Brand Belief Starts with You

Do consumers believe in your brand? Do you?

I’ve talking to my Father a lot over the past few days, and one of his favorite topics is the Dodgers.

The Brooklyn Dodgers. He was a proud Brooklynite. And a major Dodgers fan. Until they moved. For him, the move was a betrayal. A realization that the team owners cared not one whit for Brooklyn or its people.

Which was, in his view, a violation of the brand though he wouldn’t use those words. But the nature of Brooklyn and its people was a big part of the Dodgers brand. They weren’t just a group of players brought together by paychecks – they were an embodiment of the spirit of the Borough – always in the shadow of Manhattan, and determined to scrap and scrape to be on top.

In my 25 or so years in marketing, I have been struck by the number of people I’ve met who were charged with building brands they disdained. People who had contempt for their targets if they were downscale or religious or extremely pedestrian in their aspirations and dreams.

Enter social media. The powerful thing about a TV ad you produce once a year or a print ad you spend thousands on is that it gives the savvy the opportunity to pretend – to pretend to share the values of the users that drive the brand. To pretend that a product is far better than it is. Car photographers and food stylists and supermodels can also be used to obfuscate product issues instead of focusing resources on fixing them.

What I love about social is that there’s no place to hide anymore. No way to paper over fundamental product issues or elitism. In this new environment, truth will out. If we don’t believe in what we are selling, we’ll surely be found out.

We have instincts about which brands care about their products – and us. Is there any doubt in your head that Steve Jobs is a believer? Jeff Bezos? Tony Hsieh?

Even when we don’t know who is behind brands, we love it when brands and the people behind them demonstrate genuine belief in their offerings. Take Cadillac. There are lots of reasons why Cadillac is back, but I think a big part of it is that Cadillac got its groove back – the brash, in your face, look at me sense of this aspirational brand returned as the design team started designing actual Cadillacs again, and everyone else – from the dealer to the men and women on the line – felt good about what they were making and doing. You could feel it. You can feel it.

What other brands feel like they believe in what they are doing?
• Tide
• Hyundai
• Contadina
• Ford
• Flip
• Tyler Perry Studios
• JC Penney
• Tourism Australia

Those are some on my list, anyway.

The popularity of cause related marketing is an interesting side to this belief thing. Many brands are using borrowed interest to give their brands a sense of purpose. I think that’s great – but it doesn’t replace the need for everyone involved in a brand to actually care about their product. Because cause related marketing makes me feel good about this purchase, whereas brand pride and brand belief make me feel good about being loyal to the brand. Now, causes can make me feel better about buying a brand, but they can only supplement – not replace – genuine belief in the things were are making and doing.

Let’s head back to Ebbets Field for the closer. There were a lot of reasons why the Dodgers moved, not least a big fight with the city over a new stadium. Sound familiar?

Anyway, whatever the reasons, there’s no doubt that most Brooklyners felt betrayed. For the Dodgers it didn’t matter much – after all, baseball was a local business and LA was a long ways away from Coney Island. But when we fail to believe in the people that buy our products -- and in those products themselves, the consumer can sense that betrayal.

Think about that the next time those consumers you disdain aren’t signing up in droves for your FaceBook page.

Thanks to iMedia Connection for publishing this first.