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Book Review |
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Adapting to new brand tactics  John Fanning on the merits of a book on consumer needs and the emerging demand economyIt is widely accepted that one of the worst things which can happen to any of us is that our most cherished dreams come true. For years, the marketing community has longed for the day when branding was regarded as the critical all important uber issue at the heart of every business so that they as the main interpreters of this mysterious concept would inherit the earth or, at least, that bit of the earth occupied by the businesses that employed them.  But now that this is beginning to become a reality, with more and more businesses recognizing that their brand or brands are their most valuable assets there is a growing movement which argues that branding is far too important to be left to the marketeers and that it must be the responsibility of all senior management.
A new book by Nick Wreden, coyly described on the cover as a brand futurist, powerfully supports this view. Most new books on marketing are either glib, populist and apocalyptic, written by some fly-by-night chancer shamelessly plugging their own start-up business, or turgid academic tomes which are worthy, but take far too long to come to the point. The good news is that FusionBranding does not fall into the former category; the bad news is that it is a pretty hard slog. Wreden's main argument is that we have moved from a mass market economy to a customer economy and that from now on successful companies will concentrate on profitable relationships with consumers, often on an individual basis.  Brand as Hero: Brands like Campbell Soups using cartoon hero Popeye may get regular exposure on TV, unlike FedEx, amazon.com and Harley-Davidson. But, as Wreden points out in his book, branding is just as vital to B2B marketers.This is not exactly an original insight but the author develops this line of thought in an interesting way. In doing so, he argues that the traditional methods of marketing communications including advertising, public relations and relationship marketing will be much less relevant to brand building compared to the overall operational excellence of the business. By now we are well used to books and articles arguing that advertising as we know it is doomed, past it sell-by date, irrelevant, outmoded and in all possibility bad for you as well, but we are dealing with a more substantial argument than usual here. The author maintains that although conventional wisdom suggests that marketing is responsible for the creation of the brand, this may only be partly true -"marketing may create interest but in the new demand economy it cannot build the operational and functional relationships that are at the heart of the fusion brand". The author defines a fusion brand as a long-term bond between an offering and the customer. This does not really add up to much as most people accept that all brands could be defined in this way. But he goes on to argue that in future experiential and functional factors will be much more important in establishing a brand, while emotional factors will decline in importance. Fusion brands reflect the integration - or fusion - of traditional marketing with technology, measurement, globalisation, supply chain excellence and changing customer requirements. He also points out that although the dot com meltdown of the late 1990s may have softened the internet's cough, it will undoubtedly emerge as a key element in delivering operational excellence in an increasing number of businesses. The argument is at variance with the comfortable assumption within the marketing community that as all products and services become more alike the only discriminating factor in the eyes of the consumers will be the emotional values that have been added on by marketing communications. Wreden disagrees with this scenario, arguing that there is still considerable scope for improvement in service quality. He reiterates what many other shrewd commentators have been saying for the last few years; that increasingly consumers 'see through' standard marketing techniques to concentrate their attention on operational excellence and service quality. Fusion branding is not exactly an easy read. Around 400 pages long, it is also not helped by a bewildering range of acronyms that pop up at regular intervals in the text - from CRM (easy) to OBO (organizational brand owners), from FAQs (easy) to PRM (partner relationship marketing), from SCM (easy) to LCV (lifetime customer value) and so on. But although a little hard to swallow at times and not all that easy to stomach for those of us working in marketing communications, the main argument should be digested carefully by anyone with responsibility for managing brands in the future. John Fanning is executive chairman of McConnells < Back to Article List Back to Top |
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