In a creative business like marketing, most projects you start are designed – pun fully intended – to end up with a creative outcome.  That creative outcome could be written (tag or copy lines, radio spot, etc), or visual, but it’s creative nonetheless. However, there are times when creative firms deliver a document, lacking in all creativity, the “brand position” or brand definition document. We just call it bull****.

Branding Background

Have you ever sat through exhaustive brand discovery meetings and listed adjective after adjective that describes you or your client’s business?  Me too and I’ve been on both sides of the aisle. 

In a re-branding (or sometimes even in an agency change, or new campaign) those meetings are a necessary evil.  Business owners don’t spend their days focusing on what their brand is and how to describe it. They spend their days living it.

As marketers we find ways to get business owners to articulate their business and brand.  Often through goofy exercises: “If you were an animal…” “If you had to invite three people to a party…”

These exercises are tolerable because of cool stuff that comes as a result, the new logo and brand collateral, the new shiny website, or the big document detailing the brand… 

Wait a minute, scratch that, that isn’t right.  The document detailing the brand?  That isn’t cool stuff!.  It’s boring!  That’s what comes in between me and a new brand identity, in between me and a new website, in between me and a new ad campaign.   Not only is it not cool, it doesn’t work.

How do we know it doesn’t work?
We’ve been part of it in past lives, but worse, we tried it with a client of ours.  We came in… learned about their business… got them pumped up… came back with a document… they loved it.  Weeks went by and we came back with cool names, but not cool enough… weeks went by and we tried again, and then again.  Snooze.  It took too long.  They lost interest. 

 I like to do discovery before I attempt to solve a problem, it’s in my nature, I’m a 9 on Kolbe Fact Finder.  I work best when I have all the facts, because I organize and present those facts, then solve a problem.  So naturally I’d be the type of person who wants to document a client’s brand and make sure it’s right before we go on.  Who wouldn’t?  So then what is the problem delivering a document that outlines the brand as a deliverable? Why doesn’t this work? 

Two reasons: momentum and expectations.

Why Fluff Failed (and will fail nearly every time)


When most people deliver a brand defining document, it usually not very creative.  It is long and detailed and includes adjectives, elevator pitches and positioning statements.  These are important, but after everyone is excited to start a project with a newly hired marketing agency, then goes through exercises, the last thing they want to do is read a big document.  They want to see something visual.  They want action. That’s why they hired you, because you produce creative, not because you produce documents.  

When you send a brand position document to a client, even if it is dead on, it’s dead on arrival and it kills all momentum you gained during the interviews and brand meetings.  Your document needs more, more story-telling, more visuals, more excitement. 

Don’t just regurgitate facts, any hack can do that, give them more.  Give them strategy, give them the pitch (with tag lines) for a new campaign, the sketched designs of a new logo and show the creative thought that went into it.  Don’t give them a word document with their logo and your logo on it. 

What we decided
We decided to promise ourselves – and our clients – not to kill another great campaign with boring fluff when we know our clients want cool stuff. As an agency, Spoke promises to not deliver a document devoid of creativity (unless it’s an invoice).  We’ve learned from our and our industries’ mistakes.  Every pitch we make, every client we take, even if we deliver brand facts, we deliver them with creative thoughts and ideas for future campaigns. 

Our clients deserve this and even more, they want it.

“The Brand” might not be officially dead, but it probably shouldn’t buy green bananas, either. If you don’t believe me, look no further than the aisles of any grocery store, and note the proliferation of private-label products.

Last week, several consumer-packaged-goods companies…Kellogg’s, Kraft and Sara Lee reported weaker-than-(they supposedly)-expected earnings, a weaker short-term forecast, and a negative outlook for growth. Every day, CPG companies are losing share to lower-cost products as consumers realize that the store brand is identical to the branded product in almost every way…except for the price.

If Wall Street mavens are looking for the next big bubble, it might just be coming from a big box of branded soap. Whatever companies think their brand is worth, they’re wrong. Whatever equity they think they have invested in their brand can be lost in an instant (see Budweiser).  During a merger or acquisition, Wall Street places a valuation on a brand’s worth, and they call it ‘goodwill’, and list it as an asset. This is now commonly perceived to be the value of the brand.

Here’s the problem. Whatever equation they use to evaluate the ‘worth’ of a brand, it is a made up equation (“um…what if we multiply it by three?”) Second, they’re entirely wrong. Each and every brand is teetering on worthlessness.

In the ‘good ol’ days’, brands served a purpose (“That’s my cow!”), and later, they helped consumers make purchases from trusted sources in a crowded marketplace (“I like Quaker oatmeal.”).

When information was scarce, brands were necessary in order for decisions to be made efficiently. The brand was a nice mental shortcut for consumers. In a marketplace crowded with a number of similar products, a brand can be a shopper’s friend…like a nod from an old buddy…tried, true and trusted. Put it in the shopping cart.

BUT. That was when information was scarce, and most consumers got their information from paid advertising. Technology continues to make information free and increasingly targeted, in addition, social networking has spawned a new breed of experts (mommy-bloggers, really?), making it easier than ever to avoid paid sponsorship (note the re-explosion of in-show product placement (Texaco Star Theater, anyone?).

The truth is, when given enough information and incentive, consumers will switch brands so fast it would make a sailor blush. It could be argued that I’m brand-loyal to Apple Computers. I have never purchased anything but Macs. I love the product (and make fun of my wife’s PC fairly often). However…if a company came out with an identical product for less money…say…The Banana Computer – I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Consumers are brand loyal to their wallet, the value you offer them, and the bottom line.

(investor disclosure: I don’t own any of the above-mentioned stocks, but I once dated a girl named Sara Lee)

Maritz – The Science and Art of People and Potential
Clayco – The Art & Science of Building
Quilogy – The Art & Science of Business

Driving to work this morning and saw a Clayco truck along the highway and it reminded me of something I noticed several years ago.  These three local companies all pretty much have the same tagline.

Is it the same writer / branding person somewhere in St. Louis delivering the same thing to different clients or is it just a happy coincidence?  

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Note: Writer's block is gone, look for a detailed post soon.  Thanks for the well-wishes from those responded to me on Twitter or facebook.