A football player on a recent podcast offered up some sage advice. You can “Talk about it or be about it.” This ladies and gentlemen, is a fundie of great branding. Don’t flood the airways and byways with commoditized claims — scorch the earth with deeds. Deeds not words.
Humans have always searched for truth. Fire burns. Projectiles harm. Being nice to people is better than being mean. Deeds. Not words. Good brand planning begins with actions not words. Evidence, not prose. While “strategy is your words,” to quote Mark Pollard, it is actions and proof that convince customers. That’s what should drive strategy…and builds brands.
Over the years I have interviewed thousands of consumers. I’ve printed out stacks and stacks of paper containing transcribed observations, feelings and opinions. But all I care about is evidence of value. Evidence of product superiority. It is the highlighted evidence buried in the transcripts that the drive brand strategy.
You can tell me Memorial Sloan Kettering has the best cancer care anywhere, but if you show me the statistics of how they treat the toughest cases, that’s proof.
Commodity claims are just that. Brains are desensitized to unsupported claims but they can process proof.
Peace.
