Prove to me that branding works.

The power of the brand in the modern world and understanding the importance of brand campaigns alongside advertising. This is a question we often get asked as marketeers or along these lines; “prove to me branding works”. The person often asking the question is looking for a report or some kind of definitive number or statistic in black and white, maybe because they want to dispel or question a campaign and thought process. The funny part about this is that the very person asking the question knows the answer; they have already been indoctrinated by the many household and global brands which sway our decisions and buying habits every day. ?Let’s jump further into this topic and look at how the creativity of marketing and brand placement is paramount to the delivery of a successful strategy, or at least in my eyes, anyway :) ?

The power of the brand in the modern-day - American entrepreneur and author Lisa Gansky hit the nail on the head when she was quoted as saying, “A brand is a voice, and a product is a souvenir.” After all, she would know, having founded America’s first commercial website ‘Global Network Navigator, which she later sold to America Online (AOL). How many of you pay over the odds every day for products due to the brand or experience that comes along with that product? – our relationships with brands can be taken further, more profound, when the customer is exposed to that winning and unrivalled ‘in-store’ experience or, in Apple’s case, the product packaging (it's just a box!). The best modern-day example for me would be the simple morning coffee run. So being an Englishman, I’m going to look at not-so-simple purchases in a UK Coffee shop and the market worth ￡4.4 billion, with consumers spending around ￡92.32 million in the last 12 months. Surprisingly, the UK has 8,222 different branded chains to choose from! But I know what you are thinking after reading those stats; which is the leading brand? Is it your coffee of choice? – well, you will be pleased to see I have cherry-picked some stand out Key industry figures:

Number of Starbucks stores in the UK - 1,156

Number of Costa Coffee shops in the UK -2,422 (UK #1 As well)

2nd leading coffee shop chain in the UK – Greggs (based on coffee sales)

Did you know 29 million people visited a coffee shop of some sort in the last 12 months in Great Britain? Of course, the most visited coffee house was that well-known household barista Costa Coffee. You don’t need to search for long on social media before you see your family and friends feeling the need to share their trip to Costa Coffee online, or as it’s referenced, ‘a cheeky costa.’ Followed by those photos of the drink and the accompanying snack.

These are staggering numbers but are we surprised about these 3x brands in the top positions? You can’t walk more than 200 meters in your local high street before you see a Starbucks. Giant supermarket chains like Tesco, Service stations, and all kinds of shops offer Costa and ‘pop up’ versions of Costa Coffee. The popular bakery outlet Greggs’s stats on coffee sales are impressive for something that is quite literally a by-product of its actual offering, but still, it’s a statistic, so it requires a mention. When talking about the power of the Greggs brand, I feel I need to mention that controversial range of clothing on sale in Primark; Why? How? Really? ?

The Guardian stated: ”Greggs has 1,698 outlets, more than McDonald’s or Starbucks, and plans to take this figure beyond 2,000. It shifts more than 2.5m sausage rolls per week and 1m cups of coffee.”

Read the full story here: How Greggs conquered Britain: ‘Nobody can quite believe how well it has done’

So let’s get back on track and ‘prove’ that branding works. Staying with the coffee shop theme, let’s say you are sitting in Starbucks (not Costa or Greggs, just to keep things fair), enjoying your loaded coffee or tea drink of choice, and people-watching away. Someone comes into the shop, sits down and pulls out of their bag what looks like a laptop.?If they pull out an Apple device, MacBook Pro, or iPad Pro, you already start to assume that this person is about to start working on something creative; however, if you see a Dell or HP laptop come out of the bag, you may assume that they are about to do some number crunching, accounts, administration or programming. Straight away, this displays the power of branding working with assumptions. That’s the proof of branding working right there at that very moment; you begin to think about the task based on the hardware being used.

“When people use your brand name as a verb, that is remarkable.” – Meg Whitman?

*These are assumptions and thought processes we absorb as a product of successful brand marketing campaigns. Nowadays, with cross-platform packages like Microsoft Office 365, the user with the Apple product would be capable of number crunching and generating creative content!?

No fluffy stuff, no money - We have all heard those annoying and derogatory?comments about marketing. Phrases such as ‘dark arts’ and ‘fluffy stuff’ or sometimes you will even listen to people reference marketers to be ‘throwing mud against the wall’ hoping for it to stick. Simply put, without the ‘fluffy stuff,’ your business won’t generate sales and survive in the modern-day economic climate, full stop… period! Let’s delve deeper into the ‘fluffy stuff’ (branding and creative) and the ‘dark arts’ (advertising).?

What’s the difference between advertising and branding? - Understanding the difference is vital to a successful marketing campaign and, ultimately, a loaded sales funnel. Let’s not confuse branding with advertising, and over the years, we get asked by clients and partners in the marketing world, ‘what is the difference?’.

How best to explain this? Well, let’s try a short story to help explain. You are on your way to an important event, a wedding, closing a big deal or meeting with someone of importance, basically an event that is very important to you. Let me set the scene; you are looking and feeling good. You look at your watch and see you have an hour to spare as the journey time is 30 minutes. So you open the garage door and notice the weather is awful typical English summertime. So you jump into your car and begin your short journey. Two minutes into your trip, you are about to join the motorway via the slip road when your driver's side front tyre blows out, and you are now forced to stop. Usually, you would have a go at changing it yourself, but not today; you are dressed in your finest clothing!?

You scrambled to grab your mobile phone and call ‘Brian's breakdown company’; they advised you that a mechanic and recovery van would be with you in 30 minutes, thus putting you now under some pressure to make your critical event on time. The mechanic arrives on seen; he walks up to the window of your car and asks if you ordered a recovery vehicle, to which you hastily reply, “yes, I did….” The long-winded response that follows, “you made the right decision calling Brian's breakdown company; we have been in the recovery business longer than anyone else. We have been awarded more than any other company in the industry. The recovery driver continues: “Our employees go through the most rigorous training programmes, and that recovery van over there is one of a kind. We worked with Ford directly to make sure it can arrive and investigate your car in a manner no other company can.” But you guessed it, he’s not done yet; “Your car is your second biggest investment, and we want you to know we are thinking about that.”

So what are you thinking about the entire time this guy from Brian's breakdown company is talking? SHUT UP AND FIX MY GOD DAMN TYRE! That’s the clean version, anyway. That’s all that matters at this point in time.?

Now imagine the exact same scenario the recovery driver walks up and taps on the window of your car, and ask’s if you requested a recovery vehicle. Once again, you answer ‘yes’, and the driver responds with “, no problem, our motto is on the road in 15 minutes or less, you have places to be!” So that evening, who are you going to tell your friends about? And who are you going to avoid?

Staying with the motoring theme, it seems a good time to share a Henry Ford quote. The American industrialist and business magnate said: “You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

The moral of the story and the difference between advertising and branding; the first recovery driver (Brian's breakdown) represents 90% of business in the world today. They spend all their effort telling you about themselves and, therefore, advertising; the second recovery driver represents the likes of Nike, Apple, and Disney, creating messaging from the point of view of the recipient, ultimately branding. The driver of the car is the business owner; it does not matter if you are B2B or B2C; you are all under pressure to achieve something; the question is, what kind of recovery company is your marketing team???