Does your "brand" even really matter?

I can't believe this is the kind of shit I think about while at brunch with some pals on a Sunday afternoon, but here we are...

Does "brand" matter? 

First, cool your jets, brand val kids - I'm not talking about this from a valuation, ROI, LTV, blah blah blah standpoint. That's point Z. I'm thinking about this in terms of point A, step 1, zero dark launch. 

This question popped into my head this week when Ben Pieratt created an identity without a product and put it for sale with the cool price tag of $18K (complete with URL, Tumblr account, and some t-shirts, though..) with his project hessian.tv. 

While to keep myself employed, the answer is of course brand matters. And just because, of course it does. Ask any company worth more than $100 and a little bit of ambition to earn more than that $100 and they'll tell you it does. How much is is a different conversation all together that I don't have the energy to write about today.

But at the same time, our the gate, it really doesn't matter. 

Whenever clients ask me "What's a good name?" or "Is this the right logo?" The answer is always "any name" and "sure, depends on you."

Because a name, a logo, any identity element means absolutely nothing until you train your marketing (read: spend a decent amount of time and money) to know what it means. 

You can name your company Akjiwa if you want and if you have enough cash to put marketing behind it, it can become the best damn name anyone's ever seen (see: Google, Kodak). 

On the flip side, you can name your company Hat Store and be neither a store nor sell hats as long as you have the cash to tell people that's the case (see: Apple, BlackBerry, Orange and lots of real word abstract non-fruit names)

So I'm actually less pissed off about Hessian.tv than I was earlier this week.

It does go against everything I believe in creative strategy in that you of course start with what you want to accomplish and land on a name. And I do think Ben was probably just showing off his creativity with a different idea that would get him a few eye balls.

But it actually could be an awesome brand for the right company - one that can add a few more 0s on the end of that $18,000 price tag to define the perception of the Hessian brand.

Or someone in the business of selling Hessians. 

What's the difference between brand and marketing?

I'm asked pretty much once a week what the difference between brand and marketing is. Depending on how snarky I'm feeling (usually pretty snarky, let's be honest; I grew up in Boston), I'll either give a lengthy explanation around my overall philosophy on brand or I'll say "nothing. That's the whole point of brand," drop the mic and walk out. 

As bad ass as I like to think I am, usually I go with the former explanation. I'll save you the pulpit speech, but generally it centers on having one idea, one promise that you make with your audience (not just your customers; that's a huge mistake a ton of brands make. It's not just about delivering for people who are paying you today, but for those who relate to you, love you, evangelize for you.), and deliver on that promise through every. single. thing. you. do.

Looking at it like a promise you make, a relationship you need to create and hold onto to survive means you take it pretty fucking seriously.

That promise tells you, of course, how you market and talk to these people. The kind of products and features you build to deliver on that promise you talk about all the time - or, more importantly, the ones you don't build because they don't deliver on it. The type of people you hire (and fire) because they are that promise as people. The type of org structure you set your team up to live in

Anything you do can break that promise. It doesn't matter if it's a social media snafu or a customer service email that was disastrously handled that goes insta-viral, or a product you toss out there without any user research to make sure it's in line with your customers' expectations - if it breaks that sacred promise, your brand is screwed. And it's really really really hard and really really really expensive to work your way back from something like that. 

Just ask BP or Netflix.

Yeah, an oil spill is going to hurt your business, but BP promised us a more environmentally conscious gas alternative. Turned out, not only were they no better than Mobil/Exxon and Shell, but actually a lot worse - led by a bumbling CEO who really didn't care about the environment or anyone affected.

And Netflix has content and licensing issues for sure, but launching Qwikster proved it wasn't the innovative, intuitive, viewer-first brand it's promised us since its founding. Instead it gave us a name from '95 that told us nothing about what it stood for and a user experience that was closer to a labyrinth than a frictionless flow. Lost the cool factor in one horribly written launch email. 

But for every disaster, there are hundreds of incredible brand wins. My favorite moment working at Chartbeat was when our site crashed for hours in the middle of the week. For a service that delivers real-time data to thousands of the top sites across the web who often live and die by this information so they can take the right actions with their web content, it wasn't ideal.

But while our dev team busted their asses to fix the issues incredibly quickly, our client-facing product, outreach, marketing, and customer support teams tap danced (literally) our way through it to save and grow our relationships with key clients. 

We went above and beyond to prove we actually give a damn about our clients.

Because we actually do. More than they would ever imagine.

Just like this customer service rep at LEGO that made this kid's day, year, life. 

Is this marketing? Absolutely not. It wasn't a planned communication attempting to build awareness or close some sales.

Is this marketing? Absolutely. The amount of life-long customers and evangelists this one letter brought to LEGO is priceless. 

Brand isn't marketing. It's everything. 

KitKat & Trademark Combat

Let me start by saying trademarks suck.

In almost every case, your best case scenario when defending a mark you've registered is a win in court with millions of dollars in legal fees and feeling a little like an asshole. Because generally you're attacking someone over something silly - like a color you've used a lot in your design or the shape of your packaging - versus a (usually) clearly ownable mark like your name or logo or tagline.

But when you work in such an esoteric world as brand, trademark law is a necessary tool in your arsenal to protect what you've spent millions, billions on over the years to slowly build association between that element and your target audience's mind. And a lot of times it's totally worth it.

For KitKat, this battle was just that - a huge win, years in the fighting. As of last week, these guys trounced Cadbury solidifying the Nestle brand's four-bared chocolate formation as being uniquely ownable and associated with the KitKat. 

Cadbury argued that the KitKat shape was genericized - a shape like any other chocolate bar shape. But, like Hershey before them, KitKat proved secondary awareness in the market - that all their "Gimme a break" work has paid off and when chubby kids across America see these four little bars, they don't think any ol' candy bar, they think KitKat. 

While I'm pumped for them, since it means sticking to one consistent something as a brand actually pays off sometimes, pleasepleaseplease be warned that this rarely happens. For every KitKat battle win, there are way too many "but they stole my color blue," "that website has the exact same design as my website," "my witty catchphrase is something I and only I have ever said or used," when in actuality I'll show you an audit of every brand that uses that exact PMS of that navy blue in your category, a WordPress template isn't actually an ownable design, and that phrase is used in pretty much everyday parlance and if I ask 50 people on the street right now what they think of when I say, you probably won't come up even once. 

99% of the time when my clients (especially startups) want to go after someone who maybe stepping on their toes, I advise against it (after introducing them to a trademark attorney [specifically trademark, don't just ask any lawyer on the street, trust me, they'll want to go for the jugular] who actually knows what they're talking about.)

For startups in particular, you need all the good will you can get - don't start off your life as a company by by being a dick and sending cease-and-desist letters. Take the compliment that you're making an impact and use the cash you would use in legal fees to build something even better. 

Gap buys Intermix: Middle Market Officially Dead

The Gap threw down $130 million to buy Intermix. So now their portfolio breakdown is:

• Fast/trash-fashion Old Navy - average price point $17*
• Former-classic, middle-market Gap - average price point $65
• Used-to-be business chic Banana Republic - average price point $80
• And now Intermix - average price point, all of these guys combined
• And then there's Piperlime and Athleta, which, I get what you're doing but not really worth discussing.

*I'm completely making these prices up, but they seem right, right?

But Intermix, I'm sure, will keep their own name and these guys will continue to work as standalone (maybe slightly endorsed) brands from a naming architecture standpoint. They'll use Gap for their reach (read: their spend) and Gap will use Intermix to get a little (read: a lot) more cred than what Piperlime and their Rachel Zoe picks could give deliver.

Basically there's no $40 market anymore. H&M on the lower side, Madewell on the higher. We're left with fast-fashion or high(ish) fashion - with maybe Zara as the exception, as the creators of fast-fashion, they've had some time to create their own market. 

Actually, snark about the industry aside, I think this is a really smart move for Gap. Unlike their game of take-backsies they played with their logo last year, this move proves they're actually thinking strategically about both expanding their portfolio's breadth but also back to growing its depth.