We've talked quite a bit at thealphamarketer about what causes marketing campaigns to go viral, with one of the key elements being humor. Now that will always have a place in marketing, but there's another side of that we need to look at and that is if there is value to that in branding.
Talking about this, Rance Crain writing for Ad Age says that "It's my contention most marketers don't -- and shouldn't -- incorporate weirdness into basic brand-building strategy. All the work to come up with the next Subservient Chicken is diverting attention from marketers' main job of building strong brands."
To me the key thing to center in on in his comments is the 'basic brand-building strategy' part of it. If something is done so funny and cute that the brand isn't even considered in the presentation, then the campaign has failed miserably.
Crain comments on what his colleague Jon Fine says about what marketers should do in the coming year: "Of the many factors that will decide how the ad pie is split up in '07, perhaps the biggest is how quickly the next-generation web platforms become mainstream ad vehicles." His thesis: Marketers need to loosen up and adapt web platforms' "full-monty ways."
The bottom line Crain argues is that the reason marketers are doing these things is that they simply no longer know how to communicate about their brand. On my part it could also mean that they don't even know what the company represents any longer. If a company doesn't know who they are, there is no way that they can brand themselves, let alone create marketing campaigns that leave no doubt in the consumer's mind what it is the product or company represent.
What marketers seem to be missing is building real reason why a consumer should interact with them and their products. The old questions of who we are and what we stand for need to be asked and answered again, or there will be a lot of pain administered before companies get it again.
When I started this post talking about humor, I don't think that it contradicts what we're talking about here. Humor has a place, but has to be humor that adds to what we represent and points to who we are, not humor to get a laugh that leaves nobody knowing what it is that just happened.
Some people have been even throwing around the idea that branding is dead. That's a bunch of bull. Maybe they've forgotten who they are and no longer no how to do it. But deep down I think it's because people and companies are increasingly afraid to stand for something, so they try to stand for everything; a sure path to mediocrity.
Comment Preview