The longstanding position of consequence that brand strategy has enjoyed appears to be under attack. Detractors scoff at brand strategy as too slow, too restrictive, and inherently disconnected from the rough and tumble, real world, real time ways of today’s restive consumers.
Brand strategy seems to be accommodating rather than defining campaign strategy. Marketers wonder if it is a quaint relic of simpler times, a business imperative, or something that floats in the gray areas between the two.
What may be the most illuminating answer is 113 years old and comes from an unlikely source. In 1905, John E. Kennedy, a former Canadian Northwest Mounted Police officer traveled to Chicago, home of Lord & Thomas, which at the time was one of America’s leading advertising agencies. After asking a messenger to send a note upstairs to A. L. Thomas, the agency’s senior partner, Kennedy took a seat in the lobby and waited.
Kennedy’s note read, “You do not know what advertising is. No one in the advertising business knows what advertising is. No advertiser knows for certain what advertising is. If you want to know, tell this messenger that I should come up. I’m waiting in the lobby downstairs.”
Thomas asked his partner, Albert Lasker, to follow up. The two men met. Kennedy told Lasker that advertising is, “Salesmanship in print.”
Salesmanship In Print
Twenty years later, Albert Lasker told his staff, “It was that in 1905 when Kennedy told it;
it was that before anyone had ever told me, and it will always be that, and nothing else.”
Lasker sold the agency in 1942 to three of his executives. It evolved into Foote, Cone & Belding, now known as FCB and owned by Interpublic.
It is doubtful that the deceptively simple term “salesmanship in print” finds its way in today’s marketing discussions, even if “print” is considered a metaphor for multiple platforms and media. The notion of salesmanship is vulnerable, susceptible to attack from marketers who believe their target does not want to be sold to. Salesmanship is easily dismissed as unfocused, tawdry, pushy, insulting, and detrimental to the attributes of the brand.
This perspective is flawed because of a misunderstanding of the role of salesmanship. Professional, selling, whether door to door or on a digital platform, has always included tactics such as:
- Establishing trust
- Developing empathy
- Gathering information on the prospect
- Positioning the product being marketed as a solution
These activities are not the antithesis of creating a brand. They are the foundations of creating both a brand and a sustainable competitive advantage. The perception that selling pollutes brand strategy may be based more on when marketing messages appear than on their content, their calls to action, and their congruence with brand strategy.
A Harris Poll conducted for Lithium revealed that 74% of 16- to 39-year-olds don’t like being targeted by brands in their social media feeds.
The “we don’t want to be sold” mantras of millennials that surface in research shouldn’t be interpreted as proof that selling is passé. After all, regardless of demography, hardly any of us want to be sold to. But just about all of us want to buy. Skittish guardians of brand strategy who overlook this aspect of human nature put business results at risk.
The Role Of Strategy
“Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities,” according to Michael Porter, author of 18 books on strategy, competition, and business.
“The essence of strategic positioning is to choose activities that are different from rivals.”
This perspective on strategy drives to the heart of the matter for marketers and brand managers. It captures the inescapable need for differentiation. It underscores the importance of the creation of a position, and it recognizes that until something is actually sold, marketing’s job is incomplete.
Vast realms of data clearly provide opportunities for share growth and revenue growth. But knowing the customer is one thing. Actually asking for their business in a way that’s driven by this understanding is altogether different.
