A beginner’s guide to brands, and fear of decisions

Simply put, a brand is an emotional connection to a product or service. Call it a relationship. That’s where simplicity ends.

This emotional connection operates on an emotional continuum, ranging from the unemotional, hard logic of commercial utility, repetitive profit and gain on the left end of the spectrum to wild-eyed devotion that defies any form of reason on the right end of the spectrum.

The emotional connection defines an enterprise outcome, be it sales volumes or behavioural change entailed in a social initiative. The consumer evaluates utility – logical or emotional – associated with the brand and either buys in or doesn’t. In other words, the brand is a bottom-line phenomenon.

The brand exerts its power by sending three types of signals to the consumer.

The consumer confronts a metaphorical shop shelf with a set of subconscious fears that arise from choice. Will the product I choose give the utility that I need? Will the price I pay be value for money? Will my choice fulfil my emotional needs, be it reflecting my values to myself or fitting in with my social group? Faced with the choice, the consumer makes comparisons and opts for the brand that best allays the fear.

If you read into this that the brand is a form of security, give yourself five points. If you jump to the conclusion that the brand is a differential, add an extra ten points. This is the most important signal. Without the fear, products become commoditized, effortlessly substitutable. Even salt producers make the effort to differentiate their products. Himalayan pink salt, anyone?

The brand is also a matter of convenient decision making. The consumer does not want spend time thinking about and rethinking choices at the shop shelf. Life is too short. The presence of a brand that allays the consumer’s fears is enough to move the consumer’s hand from one product to another.

A brand holds the convenience of information efficiency, but it is not only the consumer who benefits. The firm that has established a strong brand has less of a burden to convince a shopper to make the purchase and can use the brand for cost-effective pull marketing. A firm that does not have a strong brand has to spend major budget on push marketing, repetitively motivating the purchase.

How does this work? Close your eyes and picture Coca-Cola. You probably see happy youths in a small group. Now ask yourself when last you saw a clip for Coca-Cola? Shop signage costs less than a TV commercial.

The brand can also offer inducements that retain the shopper or cause her or him to switch. A larger, discounted pack size might be the value addition that an economical shopper needs to remain loyal to a preferred brand or the reason to switch to a competitor. Will a cold cola in a fridge be a value add? Or will it be the shrink-wrapped bulk of six discounted bottles on display in a central aisle?

In a nutshell, the three signals that a brand sends out are a differential that allays fears, cost-effective information that it is present, and at least one value add. Remember that. It’s at the heart of managing your brand.

And don’t be fooled that an undifferentiated, positive emotion is sufficient. There is a spectrum of different emotions based on variable consumer utility. Identification of the point where the emotion falls on the continuum, and its nature, is critical.

This column draws on the inestimable Kevin Lane Keller’s customer-based brand equity and ‘Strategic Brand Management’.