The Three Immutable Laws of Brand-Building

Much has changed over my four decades of practising the art and science of marketing communication and brand strategy.?

I went from the era of Doordarshan to the age of cable and the mighty GEC and sports channels. Then the internet age began, and this year it is forecast that digital advertising is poised to overtake TV spending. The coming two decades may bring another tectonic shift in marketing communication with the emergence of AI-mediated platforms and perhaps even a metaverse.

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Besides media, much has changed in product development and distribution. The emergence of contract manufacturing, modern trade and e-commerce has led to an explosion of competition and a weakening of entry barriers. Today, many D2C brands are bringing in the fresh air of innovation in many a moribund category, exploring market niches and creating new product and service categories.

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However, it is my experience that through all this turmoil, there are a few fundamentals of marketing communication and brand-building that haven't changed. Here are three:

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1. While the saying that goes "you can fool some people all the time, all people some of the time but not all people all the time" may hold in politics, it is anathema even to try to fool one person in brand-building. A brand might think it has succeeded for a while, but the end result is always disastrous. Therefore, while some level of puffery is unavoidable in advertising, it is paramount that every marketing message hews close to the truth, ASCI or no ASCI.

2. Marketers build brands on both cognitive and affective dimensions. On the cognitive dimension, while a brand may not always have a USP, it must convey a rational reason to buy. An acceptable cost-benefit ratio is the cognitive offering for most brands in this hypercompetitive age. The affective dimensions differentiate brands who otherwise are at par with each other on functionality. Most marketing communication focuses on building a differentiated emotional positioning for the brand based on brand personality and targeting an individual's yearnings in the status, sexual, tribal and suchlike arenas. At the Democratic Convention of 2016, Michelle Obama made news with her comment (and I paraphrase), "while they choose to go low, we take the high road." Well, we know the high road led to disaster in 2016. But that, again, is politics. In brand-building, which is a long-term activity, it is best to take the high road. Taking the high road is a challenging mandate to follow. Base emotions are often the most robust and shared across many consumer segments. And the temptation to appeal to them is irresistible to advertising professionals, as is evident across advertising across categories and markets. However, if we look hard enough, we will find, in most contexts, a higher-order emotion that can form the core of our brand's affective appeal. A factor analysis of brands' marketing mix across categories and markets will back up this basic tenet of brand-building.

3. "Half of all advertising is a waste, and no one knows which half" is a marketing cliche that has endured from the mass media era to today's age of programmatic advertising and performance marketing. But, like all cliches, there is a kernel of truth. However, I believe advertising that follows the tenets of good communication is never a waste (the corollary to this thesis is that lousy advertising is not just low ROI but actively hurts brands and sales). All good advertising, instead of being half-wasted, has a half-life. It engages in an act called brand-lift – lifting the brand within the consciousness of the potential consumer from non-awareness to positive awareness to active consideration on the way to actual purchase. The length of this half-life differs across categories from short in FMCG to considerable in purchases like cars and houses. If ROI measures consider the fundamental half-life aspect of advertising, no good advertising is ever a waste, half or otherwise.