Marketing in a Recession: Change the Meaning of Brand-building

AdAge headlines their 3-minute video today featuring Nick Brien, CEO of Interpublic's Mediabrands - "Brand building must give way to hard sell during recession."

I agree with almost everything Mr. Brien says in the video. The headline misses the mark. It makes it sound like brand-building is superfluous in a recession/depression. Just as Mr. Brien says, the Chinese symbol for crisis has some double meaning in danger and opportunity, our opportunity is to redefine what we mean by "brand-building."

It should not be about "awareness." Awareness in an attention economy is fleeting at best. I constantly remark that I have a 60Gb brain in a 1 Terabyte world. I don't attempt to hold onto massive amounts of information anymore. I don't assume that if I am "unaware" of  a brand that it is no-good. I do what we all do - I Google it and off I go to "learning" about a brand or product.

Redefine Brand-building

Brand-building should be about relevance and being "of-use" to people. Or rather, being useful is more relevant today than being entertaining. Brand-building should not be thrown out in place of the had sell. We need to redefine the new, essential approach to brand-building. Most brands cannot accomplish hard sell without a lot of branding. Otherwise this becomes as Mr. Brien says, all about promotion - lower prices, free gifts, points for some other brand. That's where I disagree with him. If we devolve simply into promotions and price reductions, then most brands (those that aren't price leaders) see their sales maybe improve in the short run but see a long term reduction in value and a threat to their business.

The opportunity is to redefine brand-building as making brands more useful and even essential in people's lives. That's where creativity needs to go right now. And I don't care if it's from us, media companies, an ad agency, or a smart, little startup.

What will go away is the clever "breakthrough" advertising as THE solution to a brand's sales goals. We need to help customers deal with what will turn out to be a devastating and long recession. We need to actually help them and be "of-use" beyond even the simple features and benefits of a product label.

"Social Pleather"

A final note: Brands should not get desperate and adopt ill-fitting social good programs just to boost short term "same store sales." Consumers see through this or just don't care. This is what we call "Social Pleather" (thanks Rachel & Greg)- looks real but one touch and you realize that it is a poor imitation of the real thing. Most great brands have causes they care about and support. Starbucks announced today a promotion around 'Project Red' which will drive some revenue to AIDS in Africa programs. Starbucks has a history of supporting quality of life (often life-saving) programs in parts of the world that grow coffee for them. That fits and isn't 'Social Pleather'. Still so many brands think of unrelated causes as a sales booster.