on the customers” (p. 81). A crucial question to ask is why consumers should buy or use or enjoy the offered brand, and the authors offer a list of bewares in branding (p. 87).

Regarding globalization, the authors point that, “Not every brand is going to see global sales. But, it does mean that every brand is competing in a global marketplace” (p. 89). “It's not where the brand is sold that counts, it's where the brand is known. And what the brand is known for and at what level” (p. 90). The authors next tackle new brand‐launch and argue that reputation and trust are crucial. A significant question is: What will the new product replace? New brands must make friends (soul mates) and not just acquaintances.

So how much does branding cost? Brand building does not necessarily mean big investment. The key managerial question is not how much one can spend on brand building, but what the value offer is, how to make that offer to potential consumers, what will be the returns, and then how much is needed to get the returns. The authors suggest that a better way of looking at brand equity is “attitudinal, behavioral, and financial  … ” (p. 114). Instead of bothering about opportunity to see, brand managers should concentrate on brand contacts and touch points. Instead of focusing on top‐of‐the mind awareness, day after recall, knowledge, and preference; managers should link these metrics to consumer behavior, which then can be used to identify and determine the returns from brand investment. Schultz and Schultz argue that: “brand is nothing more than an ongoing relationship in which a customer exchanges financial value with the marketing organization for the use of the benefits the brand provides” (p. 141). “The simple rule for brand budgeting is to invest in your brands based on what you expect to get back, not what you can afford or what you have always done  … ” (p. 146). In summary the authors suggest that brands and branding decisions must be given the same attention as capital investment, and hence move to a board room level.

All in all, this is a good book that raises some pertinent questions for brand managers. I feel that this book should be used to provide counterpoints to conventional wisdom in a brand management class. It could be a good supplemental reading.