Real men (and women) don’t buy brand. Or if they do, they rarely own up to it. It’s a bit like owning up to living in Milton Keynes or reading Hello magazine (and before the hate mail starts, I do both). From our experience, you’d be forgiven for thinking that in the serious world of B2B, openly declaring your belief in brand was a serious career faux pas.
As brand specialists focusing on the B2B world, selling our services has never been easy. All too often our first step is to answer the challenging questions of the biggest cynics in the business and convince them that their brand is central to the organisation, needs to be addressed and that it can provide a valuable return. Here are some of those questions:
Branding misnomers
Avoiding the word ‘brand’. There are probably as many definitions of the word ‘brand’ as there are brands. And the fact that the word is so hard to pin down doesn’t do much to help its credibility. Little wonder that we’re often asked to avoid using the word. It’s disappointing that ‘brand’ has been discredited, but avoiding the b-word has some benefits. It focuses us on what you are trying to achieve and how it will benefit the business.
How is brand going to add to the bottom line?
Quantitative brand valuation can often amount to no more than, ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’. Brand involves managing your audiences’ perceptions of you. There is no point is saying you are dynamic and innovative if you don’t look it, sound like it or behave like it. Managing perceptions is a slow and subtle process. Brand plays a central role, but it can’t do the whole job on its own. Singling out and ‘proving’ a brand is almost impossible.
There is no irrefutable response to the finance director’s killer retort, but investing in brand makes good sense. You wouldn’t go to an interview without careful thought on presentation: the key messages you want to get across, the clothes to create the right impression and the right tone of voice. Brand works in exactly the same way.
“I believe in brand, but no-one else in the team does”
From carefully articulating the rationale behind a project and putting plans in place to take people with you, to ensuring people are armed to deliver on the brand promise, effective internal communication is central to every successful brand programme. To get things right on the outside, you need to get them right on the inside. And you can’t assume the engagement of your staff any more than you can assume the engagement of your customers. It takes a brave person to convince a cynical team to steam ahead with a brand review. However, lack of engagement must be dealt with and isn’t a reason to reject brand.
“We need something ‘brand-y’ but we’re not sure what yet”
Half the skill of a good brand consultancy is in partnering with clients to get beyond the ‘not sure what’. We help businesses communicate and deliver on their business plan. That sounds simple, but most projects begin with a search for the right question. Because without the right question it’s impossible to find the right answer. So the sooner you get started, the better.
“It cost our competitor £3 million”
If you want a brand that is going to deliver, you have to expect to invest. However, if brand reviews cost the sums quoted in the press, I would have retired years ago. Getting more out of your brand doesn’t always cost what you think it will. The press and the bloke down the golf club nearly always exaggerate the financial pain involved and brand reviews can provide a perfect opportunity to make cost savings, through rationalisation of collateral and improved procurement. The payback might be hard to measure, but you’ll get a return on your investment, whatever it is.
“We couldn’t possibly change our logo”
Getting more out of your brand can involve a hundred different things and only one of these is changing the logo. Just because you need to review your brand and get it to work harder, it doesn’t automatically mean you have to change your logo. Your logo should only change if there is a clear business and communications rationale to do so. Simple.
Be pro-active, not cynical
Having spent years managing the challenges of the cynics of the B2B world, I understand why cynicism exists. As a client, going through a brand review might well be a ‘once in a career’ happening. The industry terms are neither crystal clear nor consistent. Reviewing a brand can take considerable investment: on a people and time level, if not a financial one. And if you fail, your failure is visible. So brand is hard to define and challenging to defend.
But you have a brand whether you choose to manage it or not. So doing nothing is not an option. Of course, you need to work with the right consultancy partner: one with the right track record, whom you can trust. Managed well, brand can give you a uniquely rewarding return.
It takes a brave and focused person to invest in their brand. But if you are prepared to stand up and be counted you’ll be seen as the ultimate real man – or woman.
