Chris Writes.

I’m not a big fan of “branding” in it’s classic sense. It seems to be relied upon too often as a crutch to support marketing efforts that don’t have a clear message, strategy, and direction. “Oh, this is more of a branding ad/email/website/billboard”…I’ve heard and read that often. In a world of connected customers, cheaper ‘no-name’ brands of high quality, and a whole lot of other marketing noise out there, does this really make any sense anymore? Or has it become a way to justify a poor marketing execution that merely follows tradition?

Then, the flipside is: there are just plain awesome brands out there. ‘Brand Awesomeness’ was a term that I first heard mentioned at a conference where the guys from threadless were presenting their experiences in online community building. It stuck with me. It’s a simple term that makes intuitive sense (grammar issues aside, of course). And I’ve spent lots of time, lucky for me, working under the umbrella of what I and a lot of others believe to be a brand that has ‘awesomeness’. And I don’t claim to know much, but I am quite sure that the brand awesomeness that exists in the company where I’m lucky to work was not created through a series of mediocre logo-centric print ads that someone justified by saying it was ‘more of a branding ad’. Anyone who says that (this is where I borrow an apt term from Scott Adams) is probably a weasel.

So I’m thinking about this lots recently: what creates brand awesomeness? And for the moment, I’m not talking about the wonderfully powerful yet perhaps suspiciously ultra-polished behemoths like Apple. I’m looking more towards the niche corners: Scion (I own one), Lego (own lots), Camper (2 pair), Patagonia (yup), the Wii (want!), and Harley (not for me, thanks). How can a relatively small brand, or a big brand in a relatively small industry, achieve these leaps out into such a widely distributed network of loyalists?

After chewing on this for a few days, I think I’m starting to see some patterns. Maybe branding might not be so much what is done, but who it’s done to, and then what they then do to each other. Let me explain.

For any brand, you can divide the world into three pie slices: a very very small one for employees. A small one for existing and past customers. And the rest (probably the biggest pie piece) for those who aren’t yet customers.

It seems to me, for the little I might pretend that I know, that each of these groups needs to be included in different ways. An employee that thinks highly of the brand is not only likely to work harder, they’re also likely to spread their enthusiasm with reckless abandon. They care about different things than customers though. They see the underbelly of the beast. They know what actually goes on. And they need to feel good about that.

Customers are potential advocates, with a small number carrying a large voice (everyone knows the neighborhood or office ‘car guy’, right?). But the pissed off ones all find their lungs if improperly tended.

Last, the non-customers. These guys don’t know you. They don’t feel a twinge of emotion, good or bad, at the sight of an unknown logo. But they’re not deaf, dumb, or blind, and under the right circumstances, they might be wiling to be entertained, taught, or even involved.

Here’s the really interesting thing though: think about the three pie slices, and how they tend to notice the others reactions. The employees are sensitive to the customers (they want to work for a company that’s not hated by its own customers, which makes sense). The customers watch the non-customers, because it’s cool to own something that someone else knows the value of, but doesn’t have (and maybe wants). And the non-customers watch the rest of the world, initially not being able to tell the difference between one of their own, a customer, and an employee. Non-customers just watch for social patterns, and pay attention when something glitters.

There’s a trifecta here somewhere. I’m not sure what it is yet exactly, but I bet there’s a diagram just waiting to be drawn.  Maybe that’ll be the next project.