DNA and the nature/nurture of brands

Listening to an interview with Michael Peters on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, I once again heard an interviewer talk about the DNA of a brand.  This may be a useful shorthand, but is used sloppily to describe what a brand is fundamentally about… and this is not the DNA, but the brand personality.

If we consider this more carefully and follow the brand-as-person model, we can see that in people, our personality is derived from two components: our genetic make up (the nature – from the DNA) and the social impacts of our upbringing and development (the nurture). Psychologists may argue as to what degree these two components contribute to a person’s personality, but I would suggest that when we are talking of a brand personality, the ‘DNA’ (not to be confused with the brand history) is far less important than the nurture which represents a brand’s interaction with its audiences. It is the latter that shapes what we perceive as the brand personality.

I guess there is no point me fulminating or leading a one-man crusade on banning the use of the term ‘Brand DNA’ – but the concept of brand personality is a sound one and the idea of of their being an underlying, unchanging blueprint is unhelpful in understanding the dynamic, constantly changing nature of brands.

Okay, rant over.

Brand narratives, archetypes and stereotypes

I’ve long been a believer in the power of narratives to help in understanding brands and their values far better than a string of adjectives. One powerful tool is the simple conjunction, ‘and’. Take any brand and begin; ‘He got on his Harley and…’ or ‘She put on her Levis and…’ Then construct a descriptive narrative. Immediately you can begin to understand the underlying brand narratives of maybe the lawyer who rides a Harley because he wants to be thought of as a bit of a rebel and a little dangerous.

To make this effective you need to contextualise it in terms of a personal archetype. In Alastair Compton’s classic book ‘The Craft of Copywriting’, he advised going beyond the dry ‘B/C1 Male, 25-35 etc’ to say, ‘Imagine someone you know who fits the profile… then write as though you were talking to them’.  I would say do the same in brand narratives. ‘George took out his Nokia mobile and…’

Okay, now we are starting to build a brand narrative. It may be necessary to further contextualise the narrative in terms of time and place. If there is a complex audience you may need a number of narratives: ‘Ten year old Tracy went into McDonald’s and…’, ‘Phil the salesman stopped at McDonalds and…’

Narratives are useful tools to use alongside all the quantitative brand data to understand underlying values of the brand and the audiences and their more subtle interactions.

Brand damage – is it reversible?

Of course brands suffer damage from time to time, often it is terminal, sometimes recoverable and occasionally reversible. But always it underlines the fragility of brand reputation.

I suggest there are four main types of brand damage, the first two are usually terminal, while the latter two can be recovered from in time:

1. Critical Success Factor Damage – there are certain things a brand MUST get right to survive in its sector. Failure in these areas is usually catastrophic for the brand. For example, car tyres are expected to be safe – this is fundamental. But when Firestone tyres were linked to crashes with the Ford cars in the US, the brand suffered near fatal damage, despite many question marks over Ford’s culpability and a rigorous recall programme.
2. Core Value Damage –  brand values, and especially the core values a brand represents are among its major strengths and differentiators (and in many cases can embody Critical Success Factors (CSF) as discussed above. But while these are recognised as key strengths, if they fail the whole brand reputation may be damaged irreparably. Look for example at Anderson Consulting: core values of such an organisation include probity and corporate responsibility.  When these were seen to fail in the light of the Enron scandal, the brand could no longer survive.
3. Communications Damage – ‘foot in mouth syndrome’. While organisations spend vast proportions of their communications budgets on promoting their brand and its values, it only takes one ill advised comment to hole the brand below the waterline. The classic example, now part of brand folklore was the speech given by Gerald Ratner, former CEO of jewellery chain, Ratners, to the Institute of Directors in 1991: ‘We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, “How can you sell this for such a low price?” I say, because it’s total crap.’  Result, £500 million wiped off the company’s value and turnover plummeting.
4. Damage by Association – Sectors suffer damage, countries too have their reputations damaged and associated brands find themselves also suffering. We are seeing this at the moment with banks and financial institutions the world over. Despite some extremely high quality output China and many far eastern companies are tagged with reputations for poor quality and controls. Damage by association is difficult to deal with, as many of the brands are already doing everything right but overcoming perceptual prejudices takes exceptional brand management to overcome.

There is more to sustainable brands than just being green

Sustainable brands and sustainable marketing are often seen as synonymous with ecological responsibility and being green. But there are three key pillars to a sustainable strategy; ecology, economy and culture.

The ecological dimension

This is perhaps the best known and best understood dimension, and many brands are already working hard in this area.

The economic dimension

Is the economic and financial model sustainable? What effect will this have on the other two dimensions – will the pricing model unavoidably  lead to offshore manufacture, social exploitation or long distance transportation? How will the brand’s business plan impact upon increasingly globalised markets.

The cultural/social dimension

Brands operate in human societies: everything that happens is an interaction between people and the brand. And those interactions cause impacts and changes on both. We must weigh the effects of the brand upon the societies in which it operates – its employees, suppliers, customers and the world at large.

Consideration of these dimensions is not only socially responsible, but makes sound business sense as it can be seen as a differentiator of corporate social responsibility.

Put aside the green dimension for a moment. Consider the impact of such economic and social actions as sports goods brands manufacturing in third world sweatshops or banks moving call centres emerging economies – then think of the impact that had upon the brands, their values and their reputations.

Taking care of the brand assets

I am often at pains to underline that most of what we confuse as ‘the brand’ are actually to do with brand communications, they are the signifiers, and it is what the brand is and does that really matters. Ownership of the brand is with the public at large. But one area that those charged with brand stewardship can and should take charge of is that of the brand assets. Brand assets are as valuable, sometimes more valuable, than those buildings and machines that appear on the balance sheet.

I break brand assets down into four main categories, broad and by no means exhaustive:

Tangible

• Premises, location, iconic buildings, historic offices
• Flagship products
• Everyday products
• Vehicles etc.

Intangible

• Intrinsic history, brand narratives
• Reputation
• Social actions
• National reputation
• Brand Loyalty

Created

• Marcoms assets – The Michelin Man, the Dulux dog, Ronald McDonald etc; iconic advertising
• Brand identitiy, logos, colour schemes, corporate signatures
• Intellectual properties

Human

• High profile people in the organisation – past and current
• Owners/founders – King Gillette, Richard Branson, Victor Kyham etc.
• Marcoms personalities
• Staff
• Customers

All of these assets require care and careful stewardship. You would not allow your premises to become dilapidated, nor machinery to seize or fail through lack of maintenance – yet those are replaceable unlike many brand assets.

What brands swim against the tide in hard economic times?

There was always the glib observation that in hard economic times, brewers do well.  I suppose there are two perspectives to take: firstly, the pragmatic economic view. I heard a retailer saying that brands that connect primarily with teenagers are still prospering – because credit hardly effects that group. Another sector could be that section of the grey market who have paid off the mortgages, cleared their debts and already taken their pensions.  So long as inflation does not run away, brands operating in these sectors can develop strategies to at least survive and maybe even prosper.

Beyond the pragmatic is the psychological view – what values do we look for in times of anxiety? Do we focus on value brands to reassure ourselves we are being economical, or go for comfort brands? Will we be looking for longevity, or making short term decisions to batten down the hatches while the storm passes?

I might suggest that brands consider Freud’s pain/pleasure principle here – that we work far harder to avoid pain than we do in the pursuit of pleasure.  So, brands that promise protection from pain should be more desirable than those that offer us comfort and pleasure – maybe with the possible exception of brewers!

The brand values transfered by nationality, and vice versa.

All brands take values from their sector and their nationality, for better or for worse. German cars, Australian wines, English suits, American music etc. The value transference is subtle and changing: think how low Japanese brands were regarded in the decades just after the war, where now, ‘Japanese’ is a signifier for quality and innovation in such areas as cameras and consumer electronics.

It is all to easy too consider this brand transference as a hierachy, as in the diagram below:

The organisation draws value from the reputation of its sector, which in turn embodies values of its nation in that sector.

I would suggest the model more complex, more like that shown below:

For example, you could say that Mercedes have a reputation for quality because they are German cars. But equally, the sector has a reputation for quality because of the values brands like Mercedes bring to it. This impacts upon the national values which in turn are transferred to brands within the sector. Unlike the previous model that is very ‘top-down’ , this model takes into account bottom-up interactions too.

Brand archetypes and positioning

Michael Cowen contacted me to talk about brand archetypes and positioning, and his website, www.contextbranding.co.za is really worth a look. He identifies 10 brand archetypes which can be mapped creating a unique brand profile. A strategy can then be created to position the brand by aligning three critical areas: executive vision and business strategy, customer perceptions, and management and staff perceptions.   A very useful approach – my only worry is that it is static where the world is dynamic. These 10 archetypes are constantly changing their values and weightings, and while the brand consultant may understand this, often the client company misses the point.  I have often worked with clients who proudly hand over to me their brand positioning document, only to find it was created five years ago.  It is understandable; such profiles take a lot of resource, both in terms of time and money to produce.  Nobody wants to have have to repeat the exercise too regularly, but I would argue that is what is needed. Perhaps the trick is to identify some key indicators in the market and within the company that can be taken as live feeds and used to update the model automatically.  Each view is only a snapshot of the brand in time, but the data can be used to identify and capitalise on trends.