Every brand transformation program we have ever worked on has been set in motion by a problem. And in every case the issue that has galvanized action and that everyone is so focused on answering is not the real problem at all.
In a recent post on iMedia Connection, Millward Brown Optimor’s Pandora Lycouri and Dmitri Seredenko conclude that Samsung can’t buy love. In “Can Samsung Buy Love?” they contend that simply outspending Apple is not going to overturn the strong emotional connection with users that Apple has earned through consistent innovation and iconic style. Maybe not, but it might help Samsung charge a price premium over other brands.
It’s an old bias but a telling one. Finance, procurement and purchasing leaders accuse marketers of only spending money. Marketers accuse finance, procurement and purchasing leaders of only counting it. It’s another re-run of the analytical versus emotive debate yet it has the potential to carry deep bias into decision-making.
A post by James D. Roumeliotis and Violetta Ihalainen of Whitefield Consulting, absolutely challenges my worldview as an unabashed meritocrat, but includes some fascinating points – particularly that absolute (objective) quality is far less important for consumers in their decisions about brands than perceived quality.
From a marketer’s point of view, numbers don’t drive recessions. They may start them. They may justify them. But they don’t actually make them happen.
