Shann Biglione, Chief Strategy Officer, Publicis Media Greater China, wrote a terrific article on LinkedIn (hat tip: Eaon Pritchard) titled, “People who predict the death of brands don’t understand why they exist.”
In it, he outlined how harbingers of doom (or marketer serial killers – love it!) who have been harping (or is it harbinging?) on the death of TV, advertising and now ultimately brands, point to 4 contributing factors for this proclamation:
- e-commerce
- Consumer reviews
- Decline of mass advertising
- Artificial Intelligence
He ends the article wonderfully, “Predicting the death of brands fails to understand their Darwinian nature: they do not exist because they were imposed unto us, they exist because of us.”
So I thought I would provide a counterpoint that is less a rebuttle and more a triangulated perspective.
To begin, I think the assertions of “death of” TV, advertising and brands are absolutely connected and evolutionary in nature. TV is a subset (and the biggest component) of advertising; and advertising has been the predominant input or contributing ingredient of the brand recipe. Classic marketing theory has been built upon the 4 P’s (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) and it is the P of Promotion that similarly has enjoyed the lion’s share of attention and investment in the Brand Mix.
I wrote, “Life after the 30-second spot” some 13 years ago and in it, I asserted that the 4 P’s have become commoditized. All washing detergents work; all toothpaste cleans; all candy tastes good but is bad for you. Pricing is essentially transparent. Location is ubiquitous. And don’t get me started on the backlash against advertising.
If you think about it, Shann’s 4 variables fit quite nicely into the 4 P’s paradigm:
- consumer reviews would translate into the P of Product AKA you can’t put lipstick on a pig
- e-commerce is probably best aligned with the P of Place
- decline of mass advertising – obviously the P of Promotion
- AI is probably the least obvious, but I guess we can attribute to the P of Price, especially when comparison shopping, recommendations and automated purchasing and renewals make this a much more programmatic decision thread
To be clear, I’m not sure I would necessary “harb” on the same 4 points (I was just reconciling them).
My concern is with the final statement: brands exist because of us and the key word here is “us.” So who is us? It’s not the consumer. It’s Don Draper. It’s the marketing profession and advertising industry who have perpetuated this Wizard of Oz façade for so long, where packaged goods, tires or food are brought to life with animated mascots like Jolly Green Giants or Marshmallow Men or weird Peanut Englishmen trapped in time; where brands make promises but never keep them; where brands are supposed to capture the values, touchpoints, ideals and beliefs of the companies that keep them and yet those same companies are being taken over by private equity cutthroats, cost-cutting and jettisoning brands at alarming regularity; where new “brands” like AirBnB, Uber, Snapchat or Instagram burst onto the scene attracting massive market valuations (or did I mention used zero paid media to build their….brands)
WE created brands. WE kept them alive (and some on life support) by romancing and doubling down on the formulaic narrative. And now WE will need to figure out how to save them.
The fact remains, if brands are to survive, they’re going to need to remain relevant and provide real value to their entire ecosystem and their stakeholders. They’re going to need to evolve. And by definition, evolve implies the openness and ability to adapt to change. And that change will absolutely pivot around distribution, promotion, loyalty and advocacy, R&D, innovation, customer service and more.
Right now, I fear that many of these items are being ignored or neglected at worst, and paid lip service to at best. And if that continues, those same harbingers will be moving on from the death of brands to an even more ominous prediction, the death of corporations.
Oh wait, that’s already happening…
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