Defining your brand: Marketoon of the Week

This week’s Marketoon takes a closer look in the decision making that goes into branding.

Fishburne’s take: The Brand Onion rarely passes the “Factory Floor Test” — could you share it outside of the Marketing Ivory Tower without being laughed out of the room?  The strongest business communication is just plain English.

I like this perspective on Brand Onions from Leo Rayman: “Agreeing on a succinct form of words to define a brand remains a valuable exercise – not knowing what you stand for is a recipe for disaster. But the hours spent on ‘word-salad’, moving phrases in boxes around an onion, key, wheel etc. creates a dangerous illusion of control. While you’re debating the exact wording, a DTC brand has gathered a small lake of first-party data telling them exactly where to pivot to next.”

Why we care. Peel away enough layers of this brand onion and eventually you should be getting to the data. Your brand messaging (internally and to customers) should take into account how consumers respond to your products and services and those of your competitors, and it’s never been easier to gather this data from social media, product reviews, emails to your brand, texts and chatbot conversations, as well as standard ecommerce metrics if you’re selling online.