Marketing

Get to the point (part VI)

Chris Moerdyk
 
One of the most frequently asked questions by marketers and non-marketers alike is about the real meaning of branding. The answer is never easy but, in corporate terms, a brand is, of course, the product or sometimes the company itself. Branding on the other hand, is something entirely different. I n my opinion, when marketers talk about branding, they mean creating a positive feeling of confidence within the consumer, particularly at the point of purchase.

Branding is a feeling, a good feeling about something. V ery similar to when one spots a very good friend in a crowd of strangers. Branding is a 100% emotional process that draws a prospective customer to your product or service.

It is often something that happens within the consumer’s mind, subconsciously rather than consciously. The consumer ‘just knows’ that your product or service is the one to be trusted.

While your product might be no different to those of your many competitors, what will make customers choose yours is branding.

And because branding so clearly involves winning the hearts and minds of the consumer; of getting into the consumer’s head and planting positive, motivating seeds, it is inevitable that the pursuit of branding excellence by marketers involves more and more detailed studies of the human mind and psyche.

The importance of branding is best demonstrated at that typical point-of-purchase situation where a customer comes in to buy product ‘A’ and more often than not, the salesman tries very hard to switch-sell the customer to product ‘B’, usually because his commission or incentive is higher on that product.

Without powerful branding, consumers are easily swayed, and all that excellent marketing effort that was used to get the customer into the store in the first place, is wasted. Branding ensures that customers stick to their intuitive guns when they’re subjected to switch-selling tactics.

Contrary to what all new ‘Brand’ agencies claim in terms of branding replacing marketing, it is clear that branding is very much part of marketing and always has been.

This is precisely what a global brand development and insight company has done by taking advances in neuroscience and applying them to branding to get a little closer to the heart of how brand decisions are made.

The company describes them as ‘discovering the feeling’, the new approach enabling marketers to deeply understand how their brands make consumers feel and, as a result, gain greater marketing insight, develop more effective brand strategy and create more clutter-busting communications.

The concept is based on revolutionary work undertaken with Prof Antonio Damasio, an expert in the area of neuroscience. He reveals that people make decisions based on perceived outcomes – how they want to feel once the decision is made. These decisions are based on both rational experience and emotional reaction, suggesting that we scan our full range of perceptions, knowledge, experiences and feelings before making a decision. We remember each experience as good or bad and store these ‘markers’ as part of our future decision toolkit.

email: cmoerdyk@mweb.co.za