There are two catalysts for this post: Chris Dixon’s recent tweet that said
“Does anyone really want to have a “conversation with brands”? I I want my relationship to Starbucks limited to buying coffee.”
And Doc Searls post which proclaimed that
“Brands are Bull.”
Two bright guys whose views I respect, but I must heartily disagree with both of them.
When it comes to conversations, and specifically those conversations that are deemed valuable, I believe the overriding issue is authenticity. People tend to be pretty good at discerning who is real and who is merely a self-promoter, and power and influence tends to flow to those who are authentic. Do people want to converse with brands? I think that is the wrong question. The right question is “Do people want to converse with people who are authentic in their support of brands?” Starbucks the brand can’t talk to you, but a passionate Starbucks employee can. These individuals could be employees of the brand, external representatives of the brand, or merely fans. But if the people having these conversations are authentic, my sense is that yes, people want (and do in large numbers) have these kinds of conversations every day. Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media are very personal, and when they are de-personalized (by brands acting big, stupid and impersonal) interactions are bound to be unsuccessful. I am an investor and Board member of a company called Buddy Media, that has developed and manages a powerful Facebook Pages platform (like the Bud Light fan page) that is used by major brands to connect with their fans and potential customers. People flock to these pages to chat with and learn from engaged communities organized around brands, take advantage of special offers on these pages and enter contests to win products being promoted by the brand. This could only be successful if people found value in the brand as an organizing principle, with Facebook and Buddy Media as facilitators of this interaction. And let me assure you, it is successful.
Doc Searls, in his post about the uselessness of brands today, discusses how the mere presence of Tiger Woods in an ad means nothing relative to what a company does.
Nike, the brand, famously supports its sponsored athletes because
the company is about athletes and athletics. Which is all fine. What
matters is what the athletes do on the field, on the court, on the golf
course. Sure. But what matters more is what these companies actually do.
Here in Reality, companies buy
Accenture’s services. Individuals buy Nike’s shoes. None of what
customers buy from either company gets an ounce of substantive worth
from Tiger Woods, or from anything those companies do with their
“branding” strategies, no matter how much those strategies serve to
help sales and stock prices.
We live in an age when we can kick tires hard. Accenture’s and
Nike’s tires are not Tiger Woods. And Tiger Woods, even if he’s long
been a lying sack of shit, isn’t a tire either. He’s a human being, and
that’s what makes him interesting. Not what his golf game says about
companies that pay him.
What Doc Searls is saying reflects the view of an empiricist: tell me the features, give me the stats, and let me make a decision. This is not how many - if not most - items are purchased. Consumers, be they retail or business, are impacted by the perception of a brand. What people say about it and what they’ve heard about it are both relevant to the purchase decision. Do I perceive it to be high quality (separate from the cold, impersonal product specs)? Will it make me successful? How do I project my experience as a result of purchasing the product/service? Issues of authenticity, trust and recognition all play a part in how successful a brand may be. Objective product features and quality clearly play a role, but if I equate Tiger (with whom I have a positive association) and his success with the outcome of using a particular product, then I’m likely more apt to buy the product. It’s just common sense and represents the underpinning of the entire advertising industry.
The issue isn’t whether brands are bull - they’re not. Creation of a successful brand results in pattern recognition that can help consumers more efficiently locate what they want and builds substantial value for the brand owner. The issue is whether it is bull (or just plain stupid) to choose an athlete or, for that matter, any single human being as the basis for selling a multi-billion dollar product line. As Doc correctly points out, humans are interesting - and volatile. Charles Barkley said it best: “I am not a role model.” Well, neither is Tiger or most people walking the earth. Building a brand around a successful individual is akin to leveraging up a corporate bond position and continuing to take on more leverage when things are good. However, when things go bad they go very, very bad very, very fast. Brands flee the fallen idol and the consumers (or the public stockholders of brand owners) flee the brands. We’ve seen this movie before in every market; why should brand management be any different?
Even in a long-tail world with increasingly available information, brands, like relationships, will continue to matter. In fact, they might even become more important as the flood choices becomes overwhelming, brands and offline relationships will become increasingly powerful tools in the product discovery process.
