According to a recent survey about half of Finnish companies are planning to keep their marketing investments on the current level and about one fifth is thinking about increasing them. Referring to the same survey a recent article in Kauppalehti (a finnish business newspaper) speculated that marketing efforts will be shifted from image and brand towards more directly sales related activities as companies will be paying closer attention to their euros.
I don’t necessarily agree.
Around the same time I read the article I came a cross a referral in Rob Walker’s book “I’m with the Brand” to an interesting experiment conducted at the Baylor College of Medicine. It was about a classic battle between Pepsi and Coke.
The experiment was divided into phases. The first phase was a blind taste test between the two. It was practically a tie, even though the results tilted slightly towards Pepsi’s favor. In the second phase the test was altered a bit. One of the drinks was offered with the label (some got Coke and some Pepsi). The subjects were told the other drink could be either Pepsi or Coke, even though it was actually always the same brand, but just without the label.
Once again Pepsi came into a close tie, but surprise surprise Coke came out a distinct favorite. Clearly Coke’s brand had more added value than Pepsi’s. This reminded me once again about the lack of flavor so many finnish brands suffer from. People aren’t consuming so much products themselves anymore as they are consuming ideas and images associated with the products. Brands matter. Unlike many people I don’t have a problem admitting that I bought my new suite because it was Calvin Klein or that I paid more for my kitchen appliances since I wanted them all to be the same brand. We haven’t begun to ignore brands, we’ve begun to embrace them.
Everything you do affects your brand’s story, image and perception. If your brand doesn’t have a taste, history or meaning, they can be built. If you only focus on selling, you’ve already lost. Don’t be another ordinary cow among ordinary cows. Be Bolder. Be Seth Godin’s purple cow.
