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The Real Thing?
The Real Thing?
June 22, 2009
You can argue that the aim of marketing is to build momentum. You need to raise awareness and establish how people perceive your brand. Traditionally this worked well, but I have news for you -- attempting to set perceptions is becoming an increasingly dangerous strategy.
You may recall a marketing campaign that had the sole intention of altering your perception of a brand. A soft drinks manufacturer who specialised in blackcurrant-based drinks had complaints about the sugar content and related tooth decay. This caused it to launch a low sugar version. It even had the cojones to sell it as “Toothkind”. The rebranding promoted health benefits and claimed four times the vitamin C levels of rivals.
The inconvenient truth proved the product wasn’t good for your teeth and one drink in the range had negligible vitamin C! This little oversight cost the company significant sums of money. But the real stinker was the “corrective advertisements” it was forced to run on national television.
It’s always been dangerous to try to build a false perception. Now the rise of social networking has upped the ante. There has been a seismic shift in our abilities to interact and talk to each other, and to build or rubbish brands that annoy us. We are the mob, and the mob is now all seeing. If you are bluffing, it won’t take long for people to find you out.
It’s simple; the quality of your offering builds the perceptions. These will be based on fact and customer experience, not marketing spin. Ignore this at your peril.
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Comments
I agree, this is an important piece of advice.
It's the extreme examples of false claims like these that help bring the point home, but I think it's important to remember that little tweaks are a bad idea too. A marketer who thinks lying is wrong but exaggeration is acceptable will soon learn otherwise.
I agree that social media and the Internet in general has changed the way advertising is received. I remember when it was quite acceptable to make outrageous claims in advertisements because the legal view was that viewers understood the claims were "mere puff" - no one really thinks X washing power turns mud soaked shirts glowing white in seconds.
Oh, how things have changed. Ads for mascara carry warnings like 'enhanced in post-production' and hair dye ads bear the warning 'model is styled with hair extensions'.
Where will this go? Will each performer in an ad eventually have to wear a badge: "I am an actor. These claims are not necessarily true"? It seems unlikely. Instead, I can only assume it will become increasingly more productive on advertisers parts to avoid exaggeration in order to stay free of embarrassing apologies and contradictory small print.
Very true,
Your customer service and product offering need to live up to your marketing, otherwise customers will try you once, but won't come back. The old saying 'Under-promise and over-deliver' is the basis for making your customers happy. Happy customers will come back again and again, generate positive word of mouth and increase long term sales.
This is a very good post! Business need to concentrate on offering real value instead of relying on marketing spin. Businesses are under more scrutiny and with the rise of social media.
You could also look at the expenses fiasco with the governement and the policing issues of the G20. If these institutions are coming under such heavy scrutiny then small businesses definitely need to get their ducks in a row.
For more examples of publicity cock-ups, I suggest you take a look at our forum discussion on this very topic: http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/forum/marketing/promoting/bad-publicity-...
My personal favourite is the Lolita bed sold by Woolworth's, which was aimed, with cringe-making inevitability, at young girls.
Of course, as soon as some rather confused parents pointed out the error, Woolworth's withdrew the bed from sale - but not before a mountain of REALLY BAD publicity for the company (which was on its last legs at this point anyway).
It really does make you wonder what sort of people these employ in their marketing departments - or maybe it's just a symptom of the sad decline of a once-great retailer. Surely, somebody somewhere in the chain must have been aware of the full ramifications of the name Lolita?
WHSmith and Tesco were also at it last week. They had a biography of Josef Fritzl on their list of recommended books to buy your dad on Father's Day. Josef Fritzl, if you remember, was the guy who locked up his own daughter in a basement for 20-odd years and had several children by her. Oh. Dear.
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