When good marketing happens to bad products

Over the past year, I’ve been bamboozled by no less than four different restaurants whose branding and marketing were incredible, but the experience was overwhelmingly... underwhelming.

I’m a sucker for a good brand. I will go out of my way to spend money with a business that clearly invests in its marketing. Unfortunately for the four restaurants in question, the expectations set by their beautiful branding and persuasive social posts did not live up to reality. We paid the bill(s), never to return again.?

There are a few reasons why I’m not going to tell you which restaurants they were:?

• Just because I didn’t like it, doesn’t mean somebody else won’t like it.?
• They might have ironed out some of the kinks by now.
• It could have just been an ‘off’ day.?

What I will tell you is how you can avoid making this same mistake with your own brand, where marketing expectations are totally misaligned with customer reality.

Expectation vs Reality

There’s nothing worse than when you’re really looking forward to something, and it's not even close to what you expected. cough Willy Wonka Glasgow cough.

As marketers, our job is to make our brands look and sound amazing, but there’s a fine line between promotion and deception.?

Okay, sometimes customers have unrealistic expectations.

I learned this early in retail, dealing with customers trying to return $20 ‘silver’ bracelets 12 months later because they’d tarnished. Managing champagne tastes on a beer budget is the shared nightmare of anyone in customer service.?

That said, there’s a certain amount of onus on brands to present an accurate description of what they’re offering. Legally, you can’t make false or misleading representations about the products or services you supply. That doesn't stop a lot of brands from presenting their version of “the truth”.?

The truth will set you free

Marketers are experts in cherry-picking the best bits of the brand to showcase; we sell the sizzle, not the steak (and definitely not the cows in the abattoir).?

Choosing to only show the most favourable parts and hide any inconvenient elements is normal. It’s what we do in job interviews, on dates, and in business. But going too far – in any of those situations – ultimately comes back to bite you.?

The reality of working somewhere, dating someone, or purchasing from a business will set in sooner or later, and if whatever you've been hiding just isn’t worth someone's time or money, you'll quickly be parting ways for good.?

The best marketing in the world won’t save your business if your product or service simply isn’t good enough.

Over-promising and under-delivering might give you a surge of new interest, but in the long run that big boom will end in a big bust. Not only will it mean you can’t count on repeat visitors, but unhappy customers and negative reviews will impact your chance of getting newbies through the door. Speaking of which…

The 5-star Death Star?

Ah, reviews. Marketers have a love–hate relationship with them. On the one hand, 91% of people* say reviews impact their decision to do business with a brand. On the other hand, it’s hard enough to get people to leave reviews. Then, when they do, they often exist in 1- or 5-star extremes.

And of course, you’ve got the issue with fake or purchased reviews. Let’s clear up a few things around this.

Review dos and don'ts

• Families, employees, and paid ambassadors or influencers can leave reviews, as long as they state their personal connection or commercial relationship.
• You can’t offer something in exchange for a positive review – that’s up to the reviewer.
• Someone who hasn’t actually used the product or service can not leave a review.
• You can not edit or change someone’s review after being created. (Fixing typos might be fine, but never the words or context)

The ACCC also states a business may be misleading customers if they suppress, edit or remove negative reviews.

Brands think of their 5-star reviews like the Death Star: this ultimate, indestructible weapon for success. But there’s a weak spot: people are sceptical if your platform boasts 100s of reviews and nothing below 5 stars. Seriously, not even a single 4.5??You're not fooling anyone.

It's worth remembering a negative review can be extremely damaging for a business of any size. I think (or, more accurately, hope) a lot of people realise this. You'll always get the people who give 1-star reviews because they couldn't get a park right out the front on a Saturday morning, but the 3- and 4-star reviewers could actually be doing you a favour.

These good-not-great experiences might even help manage your future customers' expectations. When you're wearing your brand goggles every day, it's easy to think everything you deliver is always 5-star – but the reality is, sometimes it's not. And that's okay.

As tempting as it may be, don’t hide your mediocre reviews.

It’s how you respond to those reviews that matters, with 88% of consumers* stating they’d use a business that responds to both positive and negative reviews.

If nothing else, you need to take your Google reviews seriously because your customers certainly are: 81% of users* say they check Google Reviews before engaging with a business.

It's great to own your reviews, but integrating off-platform reviews from a credible, external source like Google, Yotpo, or Trustpilot is one of the easiest ways to build trust and counterbalance your own brand bias.

Your checklist for more transparent marketing

• Focus on benefits, not just features. This is kind of Marketing 101, but our rational brains always revert back to stating the obvious (what it does) rather than how it adds value.
• Don't shy away from mentioning limitations your product or service might have. It's a valid part of the experience.
• Use your customers' words, not your own. Avoid marketing jargon and technical terms and just say what you mean.
• Encourage genuine reviews when you ask for them. Again, it's all in the language.
• Respond to all reviews: thank customers for their positive reviews and address negative reviews promptly and professionally. My formula is always the same: acknowledge, empathy, action.
• Showcase customer stories to go beyond simple reviews. This obviously works better if your product isn't purely transactory, but even an eCommerce brand can have fun with this (think something like: "How a pair of Nike sneakers made Ashton a better boxer". They really did.)
• Actively seek MORE customer feedback. And frequently. Use surveys and interviews to understand how customers perceive your brand and their pain points. Incentivising these is a must – if you want valuable insights, you need to value someone's time to give them to you.
• And, above all else: stop seeing each customer interaction as a one-time transaction. What if every customer was an ambassador for your brand? A source of unlimited referrals? Well, they might just be.

TL;DR Don't let your marketing lead customers into the land of make-believe. Keep it real, address the highs and lows, and engage authentically with feedback. Remember, transparency builds trust, even when the truth isn't always picture-perfect.

(*stats from BrightLocal’s 2024 survey)