Brands can get lazy, Brand managers, marketers and sales executives get lazy over time. They simply stop caring about the one person that everyone should care about. That person is the consumer. Marketers tend to get lost in buzz words, and marketing jargon. It initially sounds like people are saying ‘intelligible’ stuff, but it doesn’t take long to realize, it’s all bullshit. Most people in these segments hide behind bullshit with buzz words.
Yet, back to the fundamentals, it has always been about the consumer. Brands were always meant to be consumer-obsessed, consumer-centric. And what makes brands stand out is their ability to offer better value propositions to their consumers. For a consumer, value is defined in the aspect of how much benefits will I derive from this brand, versus how much liabilities. What do I have to gain from this brand (functionally, psychologically) and what am I losing (economically, psychologically)? This maths is always happening in the mind of the consumer. Brands must always be value proposition maxing, promising and delivering more benefits while reducing liabilities or costs to the consumer.
But then, few ever understand value propositions. They resort to the lazy man’s guide to pleasing the consumer. You often see promotions such as ‘Buy two, get one free’, those are sure signs than the value proposition has collapsed. How many times have you seen the Apple company say, ‘buy two Iphones, get one free?’ It should never happen. It implies that the brand work has failed, and everyone is trying to short-circuit the value proposition.
Again, why does it happen? Because most companies never define the value they are offering. They have such a lacklustre understanding of value, how to create it, and how to deliver it. A great brand almost never has to be promoted in that style. If you check up most brand promotions, 90 percent of those could be avoided if people simply got better at value propositions. Brands are bleeding, but it’s because the true centre of the brands has been ignored and left on the streets, no one thinks about the consumer anymore.