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Why do brands fail? Every company wants a brand. The strategic and other advantages are tremendous. Brands communicate both what a company does and how well they do it. Brands represent a valuable corporate asset. Brands increase profitability, sales and even stock value. The well-documented successes of AOL, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, Nivea, Sony and other worldwide brands surround us. The importance of branding is recognized everywhere. The tools for branding- advertising, PR, trade shows and other promotions - are well-known. Then why is branding so difficult? The usual suspects for failure are poor timing, lack of understanding or inadequate funding. These can wound any aspiring brand. But efforts have failed even with generous budgets and the best brains money can buy. So what causes one offering to be transformed into a brand and another to slink off product shelves with its tail between its legs? Branding efforts fail because they fail to address current branding imperatives Branding imperatives represent the ocean in which all brands must swim. Based on market attitudes and requirements, imperatives establish the ground rules for customer acquisition and retention strategies. They also incorporate demographic, behavioral and other trends, and illustrate marketing and other dependencies. In other words, they represent social, economic and technological “brandscapes”- the forces that shape awareness, relationships and measurements. While the eternal truths about human and economic activities remain constant, imperatives change over time. Shaped by technological, historical or social forces, the attributes that define a brand change from one era to the next. Generals lose when they fight current battles with plans from past wars. By the same token, branding strategies, by-the-book tactics and generous budgets won't establish a brand if they're based on outdated imperatives. Additionally, the wrong measurements will warp execution and feedback. If the branding effort is not linked to the realities of the current era, not only will the branding effort be like pushing a rock uphill, but it will be the wrong hill as well. Cadbury, Nivea, Sony Coca-Cola, Fedex and other brands established their current dominance during an era when the branding imperatives were different. What worked then is no guarantee it will work now. It may even be counter-productive. It's more than "the branding rules have changed." Actually, it's the game that's changed. As a result, it's vital to understand the imperatives for yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's brands. These imperatives include the relationship between buyers and sellers, branding goals, organizational processes, role of technology and measurement. Section 1 discusses the imperatives of three major branding eras:
It's the lesson of this book: Brands will succeed - and dominate - in the 21st century only by embracing new imperatives, not by better executing the tactics of a past era.
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