"I want to be as famous as Persil Automatic"

Yep that was Victoria Beckham's mission in the mid-nineties and that's why I think she's brilliant. Paul Arden talked about it in his book; It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be.

"What is interesting in her quote is that she didn't compare herself with George Michael or Mariah Carey, rather she saw the fame of Persil as her yardstick. Laugh at it as you may, it's this highly original imagination that got her where she is today".

What is fame? I’m not talking about precocious budgie-smuggler wearing Love Island contestants, so desperate for attention that they’d sell their soul and a left bollock to be noticed on Instagram.

I’m talking about real fame. 

Fame is Share of Mind. As Les Binet, Group Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, Master of Philosophy, econometrics consultant and all-round genius states.

"Share of Mind is one of the crucial determinants of why people do or don't buy a particular brand".

But what is Share of Mind? It's when you are building increasing levels of awareness, salience and fame. Or in layman's terms; it’s when more people are talking about you, more often, to more of their mates, in more instances. 

Shot taken from Les' video, The Short of it.

But why is this important for brands? It’s simple - famous brands sell more.

All businesses are all in the same boat, all rowing the same race of selling products, services, or experiences to Joe Public. 

So if famous brands sell more, then you'd think fame would on the first page of every business plan, ever written. But it's not.

Fame should be the number one objective of a business.

It's more important than the latest sales numbers, inbound leads and the staff discount at Pret. It drives all other aspects of a business. 

But they don’t think of fame as the number one priority. The CEOs, planners, accountants, business analysts, management consultants, and CFOs don’t prioritise it. They sit in their ivory towers, having meetings about meetings and chatting about who watched the latest episode of Line of Duty. 

They’ll be quick to invest in product development, market expansion, mergers & acquisitions and all the frothy stuff that's much easier than building long-lasting, business changing, fame.

But fame isn't even low on the corporate agenda. It’s non-existent.

Brands need a ‘fame first’ mindset. It is the lens through which all businesses should see plans and strategies; it is the platform with which they should make all decisions and every single action. Every behaviour from a business should be taken and decided on as a result of fame.

But the importance of fame is not taught.

Those with MBAs in their cheap suits and knock-off Ray Bans will bang on about ‘developing leadership skills’, ‘market and supply analysis’, and the ‘global business environment’ over a chardonnay. They’ll brush aside the suggestion of fame, as there wasn't a fame module on their MBA. It’s not discussed, it’s not talked about and it’s never referred to. 

And these are the people leading companies. No wonder brands aren’t giving fame the priority it needs, and it's no wonder marketing has lost its seat at the boardroom table.

Alas, businesses will just tend to go through the same patterns as everyone else to try and grow their business – and forget about fame.

Famous brands sell more.

Not only do they sell more, but they can also charge a premium for the same product – price elasticity. Famous brands are able to consistently charge more than their competition, for a similar product. 

BECAUSE THEY ARE FAMOUS.

Think Nike, Levi’s, Superdry, Coke. Think about the dominant brand in your B2B SaaS industry. Think about that pair of ￡2 flip flops that you bought in Faliraki on your 18-30s holiday and that pair of posh Havaianas that cost you ￡25. That’s a huge bazillion percentage increase. They’re no different, bar a logo and the warm fuzzy feeling you get when your mates say "nice Havaianas, where did you get them?'.

Oh sexy ??.

Why can Havaianas charge more? The power of fame. And the benefits keep coming for these famous brands.

They sell more, grow their top line and they’re able to charge a higher premium, so grow the difference between their top line and bottom line – increasing their margin and profit. By making one change, one decision.

I've recently been reading Jenni Romaniuk's book; Building Distinctive Brand Assets. A really interesting read, that advocates a long term view on building brand assets. In an interview at DMX Dublin 2020, she states,

The strongest brand assets have endured for centuries, and there's no reason if you set them up right, that your assets can't last that long as well".

Back to Les Binet. His research with Peter Field The long and the short of it showed that brands that fully embrace creativity (and therefore fame) grow x4 faster than other brands.

He also speaks in great detail that brands need to do two things when going out to market; they can have a short-term sales activation approach, and crucially a long-term brand building fame strategy.

His research shows that a short-term sales activation approach is what the majority of advertising is (but masked as long-term branding). This is driven by the accountants, bankers, finance workers and MBA owners (they decide this over a shared bottle of chardonnay). Those who want quarterly results. Those who need to report quarterly and have to see quick results. 

A short-term sales activation performance will give them these fast numbers. Done. 

And they will get them. The numbers will ramp up through a short-term approach. The fake Ray Bans are on, there’s a cordoned off section at The Ned and there’s even some Bombay mix on the table. There’s some celebrating to be had.

Until it dips three months later. 

There is no longevity in exclusively using short term sales tactics.

As soon as you turn it off, it dies. As soon as the campaign is over, it’s wiped out. There are no long-term effects on the business. And you’re back to zero, trying to build up your brand and strategy with clever campaigns, again. And again. And again.

But this isn’t the case with long-term brand building. 

Les Binet explains that it’s more expensive to do, takes longer and takes more patience. Building fame and notoriety takes a while. But after your name is in lights, month after month, year after year. Once you're infamous, and the thing everyone is talking about then it is easier to retain that success.

Yes, when you finish a campaign, and it goes off the radar, the graphs will of course dip slightly. But, unlike short-term sales advertising, it won’t disappear into the ether. It’ll take a lot longer to dip, and it won’t be as difficult to build back up again.

Shot taken from Les' video, The Short of it.

Because of long lasting, large effects on the business. Unfortunately almost everybody within a business mistakenly thinks the short term sales activation, is long term brand building. That short term sales activation is just really efficient (read as low wastage, and therefore cheaper) brand building. But they're totally different.

And that difference, is fame.

CFOs should be clambering for this approach. It fits their logical left brain thinking. They can charge a premium, it will cost less, and it will improve year after year.

And it's those logical, left brain thinking people, the ones that get hard over Excel. Who should put a poster of Victoria Beckham on their wall and copy everything she does.

+++

The moody Frenchman Louis Grenier (from Everyone Hates Marketers), and I have built a fame course called "Cracking Fame". It is aimed at brands that are not currently number 1 in their market.

Spread across two lives sessions, 15th & 17th June, over Zoom, obvs.

To get the early bird rate and save €140 on the course fee: https://lnkd.in/gq6wQkz

Remember; famous brands sell more, more often and for a higher price.