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[October 2005]
PREFACE
Every year billions of dollars are spent by companies trying
to buy a brand image that will make people believe in their
company, its products and services. But belief and sustainable
brand value cannot be the creation of a advertising, design
(or any other kind of) agency or found solely as part of the
province of the marketing department or industry. It can ONLY
be found in the tangible expression of what you believe to
be true about yourselves and what your actions as a company
show to be true – and that comes from within the organization
and it's people. Like the clothes made by the swindlers in
the fable "Emperors New Suit" anything else is just
a fabrication that will eventually leave the company exposed
before all those who encounter it.
The Brand Has No Clothes!
by Michel Hogan
(With apologies to the Hans Christian Andersen fable – The Emperors New Suit)
Many years ago there was a company who thought
so highly of “branding” that they spent all their
budget to try and buy one. They were sure that they had to
have the best “looking” brand that they could buy.
They didn’t really care about what their employees thought,
or whether their products and services were of value to their
customers and helpful to society, the only thing they seemed
to care about was creating a shiny new brand.
The company and its marketplace were very profitable
and every day many people from other companies wanting to work
with them arrived. One day a creative agency arrived and made
many companies believe that they could give them the finest
brand to be imagined. They claimed
the brands they had created in the past immediately made any
person who saw them believe that company was the best in the
marketplace with products and services superior to all others.
Those must be wonderful brands thought the company.
We must have this brand created for us at once! And the company
gave a large sum of money to the agency so they could get straight
to work. The agency set up an office and pretended try to understand
who the company was, but they really did nothing more than
look to see what others in the marketplace were doing. They
asked about the company history, about the staff, what they
did and what they thought about the company, then they ignored
all the information and instead used their own idea
of what the company brand should be.
“We want to know how they are getting on
with our brand” – thought a company executive in
charge of marketing. But he felt rather uneasy when he remembered
that anyone who
did not believe the products and company were the best in the
marketplace would not be able to see the brand and so to be
sure he first sent his most trusted director to see the progress.
The director went into the office where the agency was working
to view the progress. “Oh dear!” he thought, “This
doesn’t make me believe that our products and services
are the best” but he didn’t say so. “How
can I not believe? Nobody must know it, lest they don't think
of me as believing in the brand!" So when asked by the agency
what he thought, the director replied, “wonderful,
when people see our brand they will believe we are the best
and have the most superior products and services in the land.”
Over the following weeks the executive sent other
directors to view the brand and inside the company everyone
was talking about the wonderful new brand that was coming and
how it would make everyone believe their company was the best
in the land. At last the executive wanted to see it for himself.
When
he entered the agency office his directors who had been there
before explained how wonderful the brand was and how it made
their company the most desirable in marketplace. The executive
was shocked when he could not see what the others had obviously
seen but did not want anyone to think it didn’t make
him believe and so he gave his approval to the agency. And
even though they all looked at the brand and could not see
anything that made them believe they all commented that it
was indeed the most magnificent and sure to make believers
of all who encountered it.
The day that the brand was the be unveiled to
the company in a special meeting of all the people who worked
there, the agency came to the company and held out brand they
had created. “Here is your new logo, here are your advertisements
and brochures, here is your tagline and a manual explaining
the brand to the employees” and
said at last “the
Company’s
new brand is ready now.”
The executive marched to the stage to announce
the new brand and all the people of the company commented “Indeed,
the company’s new brand is the best in the marketplace!
What a clever tagline! What a funny ad! Everyone will
now believe we are the best in the land!” Never was a
new brand more admired. But none of the people of the company
wanted
the others
to know that it did not make them believe the company was the
best or had the most superior products and services in the
land.
That is, until one person who was new to the
company and did not know to agree with the executive and directors
finally exclaimed “But it isn't who we are at all,” and
then one after another they whispered to each other what had
been said. “But it doesn’t make us believe,” cried
all the people of the company at last. That made a deep impression
on the executive, for it seemed to him that they were right;
but he thought to himself, “We have spent all our budget
on our brand and so now I must follow through.” And the
executive and directors took the shiny brand and out into the
marketplace as if it really would make people believe.
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