Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone.
A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
What comes to mind when you think about owning a Mercedes-Benz? If you could pry open the mind of the typical automobile buyer, you would probably find the word “prestige” closely identified with the brand. Tell the truth, don’t you associate prestige with the Mercedes-Benz brand? Most people do.
You might also associate attributes like expensive, German, well engineered, and reliable with the brand, but the core differentiation is prestige. Lamborghinis are expensive, Audis are German, Hondas are well engineered, and Toyotas are reliable, but none of these brands conveys the prestige of a Mercedes.
Once a brand owns a word, it’s almost impossible for a competitor to take that word away from the brand. Could you build a safer car than a Volvo? Probably. Many brands have already claimed to do so, including Saab, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Could one of these other brands own the word “safety” in the mind? Probably not.
And so it goes. The minute a brand begins to stand for something in the mind, the company that owns the brand looks for ways to broaden the base, to get into other markets, to capture other attributes. This is a serious error and one of the most common mistakes in branding.
The same is true of the product or service you are selling. The product itself might have a visual reality. But it’s the brand name and its associations that give the product meaning in the consumer’s mind. So you can forget about the laundry list of wonderful attributes your product has. You can’t possibly associate them all with your brand name in a human mind. To get into the consumer’s mind you have to sacrifice. You have to reduce the essence of your brand to a single thought or attribute. An attribute that nobody else already owns in your category.
Go back in history. By far the most successful brands are those that kept a narrow focus and then expanded the category as opposed to those brands that tried to expand their names into other categories.
What was the market for expensive pens before Montblanc? Minuscule.
What was the market for expensive vodka before Stolichnaya and Absolut? Nil.
What was the market for safe cars before Volvo? Zip.
If “what is the size of the market?” is the first question your company asks itself, then you are taking the wrong road to success.
Ask not what percentage of an existing market your brand can achieve, ask how large a market your brand can create by narrowing its focus and owning a word in the mind.
The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.
Customers are suspicious. They tend to disbelieve most product claims. Your brand might last longer, require less maintenance, and be easier to use, but who will accept claims like these?
There is one claim, however, that should take precedence over every other claim. It’s the one claim that elevates the brand above the competition. And makes every other claim much more believable. It’s the real thing. It’s the claim to authenticity.
You see credentials at work in everyday life. How many times have you walked away from a new restaurant because it was almost empty? Most people prefer to wait for a table at a restaurant that is crowded, rather than eat in an empty one. If this place was really good (goes the thinking), there would be a line out the door. That’s the power of credentials.
Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone.
What is quality?
Everybody thinks they can tell a high-quality product from a low-quality one, but in reality things are not always so obvious.
Does a Rolex keep better time than a AP? Are you sure?
Does a Leica take better pictures than a Sony or Canon? Are you sure?
Does a Mercedes have fewer mechanical problems than a Cadillac? Are you sure?
Does Hertz have better service than Alamo? Are you sure?
Does a Montblanc pen write better than a Cross? Are you sure?
Does Coca-Cola taste better than Pepsi-Cola?
Most people seem to think so, because Coke outsells Pepsi. Yet in blind taste tests most people prefer the taste of Pepsi.
Quality, or rather the perception of quality, resides in the mind of the buyer. If you want to build a powerful brand, you have to build a powerful perception of quality in the mind.
As it happens, the best way to build a quality perception in the mind is by following the laws of branding. Take the law of contraction. What happens when you narrow your focus? You become a specialist rather than a generalist. And a specialist is generally perceived to know more, in other words to have “higher quality,” than a generalist.
Mile-wide brands like General Electric and General Motors look strong, but in reality are weak. They look strong because they are well known and have been in business for decades. But when they go against the specialists, they are weak.
When General Electric tried to compete in mainframe computers with a strong brand like IBM, the GE brand was a multimillion-dollar loser. About $300 million to be exact. When General Electric tried to compete in household appliances, the GE brand was no match for the specialists. (The products were subsequently sold to Black & Decker, which promptly proved that an omnibus brand like Black & Decker was no better than the GE brand.)
Comments