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2009 Branding Challenge

I have a challenge for you regarding the B-word, and as it is the first working day of the new year, allow me to frame it as a New Year's Resolution that you might consider to taking on. There are two levels to this resolution; choose the one that you think you're up to.

Jedi Master Level: Go the whole year without using the B-word.

Padawan Level: Refuse to use the B-word when discussing your own firm.

What is So Wrong with the B-Word?

I collect answers to the question, 'What is strategy?' but I might as well start collecting answers to the question, 'What is branding?' because the question engenders a similarly wide variety of responses (usually without the stunned silence to proceed them).

Branding has come to mean everything remotely associated with the crafting, managing and application of identity and visual communication in any form. Lots of folks try to stake out a narrower meaning within this wide swath, and many arguments ensue about what branding really is and what it really is not. I can't bear to listen to those arguments. To me, branding has long been the new term for full-service marketing communication. It's all things marketing; a term so big and ubiquitous that it's almost meaningless.

Trying to sound smart talking about branding is like trying to dive deep into the kiddie pool. It can't be done and you risk looking silly. No meaningful depth has been added to the conversation in fifteen years, but the breadth of it keeps expanding.

It's not that the subjects covered by the branding umbrella are ridiculous, it's only the term itself that I think should be retired. It's just a word. A word that used to make people sound smart, and now makes people look like they're trying to sound smart. So, if it's just a word, and one that's loaded with a meaning more negative than positive, consider adopting my challenge and try to get by without using it.

Let's explore the two levels to the challenge.

Jedi Master: Reject the Word Outright

Lots of firms rode the branding wave and now a few have ridden the anti-branding wave. (I can't be the only person out there made nauseous by the word, can I? Surely some of your clients and clients-to-be are as sick of it?) Identity, reputation, messaging - all these throwback words that used to proceed branding now seem so much more authentic and devoid of baggage. The few firms that I know of that have dropped the B-word do a great job at repositioning the competition in pitches. They'll go in before you and challenge the client-to-be to play Brand Bingo, counting how many times you use the word and challenging them to think about what you really mean when you say it.

At the very least these firms are planting a seed with the client-to-be that you water every time you use the word.

Try looking at the words you use to describe your firm's expertise. Examine the copy on your website, brochure, sales collateral, intro letters, etc. and replace every B-word with something more specific. At a minimum it is an interesting exercise in creative thinking.

Padawn Learner: Do Not Refer to Your Firm's Brand

If you're not ready to purge the word from your lexicon, try this first step and refuse to use it when discussing your own firm. Do not talk about your firm's brand.

Branding vs. Positioning

Branding is fun. It's also relatively easy.

Branding at its basis is the articulation of the essence of the brand, usually largely rooted in personality. Positioning is the act of arriving at a fundamental business strategy relative to the competition. Positioning is rooted in expertise and the needs of the market.

Truly positioning your firm is difficult. It's fraught with fear and sometimes pain. It forces you to deal with the most difficult decision: deciding what business you're in, or put another way, deciding what vast hordes of business opportunities you are going to walk away from - ignore, forever.

Because branding is easy and fun, and positioning is difficult and painful, there's a whole lot more branding of creative firms than there is proper positioning of them. Any discussion of your firm's brand carries with it an implication of poor positioning - of little or no meaningful differentiation.

Your business success is not tied to your brand, it's tied to your expertise. The leading experts can afford to be dull, annoying, expensive and even smelly. They will still get hired.

The Padawan Resolution exercise is a simple one: when referring to your firm, replace the B-word with the word Expertise. If it doesn't fit, then perhaps your New Year's Resolution should be to revisit your firm's positioning.

Let me know if you decide to take the challenge, at either level.