The biggest task in brand-building is being able to say “no”!
It is said that BMW has recieved thousands of complaints/suggestions regarding their back seat being to tight. “As provocative as it sounds, the biggest task in brand-building is being able to say “no”, said the CEO of BMW, Helmut Panke.
So what’s going on? Is the worlds second most powerful car brand saying “no” to their customers and yet they are worth more than Mercedes and Volkswagen together? What happened to “listen to your customers”?
David Oglivy once said “Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes a genius, faith, and perseverance to create a brand”. Every brand is built with experiences. The key is to craft those experiences so they create delight for the people who determine the meaning and value of your brand – your customers.
People from any type of business must understand the fact that “marketing is a crucial part of the product itself”, as Steve Jobs once said. I would like to say that “marketing must radiate the inner soul of the product itself”. So marketing is nothing separate from the product. If your product is good, but your marketing is bad, then your whole business will be very bad! And very interestingly, if your marketing is really good, but your product is “so so”, then your business will still be very good.
It all depends on the message and emotional experience of the customer. Why is “simple and easy” good for business? Why do we say “less is more”? Why is the Web 2.0 giving us less colors and buttons to play with? What are the neurological foundations for these facts?
Well the equation, in a nutshell, is simple: the faster the brain understands a message or function, the more it will like it. Attraction between a message and a customer is thus build on simplicity, not complexity. If you find yourself using commas or “ands” to write your tagline, you may need more focus!
Have you though about your name recently? You don’t want to change it? Isn’t too long and too complex, which makes it hard to remember? I know that my boss will kill me if he read this but according to neuromarketing research a name such as “Huddle” is more attractive to the human mind than “Projectplace International”. It all comes down to the essence and power of simplicity.
The human mind is very energy efficient and thus environmentally friendly. It want to use as little energy as possible so it always looks for the simpler stuff in this world. Complex names like “Personal Media Devices” or “Projectplace” will sooner or later be shortened to “PMD” and “PP”. This is not a deliberate act, but an automatic one. Created by the brains algorithms.
When Albert Einstein said “everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler”, he was talking to marketers. They just don’t know that. In fact, he didn’t say that to marketers, but the same principle goes through mathematical equations in theoretical physics and brand development. Any complex mathematical equation is not regarded as good, by heavy weight mathematicians like Einstein. The same goes for brand gurus!
Remembers this. Every strong brand is built by a community and nothing else. A brand is not created from functions, ROI or turnover. You need to focus on building a community around your company to make it a powerful brand that people will talk about and love, not just use. Think of yourself as a woman. Are you a beloved wife or just a prostitute being used by thousands of customers? The latter is making money, and if your are happy with that then good for you, but if you want to make even more money and at the same time be loved by your customers, then try to be the first one. A beloved wife.
