Building Brands, Maintaining Relevance

The best definition of a brand is all of the thoughts, feelings, and associations that come to mind when you’re exposed to the logo, symbol or anything else that triggers a particular branded image. The first thing that makes a brand strong is a passionate love for it. In building brands, we take a product or service and try to position it so that someone falls in love with it, and that love turns it into a brand. It takes it out of a commodity buy and turns it into something that is very close and dear to me and that I value.

Established brands have several characteristics. First, they have recognition and awareness: That’s critical. Second, they are relevant to the consumer in some deep way. That’s where the passion and love really come from. The third critical factor is that the brand or product experience (the packaging, delivery and support systems) reinforces everything you believe in a way that makes it strong. A brand is something that emerges on the scene and captures your passion. Every time you engage in it or deal with it creates an experience that not only delivers on a promise that was offered, but actually enhances you in some way.

There are probably a lot of old, established brands – a couple that come immediately to mind are Tide or Heinz Ketchup – that can survive forever. The question is: What kills an established brand, or why does a brand not survive? The answer: when a brand loses its relevance to its target customers. Take Tide as an example. If I recall correctly, Tide was the first powder detergent that ever hit the market. Today, if Tide were still saying, “We’re the powder detergent,” it wouldn’t be in business. Today, Tide is talking about being either the brightest or the whitest or providing color in cold water – whatever it is. What they did all along, though, was evolve the product to be relevant to a consumer’s lifestyle, and they evolved the communications to be relevant to that consumer’s lifestyle. The brand is something you’re aware of, something deeply and emotionally relevant to you beyond its rational factors, something that creates an experience that delivers on a promise and maybe even adds to you in some way. That’s what it really takes.

There are many examples of brands that became irrelevant. The technology business is one area where this has happened. Take a look at Digital Equipment Corporation: It was one of the largest companies out there. Or Prime. These companies were built around the concept of mini-computers. Whatever happened to mini-computers? Nobody uses them anymore. They became preempted by other things. In the automotive industry, you have brands that have been out there for a long time. Mercedes-Benz and Ford have been around for a long time as brands. Again, it’s been due to meeting the consumer’s needs, anticipating and delivering something that meets those consumer needs, and communicating about it in an effective way. The brands that die are the brands that fail to recognize that consumers are changing, the world is changing, needs are changing, the way we do things is changing, the way we absorb things is changing. But it doesn’t have to be that way if you’re vigilant and keep changing yourself.