Old Branding Gone - Send New Branding

Posted on November 21, 2007
Filed Under Reputation |

It was always held by the best marketers to be true that you don’t make your reputation, other people make it for you. Branding is now the same way, but it’s funny how we all cling to the concept that we can portray ourselves a certain way and people will just buy into this.

Vanity, all is vanity - which means “in vain” by the way. In real life people see through our pretenses, but usually kindly. In commerce there’s less mercy. Cherkoff reminds us:

That story telling business is called the branding industry and it has been a great way to paper over little (or big) cracks in product lines. However, these days the growth of networked media means that millions of stories are being told about products - but not by marketeers.

The greatest problem marketeers have these days is that no one really cares what they say. The only opinions people are interested in are those from other people. - Goodbye Branding (It Doesn’t Matter What You Say)

Want more proof?

…the most desired kind of information for consumers when considering a purchase is online user reviews from a site they trust, and there’s not even a close second choice…

  • If consumers saw positive user reviews of a show on a site they trusted but saw negative reviews from a major critic, consumers would trust user reviews 30 times as often as they would trust a critic.
  • This isn’t only the response from just the Web-happy younger generation, either. In every age cohort, user reviews were deemed more valuable than critics’ opinions, and only in the over-60 cohort was it close.
    - User Reviews: Everybody’s a Critic - or at Least They Should Be

The way for marketers to deal with this demographic sea-change is to engage with it of course: for one example, host the venue where the opinions about you will arise. Get behind the force, rather than stand in its way. This is not so hard for realistic marketers to understand, although getting budget approval may be a different thing.

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