Are you promoting your product or building your brand?
We explore the key differences, and why brand building is worth the upfront investment.
Chief Creative Strategist
There is risk involved in advertising on behalf of product promotion. You risk losing sight of your brand and, over time, degrade your hard-earned brand equity.
Your brand is what defines your product. It elevates you, and sets you apart from the competition, the clutter, the cacophony. It is the “…brand preferences, brand loyalty, brand associations, and brand assets that are supported by specific brand values and in accordance with important values for customers.”[1] Without a strong brand positioning, and a brand equity campaign supporting your brand, you’re just selling products that aren’t differentiated from others in the category. It may be a short term solution, but it can have unintended consequences over the long term.
Let’s start with the basics.
Consumers go with what they know. Across a variety of options, research tells us consumers prefer products or services provided from the brand they know rather than unknown yet similar brands.[2] This finding is supported by research of 2022 confirming consumers opt for products or services from the brands they know rather than competing brands. Why? Because the known brands “…are considered to have added value or a better experience.”[3] That’s the power of equity.
There’s science behind the art of brand building and advertising. Applying the basic Attention, Interest, Desire and Action (AIDA) hierarchy-of-effects model, we are able to see the impact of brand equity, brand value, and brand promotion consumer behavior. In terms of Attention and Interest, research demonstrates there is a greater likelihood memory links making up brand knowledge are associated with the brand rather than the type of product. Alternatively, when consumers possess less developed knowledge regarding a brand, they associate campaign messages on product category rather than the specific brand.[4]
Focusing on simply promoting price and product can only get you so far. I experienced the impact of brand firsthand while working at Hill Holliday on Dunkin’ Donuts, as Starbucks was taking the coffee industry by storm. Starbucks was different and special, and marketing coffee (and their brand experience) in an utterly new way foreign to the work-a-day world. Prior to Starbucks, coffee was a commodity – it was a fuel you put into your body to start your day. Starbucks turned coffee into a luxury item, and they turned their logo/cup into a badge of honor that people were proud to display.
Dunkin’ Donuts’ marketing was focused on a rotating cast of products and promotions, but we had no brand. Nothing to differentiate us from a well-defined brand like Starbucks.
The rest is history, as some say. We built the America Runs On Dunkin’ brand platform which has served as a powerful differentiator for nearly twenty years.
And Dunkin’ is not alone in recognizing the impact of brand positioning and equity over product promotion.
Decades ago, auto manufacturers were caught in a pricing “race to the bottom” in which competition for consumer cash was based on ongoing offers of significant financial incentives. While serving Toyota, we conducted a comparative analysis of all ads and messaging in market. The message resonating the strongest was not about the cash savings or latest features. The most powerful message focused upon brand: “80% of the Toyotas sold in the last 10 year are still on the road today”. It was a brand level message build upon Toyota’s foundational pillar of quality. In a world where consumers are overwhelmed with deals on APRs, leases, and the latest features, this brand-building message was easy to digest and made people comfortable with the long term equity of the brand.
Dunkin’ and Toyota and their marketing teams know and demonstrate the science behind the art. These iconic brands inherently understood the benefits of brand equity: increased selective attention and an involuntarily allocation of greater attention, comprehension, and exposure by consumers.[5] Brand knowledge, brand equity, and brand strength reduce consumer uncertainty and risk and therefore increase consumer confidence.[6] We don’t need research to tell us this (though we do love research). Just ask Dunkin’ and Toyota.
Establishing a strong Brand Platform requires a deep understanding of who you are as a brand, what makes you different from your competitors, and why that matters to your audience. As noted in the “Harvard Business Review, On Strategy”, “You do not create or set a core ideology. You discover it by looking inside. It has to be authentic. You cannot fake it.”
Once you have your brand platform established, you have a cornerstone to build campaign work for years to come, ensuring that you are building a sustainable, unassailable brand.
[1] Rangkuti, F., 2002, Creating effective marketing plan
[2] Aaker, D. A., 1992, The Value of Brand Equity, Journal of business strategy, 13(4), 27-32
[3] Zulfikar, I., 2022, Building a Strong Brand…, Neo Journal of Economy and Social Humanities, V1 (4), 2022
[4] Hoeffler, S., 2003, Marketing Advantages of Strong Brands, Journal of Brand Management, 2003
[5] Tellis, G.J, 1988, Advertising Exposure, Loyalty, and Brand…Journal of Marketing, V25, 1988
[6] Hoyer, W.D. and Brown, S.P., Effectives of Brand Awareness on Choice…Journal of Consumer Research, V17, 1990
