For a Brand loving marketer like myself, the idea of Brand being dead is very upsetting. It makes me shudder at the thought of the alternative – a world where products and services are pure commodities, with price being their only point of difference. What a boring and unimaginative world that would be!
So why would Brand be dead? Well, the argument goes, particularly from the proponents of digital and direct marketing, that since search is so powerful – customers can just search for the product or service they need, agnostic of brand name, and they can choose the top search result – without the need to care for the brand – it is merely the product that suits their needs. No longer will I search for MAC professional chef knife with dimples, instead I’ll just search ‘chef knife’ and buy the top result.
Carrying that argument through, we move down a road of making search the most important component to our marketing and sales strategy. Always fighting for higher positioning up the rankings. Indeed, the stats support this argument, for example 55% of all product searches (in the US) start on Amazon.
However, I have several objections to this way of thinking. Not just ideologically because I LOVE brands. Firstly, the above approach does work well for the low-hanging fruit who are already in the market for a product or service – and have either done their research and / or are price sensitive and want the cheapest price. Yes, we can compete for that troupe of customers, but the logical end to this is a race to the bottom as we fight at the bottom of the funnel with the thousands of others, all undercutting on price and ever squeezing our profit margins. Personally, that doesn’t appeal to me. It is short-term thinking but is no way to build a profitable and sustainable company.
Alternatively, there is a different school of thought in this market of search dominance, that brand is more important than ever. This is my view. The alternative to people searching for a generic chef knife is instead to search specifically for your brand name. Then you are no longer fighting for search positioning (classically ‘organic search’) against thousands of alternatives – you are simply THE choice.
In this world you benefit from being known. Your brand is known. Red-bull, Apple, Nike – these are all brands that are known, and where brand name purchases are significantly higher than organic sales. And what these companies know is that if most of your customers are from brand searches, you’ll be sure they spend more with you, are significantly more loyal, and their lifetime value will be many levels higher than an organic search buyer.
In this world what we therefore need to do is become known. This is no easy task – but it is one fun challenge, forcing you to have to know what you stand for, why you are different, who your customers are and what they need, and make sure you are very, very interesting. All fun things.
So, is the Brand dead? Yes, Brand is dead. Long Live the Brand.