Branding Quotes
by Brad VanAuken

“An organization can only ‘walk the talk' when its managers deliberately shape its internal reality to align with its brand promise…(the brand's) values must be internalized by the organization, shaping its instinctive attitudes, behaviours, priorities, etc.”

Alan Mitchell, “Out of the Shadows” Journal of Marketing Management 15, No. 1-3, January-April 1999: 25-42

 

“A brand is the ‘personification of a product, service, or even entire company.'

Like any person, a brand has a physical ‘body': in P&G's case, the products and/or services it provides. Also, like a person, a brand has a name, a personality, character and a reputation.

Like a person, you can respect, like and even love a brand. You can think of it as a deep personal friend, or merely an acquaintance. You can view it as dependable or undependable; principled or opportunistic; caring or capricious. Just as you like to be around certain people and not others, so also do you like to be with certain brands and not others.

Also, like a person, a brand must mature and change its product over time. But its character, and core beliefs shouldn't change. Neither should its fundamental personality and outlook on life.

People have character…so do brands. A person's character flows from his/her integrity: the ability to deliver under pressure, the willingness to do what is right rather than what is expedient. You judge a person's character by his/her past performance and the way he/she thinks and acts in both good times, and especially bad.

The same are true of brands.”

Robert Blanchard, former P&G executive, from “Parting Essay,” July 1999

 

“A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.”

“The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.”

Al Reis and Laura Reis, from The 22 Immutable Laws of BRANDING

 

“I think that if you're really using the Internet effectively, you're going to figure out how your brand relates to the individual which is not something that has been a tremendous issue in branding in the past because it has been a one-to-many kind of marketing message outward.”

Terri Holbrooke, Ziff-Davis

 

“Think about your brand becoming a portal of information and value to your individual customers and consumers.”

David Placek, Lexicon Branding Inc.

 

“If you manage a traditional brand, you will need to understand that the web is about two-way communication (vs. the one-way communication of traditional branding), and it's about the user's ‘experience' with your web site and web marketing.”

Deborah Kania, Webologist, Consumer behavior on the World Wide Web; a metaphor

 

“Come for a swim. Prospects can visit your pond any time they like, stay as long as they want and dive as deeply as they want.”

Kristin Zhivago, editor of the Marketing Technology newsletter

 

“Don't think about consumer needs in terms of product categories, but rather in terms of consumer experiences.”

“The DIAGEO marketing organization is structured around the following consumer experience segments:

• Release
• Affiliation
• Contentment
• Discernment
• Status
• Independence”

“Good marketers must value the child inside – play, be spontaneous and dream.”

James Thompson, Vice President of Marketing DIAGEO (formally Guinness), Advertising Age Marketing 100 Honoree

 

Marketers can gain deep brand experience insights from this question: “Think about the 5 brands that have made the biggest difference in your life. Tell us about them.”

Ian Ryder, Vice President Brand & Communications, EMEIA

 

“Companies can boost profits by 75-100% by retaining as few as 5% of their current customers.” Harvard Business Review – September '01

“Is it risky to buy a brand you are not familiar with? 67% agreed with this statement in 1994, 50% agreed with this statement in 2000 and 46% agreed with it in 2002 Yankelovich Monitor “

Matt Wisk, Vice President—Marketing, NOKIA Mobile Phones

 

Lessons learned from building Dewar's World of Whisky in Aberfeldy, Scotland:

• Value your brand's heritage
• Seduce and romance your customers
• Promote brand exploration and discovery
• Create the pre- and post-visit experience

Neil Boyd, Marketing Director, John Dewer & Sons, Glasgow

 

“To uncover hidden category needs, don't ask ‘How can I differentiate my brand from its competition?' but rather ask ‘What are the unmet needs that no brand is addressing?'”

Janine Keogh, Category Insights Director, North American Brands, Kraft Canada Inc.

 

• “Coca-Cola chairman and CEO Douglas Daft has established a new goal for the Coca-Cola company – ‘To become the world's premier relationship company.'”
• “Coca-Cola intends to deliver richly textured, deeply resonating consumer brand experiences.”
• “Coca-Cola intends to integrate the following into its brand experiences:

• Meaning – memorable connection to their lives
• Participation/control – the consumer is respected
• Adaptivity – customization
• Identity – self-expression
• Immersion/sensory experience
• Distinction – different, better, special”

• “As one of its first proof points, Coca-Cola recently tested its new Shrink Tank. The Shrink Tank allows consumers to apply their own customized labels to Coca-Cola bottles at the point of purchase. The customized labels primarily feature affinity designs such as local sports team logos. The Shrink Tank resulted in a 375% $ volume increase in Malaysia (versus control stores) and a 900% increase in Singapore.”
• “Has your brand created a consumer experience whose memory will last for decades?”

Katherine Stone, Director, Experiential Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company

 

“Message + Attitude = Character”

Gregg R. Bagni, Senior Vice-President of Marketing & Product Development, Schwinn

 

“(In today's Internet-enabled world) products will become commodities.”

James Spencer Hall, Sr. Vice-President of Marketing, Branding & Advertising, Xceed

 

“Never underestimate the power of design to differentiate.”

David Reyes-Guerra, Manager of Corporate Identity & Product Naming, Xerox

 

 “Marketing is the art of meaningful differentiation.”

John Lederer, President, Loblaw Companies Limited (at the Innovation in Food & Beverage Marketing conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Wednesday, November 26, 2003)

 

“We must distinguish between repeat buying and brand loyal behavior. Repeat buying can be bought through bribes. True brand loyalty must be earned and reinforced. Every consumer comes with a mind attached.”

Larry Light, President, CEO, Arcature, LLC

 

“Most importantly, a brand must be endearing.”

Barry Krause, President, Publicis & Hal Riney

 

“Marketing encompasses the entire business—from the customer's point of view.“ - Peter Drucker

“Point of sale is where you reach 100% of your audience 100% of the time.“ - Paul Hudson

“You can say the right thing about a product, and nobody will listen. You've got to say it in such a way that people feel it in their gut. Because if they don't feel it, nothing will happen.“- Bill Bernbach

“We want consumers to say, 'That's a hell of a product' instead of, 'That's a hell of an ad.'“ - Leo Burnett

 

“There are 891 million e-mail boxes in the world, and 533 million in the US alone in 2000.”

“The average e-enabled business attributes 15% of its revenues to e-mail.”

Matt Blumberg, founder of Return Path

 

“It is much better to ask a person to send you a note requesting information than to send them to your web site, because with the former you will capture their address and have permission to write back.”

Seth Godin, best-selling author of Permission Marketing

 

“How to evaluate online advertising: look at impressions versus clicks. Awareness is key. Survey those exposed versus not exposed. Measure the differential affect on ‘intent to buy'.”

Rex Briggs, digital marketing and measurement pioneer

 

“People are twice as likely to give personal information if they hear a human voice on the page in which they are required to input their personal data.”

Bill McCloskey, President & CEO of Emerging Interest

 

“In CRM, you should be able to map your customers into needs-based clusters based on answers to simple but highly differentiating questions. It is important to discover what these highly differentiating questions are.”

Karen Carr, Senior Consultant with Peppers & Rogers Group

 

“If this business were split up, I would give you the land and bricks and mortar, and I would take the brands and trademarks, and I would fare better than you.”

John Stuart, former CEO of Quaker Oats