Why We Need Strong Brands

What makes a company great? Truly great? I don't mean the kind of company whose first priority is making its quarterly numbers, whose raison to be is to return value to its shareholders. I mean a company that acts like a great leader, a company that inspires—not just its customers and employees—but its prospects as well.

Think of Nike of the “Just Do It” days, or Ben and Jerry's, or The Body Shop or Harley-Davidson. Each of them was at one time or still is a company that believes it knows what's best for the customer. One thing should be clear: Not all companies (or products) are brands. Let's reserve that accolade for companies with the deep understanding that people are predominately emotional creatures. And great companies—brands—are built for the reality that our emotional lives are complicated, many-layered and the driving wheel of all behavior.

Too many companies are failing the brand test—they fail because they fail to engage us in a deeply and authentic emotional response. And they fail to elicit authentic emotional responses because they have forsaken (or never had) the altruistic values that give us the sense they are in business for something bigger than a sale.

When a company becomes this kind of high-level brand, it has created a relationship with its customers because it has touched the true source and meaning of their wants. We tend to think of love, esteem, a sense of belonging, brotherhood, etc. as things we want, but they are really things we need. Living without them is living a life in decline.

A leader is a company that knows what's best for an individual or group and knows how to turn that vision into the way the individual or group behaves. A brand creates desire from need. Further, the desire is so powerful people are willing to change their lives to fulfill it. A company can only hope to achieve this kind of leadership if it recognizes that our needs are emotionally based. No rational argument, if it doesn't somehow strike an emotional response, will persuade us to do anything.

There are other needs, just like socially responsible behavior, which are too often ignored and neglected. Companies that have achieved brand-hood possess the gumption to market for these needs rather than our wants. It takes gumption because these needs are never as obvious as our base desires. But it just seems safer to sell ice cream on taste than on social responsibility. A leader is a company that shows us that our lives will be better in unexpected ways for acquiring what we need.The fulfillment of our needs is how we realize a higher state of being, and who doesn't want that? So it comes down to this: a great company is one that improves life in all sorts of ways, but most important among them is spiritually.

That's what a brand really is—it is a spiritual touchstone.

by, Jeff Doemland1/2003 marketingprofs

Vocabulary:

quarterly ['kwɔ:t(ə)lɪ] numbers – adj. квартальные показатели