Twenty years ago, Branding Strategy Insider began with a straightforward ambition: create a place where people serious about building brands could find thinking that made them better at it.
The one thing we marketers want more than anything else is people’s time. We have all kinds of metrics to track it. Indeed, it’s the thing we track most, more so than spending and usage.
Bear with me as I wax philosophical. It’s a circuitous path, but it will loop us to AI. So here goes.
Each year, research firms such as CB Insights analyze why both startups and new products from mature companies fail. On average, about 80 percent of VC-backed startups fail (and those are the best of the startup world), and somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of new products launched by mature companies also fail. Invariably, the primary reason for failure is “no market need.”
It is just astounding that after more than 35 years, some marketers are still using the flawed funnel approach to how advertising works. This is one reason that real, credible, data-supported brand management must be taught in business schools. For decades, we have known that using the funnel approach to advertising, in hopes of building brand loyalty, is a form of mismarketing on a major scale.
