{"id":1254,"date":"2014-01-07T09:45:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T14:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acaweb.ca\/en\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2020-10-27T13:28:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T17:28:36","slug":"consumers-dont-create-brands-brands-create-brands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acaweb.ca\/en\/2014\/consumers-dont-create-brands-brands-create-brands\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumers Don\u2019t Create Brands, Brands Create Brands!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tony
Tony Altilia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let\u2019s stop the craziness.<\/p>\n

After sitting on the sidelines attending a variety of industry conferences over the past five years and listening to more than one pundit state emphatically that companies don\u2019t create brands customers do, it\u2019s time to call balderdash.<\/p>\n

Times have changed but brand creation has not. If companies have relegated the creation, management and nourishing of brands to consumers I\u2019d argue they\u2019re just plain lazy.<\/p>\n

Has the marketing world changed and will it continue to change?
\nAbsolutely.<\/p>\n

Has marketing communication changed and will it continue to change?
\nAbsolutely.<\/p>\n

Do consumers have more opportunity to change the course of a brand\u2019s destiny?
\nAbsolutely.<\/p>\n

But they don\u2019t create brands. They don\u2019t nurture brands. Certainly consumers determine a brand\u2019s success but they always have done and always will do. They either bought you or they didn\u2019t. This is not new. The rate at which consumers communicate and interact with brands happens at warp speed but they don\u2019t create brands.<\/p>\n

Let’s start by agreeing on what a brand is. The best definition I\u2019ve stumbled across appeared in the Harvard Business Review and was shared with me by Larry Light, a well-respected brand consultant and former McDonald\u2019s Chief Marketing Officer:<\/p>\n

“A brand is a promise of value and delivery on that promise is critical if a company is going to differentiate itself from its competitors and stake a solid claim in its intended market. If all functions in an organization are not helping to create and nurture a single promise of value, customers will at best be confused and a worst angry.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yes, strong successful brands make an emotional connection with its intended market but that emotional connection is often the single promise of value.<\/p>\n

A brand is a promise, a differentiated promise of value. If you make a promise and keep it you’ll get rich. If you make a promise and break it you\u2019ll go broke. And today more than ever consumers are empowered to let you know when you break the promise.<\/p>\n

A brand is often the most valuable non-tangible asset on a company’s balance sheet.
\nIt is an asset that must be nurtured for it to flourish and prosper, a skill set that may well be dying in Canada.<\/p>\n

As multi-national companies repatriate their North American Brand Management south of the border, fewer and fewer Canadians are being trained on the power of brands and how to grow them. It\u2019s becoming a lost art.<\/p>\n

Discussion around the power of the brand is being replaced with discussion about the power of media. This may well explain why media planning and buying companies are becoming increasingly important in clients\u2019 agency rosters.<\/p>\n

To some degree this is understandable. Media fragmentation is arguably the most challenging issue facing marketers but if they lose sight of their role in creating and nurturing brands it won\u2019t really matter how they reach people because the brand will become irrelevant.<\/p>\n

So please let\u2019s stop the craziness. Let\u2019s stop abdicating our role as Brand Custodians and Brand Zealots to consumers.<\/p>\n

Rather let\u2019s continue to engage them and listen to them so we can make our brands more relevant and useful to them and more powerful for marketers.<\/p>\n

\n

Tony Altilia<\/strong><\/span>
\nTony Altilia is a partner in Maxim Partners Inc.<\/strong><\/a> a Canadian Boutique Brand Consultancy and is a former President of DDB Canada. He is also authour of the book I Wish Someone Had Told Me That<\/em>. Follow Tony on twitter @tony2altilia<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s stop the craziness.<\/p>\n

After sitting on the sidelines attending a variety of industry conferences over the past five years and listening to more than one pundit state emphatically that companies don\u2019t create brands customers do, it\u2019s time to call balderdash.<\/p>\n

Times have changed but brand creation has not. If companies have relegated the creation, management and nourishing of brands to consumers I\u2019d argue they\u2019re just plain lazy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[57,58,217,218,219,132,104,136,160,220,143],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nConsumers Don\u2019t Create Brands, Brands Create Brands! | Association of Canadian Advertisers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acaweb.ca\/en\/2014\/consumers-dont-create-brands-brands-create-brands\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Consumers Don\u2019t Create Brands, Brands Create Brands! | Association of Canadian Advertisers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Let\u2019s stop the craziness. 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