Moving Brand Conversations To Recommendations
This piece from Neil Glassman draws a distinction that I think has escaped many of us between conversation and recommendation.
NEW THINKING
This piece from Neil Glassman draws a distinction that I think has escaped many of us between conversation and recommendation.
It’s tempting to believe that every brand must be vastly different and that every opportunity to push the boundaries should be taken if the brand is to win. But is there a case for normality that we’re missing here? Should, as Jay Bauer has suggested, brands stop trying to be amazing and just get on with being useful?
There is no consensus around when the formal discipline of marketing actually began.
There are some brands we are stuck on, others we’re stuck with. Brands we’re stuck on are those where we’ve developed a relationship out of our own free will (Apple, Starbucks, Zappos). Brands we’re stuck with are those where we’ve become trapped through contracts (phone carriers, cable companies), switching costs (banks, software) or incentives (airlines via their loyalty programs).
A recent conversation with a client looking for an ad agency was a reminder of just how little of its own dog food the industry eats. Her assertion that “they all look the same and say the same things” highlighted just how difficult brand differentiation is. It’s so hard in fact that even those who claim to do it for a living struggle to do it for themselves.