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| There is no substitute |
My wife creates, manages and curates online content for a living. Her company manages brands and help telling their stories. I still struggle to explain what that exactly means. But over our endless cups of chai, I am beginning to get how she is trying to help companies market themselves authentically.
It doesn’t mean though that I see the world with her content tinted glasses. We constantly differ on what branding means and what brands ‘need’ to do.
Her approach is holistic, real and altruistic. She believes in social responsibility and expects companies to provide relevant information to their customers, regardless of their bottom-line. In short, she is the Martha Stewart of branding without the dent of insider trading.
I on the other hand belong to the other school of thought. The product is the brand and there is no story to be told except the swells of emotion each consumer has when he owns that brand. My love for Lotus cars is not because of their wonderful content but rather is their product that matched their unwritten story.
Turns out, my affair with branding began well in adolescence. For my dad, everything that was branded drove an unneeded premium. An equal quality was to be had as long as I didn’t care what it was called. It was perhaps this parental sainthood incensed my fetish for brands. I am the guy who stops channel surfing to watch the carefully made commercials. I am that guy who does believe that small red tag on my denim is worth enough to warrant a $200 price. When I couldn’t afford a brand, I wouldn’t accuse them of an inflated premium (Lacoste Polo’s) but rather I blamed myself for having a mediocre disposable income! I continue to collect brands, with hard earned savings, and not feel guilty one tad bit about the whole affair.
It gets exponentially simpler when it comes to cars. Love is the fundamental emotion here. I wouldn’t care two hoots if the Porsche website wasn’t responsive or that it had the worst content. Similarly, no amount of brilliant material would want me salivate after a Toyota corolla. It isn’t entirely about the product since the automotive brands also come with a fair share of stories. But even those magical stories don’t make the Ferrari F50 faster or prettier. Stories can add (Lancia Stratos, Ford GT40 and Mercedes SL Gullwing to quote a few) to the charm of the product but never be its substitute.
I can hear her pip in at this point. Big brands don’t really need content. Their stories have been told. Our history is filled with them. We have seen them in movies, read about them in books and James Dean has made some of them immortal. She also would say that she never really claimed that she is replacing the product. She is merely enhancing it by marketing it relevantly. She is not seeking to revive bad products with illusionary content. Her claims are rather in the direction of making evident what is good but hidden.
Yet, I am not convinced. I wish I had other examples but I have been so one dimensional with cars that it would be 20 years too late to think differently. Have you heard of Ariel Atom? Well, every car enthusiast has. I am willing to bet that none of them know that car because of content that Ariel distributed. It is because a small shed in England created a product that embodies pure motoring and made it premium. In fact, ever single small car brand that spread like wildfire was entirely due to the essence of the product (have you ever seen chiseled interiors of a Pagani Zonda?). Content wouldn’t have much impact here.
Great products don’t need content and bad products can’t be saved by content. Brands that exist in the middle of the Gaussian, which can’t differentiate themselves on their product alone, drive the need for content.
And I will continue to be that guy who would subscribe to an informational channel from Toyota but never step in to their dealership.
oh no. and no. http://www.brandanew.co/rebuttal-there-is-never-a-need-for-content/
Here
I happen to agree with you on more than one points here. I too have never accused a brand for inflated prices. They charge what they believe their deserve. It is up to me to decide whether it is worth my money or not. Regarding, product vs branding I think its a grey area. Neither can be a 'be all'. However, I believe when the price tag is high – branding stops at a certain point and the product takes over and when the price tag is in the affordable range branding places a key role.
∞ tanvii.com ∞
Tanvi, that's a good way of looking at it as well 🙂 branding would be key if I were to chose between a Honda or a Toyoto 🙂