I've been thinking quite a bit about branding strategies of late and I have a question...why can't marketing be about telling the truth? I mean, you know, the plain old truth...the "this is a great product, give it a try, if you like it, buy it again", kind of truth? Some sort of "here's the real value to you, here's how your life will actually benefit from giving this a go"...kind of message?
Because that is not what I usually experience...I usually read things that tell me my clothes will shine with radiance like the sun or smell as fresh as the ocean. I am conditioned to look for things that say "extra strength' or "super" or whatever the current moniker is that tells me I have the really, really good stuff...not just the plain old good stuff. I mean, how clean can you get something? If you scrub it with the extra, super, duper cleaner instead of say, vinegar and water with a little dish washing detergent, is it a billion times cleaner?
Consumers have been fed and led by this kind of advertising for so long that we have become jaded to the very adjectives that have been used to motivate us. And this approach might very well have continued had social media and the interactive web not come along. There are many things that happen within the culture of social networks, but one consistent message rises to the top. "We want truth in messaging. We want to know the people who work at the companies that make the products we buy. We want to know why we should care."
Still, there are precious few who are able to respond to this call, online or otherwise. Because this requires an openness, an eagerness to communicate, a willingness to tell the truth...and above all, a desire to understand your audience well enough to know if the product you are trying to sell them will actually be of benefit to them. This means a deeper understanding of your customers and potential customers, less (instead of more) advertising, highly target messages that reflect your knowledge and interest in the communities you serve, and lots of relationship building. Did I mention truth telling? Yeah, there's that, too...
And aside from yours truly, who has embraced this concept to the point of naming my gardening podcast "Good Enough Gardening", there are very few people out there who do a great job applying these concepts...David Meerman Scott is one of my faves. But I know that there are a whole lot of people out there grapling with these concepts, struggling to pave a new marketing road. What about you, what are you doing? Who do you follow or admire?
