The Purpose of Branding

Peter Drucker famously said, "The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer". The same can be said of brands (because after all what are brands but the outward expression not the business strategy?)

Today I shopped at Aldi, my new favorite store for groceries. Like Wal-Mart Aldi's purpose is to save customers money, and the savings is remarkable - I got what would have been easily $120 worth of groceries for $70. Every thing about the store and the people in it reinforced my savings, from the quarter I deposited to rent a cart, to the $.06 I paid because I neglected to bring enough bags, to the necessity of paying in cash. Do I feel good about my experience? You bet. They made a customer today.

My associate, Amisha Sinha, brought a great article to my attention using Twitter. It is from Media Post, "The Re-Purposing of Marketing", by Roy Spence and Haley Rushing. Spence's book is "It's not what you Sell It's What you Stand For: Every extraordinary business is driven by a purpose." They point out that many brands are hanging up or 'going out of business', but ask 'how many of those brands will be missed'? How many made 'a real difference to anyone'?

As an industry, we're often too good for our own good. We can use the power of our creativity to take an ordinary, commodity product and make it seem extraordinary to a particular market - but not for long. As good as our creativity may be, it can't ultimately compensate for an unremarkable product or service. The customers will ultimately notice and move on; signaling a call to the agency to 'change the campaign - the old one is no longer working.'.

The purpose of marketing has to be higher than moving 'product through the pipeline'. Great brands aspire to a higher purpose and consequently inspire employees and other stakeholders to reach higher to serve their customers. It's not an accident that the most admired 'iconic' brands have nearly cult-like followings. These brands put serving cusotmer needs at the center of all they do. Their commitment to providing meaningful value to customers is tangible, not just talk. It allows them them to outperform competition in good economic times and bad.

Why is that? According to authors Spence and Rush:

"When you have a genuine purpose at the heart of an organization, it takes marketing to an entirely different level... you are actively collaborating with every facet of the organization to bring the purpose to life in the business model, product development, customer experiences, environmental practices, loyalty programs, employee training, social causes, any and every avenue for manifesting the purpose of the brand is "marketing.". Take Ikea -- the revolutionary furniture company that offers well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that many can afford them. Their purpose is to democratize modern design for all.

Fulfilling that purpose requires everyone at the company to think about how they can help fulfill that promise in the marketplace - revenue, R&D, operations, environmental design, training, IT - everyone in the organization thinks like a "marketer" and the official marketers have an abundance of genuine stories to tell to the world. Every ounce of creativity can now be used to make sure that the customers you are trying to serve know that you're the best brand in the world for fulfilling a legitimate need that they have.

Brands have sometimes been referred to a company's North Star. It links the corporate mission and values with the needs of the customer. That's why we are so convinced that brand strategy is bigger than marketing. As they say, it's just too important to leave to the marketers.