Created | Updated Oct 3, 2003
Brands... A Brand New World
Marketing1 people want to persuade you to buy things. Brands help them do this more effectively. They will tell you that a brand is a clever way of giving a product2 or service3 a clearer identity and associating it with a particular type of lifestyle or quality. Everyone else will tell you that brands are a clever way of getting people to pay lots more money for a product or service without good reason.
What is a brand?
Most people think a logo is a brand. In fact a logo is merely a recognisable and distinctive image designed to physically represent the brand and its characteristics. It could be said that the logo is the iceberg tip. It’s the bit you see just as your ship ploughs into all the much more important bits behind, or beneath it. So what is a brand?
Even marketing gurus struggle to agree a clear definition, so it would be facile to try to claim a definitive description here. However, in broad terms, the brand represents the whole associated identity, image and lifestyle that accompany the product. It is the associated elements that appeal to the buyer’s emotional responses. However, for simple clarity, one of the definitions in the first paragraph, selected according to your personal view of marketing and marketeers, is as good as any.
Get Hold Of Your Emotions!
The phrase “buyers emotional response” above is, in fact critical. It comes as a shock to realise that the vast majority of purchases are largely the result of an emotional response. A good example is the motivation behind the purchase of a car. For most people a car is the second largest purchase – after a house – made in a lifetime. We would like to think therefor that we approach such an important purchase on the basis of logic. A cool assessment of properties and qualities, comparing the provision of airbags, anti-lock breaks and cruise control to select the car that best suits our needs. We’d like to think this, but unfortunately it’s a load of tosh. Of course, basic practical elements are considered – in most cases the 41 year-old father of three goes no further than gazing longingly at the two-seater sports car – but deep down – if we are honest with ourselves, we buy a car because we like the look of it. I’m afraid you’ll have to admit it, the reality is you bought your last car because you thought it would make you look good when you wear it4. Every purchase is, to a greater or lesser extent, based on a similar emotional decision-making process. From baked beans to cars it’s the same. Emotion is the primary driver behind the purchase decision. Silly and embarrassing isn’t it?
We’re All Complete Mugs
The really silly and embarrassing thing about brands is how susceptible most people are, despite their best efforts to be logical and sensible. The really good brands can easily persuade otherwise perfectly sensible buyers to pay four or five times the amount of a very similar non-branded product. Take the example of fizzy children’s drinks. A large bottle of a supermarkets’ own label drink is likely to cost 20 – 30p. The same bottle of the branded drink may be £1.20 – £1.40. Does this mean the branded product is that much better? Of course not. People try to justify buying the branded product on the grounds that it tastes so much nicer. Yet how can this be? Taste is a personal thing unique to each taster. It cannot be quantified in this way. The real reason people buy the branded product is because they wish to be associated with the happy-go-lucky, vital and beautiful lifestyle they see in the adverts for the product. Although not many people are likely to admit it.
The Great Brand Robbery.
Often people justify purchase on the basis that the brand indicates high quality. In some cases this may be so but in most cases its just nonsense. In fact, it is not unusual that the expensive branded product and the cheap no-branded product are exactly the same product. Only the packaging is different. This happens when those clever marketing chaps realise that they have been a bit too clever. Yes, they have persuaded some people to pay a ridiculous amount for their branded product, but then realise they are not selling to a whole sector of the market that simply can’t afford to pay this price. So they repackage some of the product and sell it to these people much cheaper. My word, we are mugs aren’t we?
Brand Monster Eats Everything In Its Path
You can see it would not be unfair to claim that brands are a pretty clever con trick. Yet they are very successful. They work. We all fall for it. So whereas in the past, brands tended to be limited to obvious “lifestyle” products like clothes and cars, the brand disease is spreading to all sorts of products. There are building companies that have managed to brand their homes successfully. So having a “so-and-so” home is a sign of a successful life and particular lifestyle. This has enabled those builders to get people to pay rather more for them than the otherwise would. I have a daughter who is convinced we should buy a particular brand of toilet paper (she’s seen the adverts). It’s so much softer on the bottom. In my own village we have a pizza take-away shop (set up by a local restaurant) which for our purposes lets say is called “Demitri’s”. Fifty yards away is another pizza takeaway shop that sells far better pizzas at something around 25-30% cheaper than the Dimitri’s pizzas. Yet many people consistently buy “Dimitri’s pizzas. You will hear people in the village say, not “ We had a take-away pizza last night”, but “ We had a Dimitri’s last night”.
Where Will It All End?
Many brands are now global. They are conquering the world sweeping aside all cultural and local aesthetic considerations. It’s basically about economies of scale. If the same product can be supplied in the same packaging throughout the world, not only does it aid brand recognition, it also means it can be mass-produced in huge volumes, thus minimising production cost and maximising efficiency. Isn’t it reassuring to know that if you find yourself in Moscow, Kabul or Tumbouctou you can go into burger bar and eat the same burger and drink the same fizzy drink that you can buy in London or New York? How dreadful it would be if one was forced to sample local culture and food.
And brands are now springing up in every variety of product and service. Banks have brands. Paints have brands. Where will it end? Perhaps you can look forward to hearing your friends say,
“Oh yes, we had our plumbing done by “Plumb World”. Expensive I know, but so much better …”
or
“I’m having the lawn done by “Tuffgrow”. It grows so much quicker and is far greener than the cheaper seed…”
Won’t it be fun..?
Notes
1. Marketing is the process of identifying market, a need within that market and profitably supplying a product to meet that need.
2. A product is something people buy because it meets a need or want they have.
3. A service is like 2 above, but has no physical being and is used up or consumed immediately
4. If you need proof of this, look at advertisements for cars. Do they feature scientific assessment of the cars’ properties and features? No, they feature unfeasibly attractive people looking cool as the drive the car through stunningly attractive scenery.
