The most common answer to the question, “What is a brand?” is “Something that’s recognizable.”
And for something to be recognizable, it has to be different from the rest.
All of us who work with marketing and branding, after reading these two sentences will probably comment “No sh*t, Sherlock”.
At the same time, a good number of us will continue to write slogans like “Always here for you”, “Your first choice” or “Your loyal friend”, which if we remove them from the banner with the logo and put them in a regular word document they can simultaneously be slogans for an insurance company, a butcher’s shop or a pet store.
Over the years, we’ve seen dozens of identical video ads alternating between dynamic business people with takeout coffee, energetic outdoor enthusiasts, teenagers on skateboards, and tattooed urban youth. All were followed by messages of the type “Take the first step”, “Make your dreams come true”. The logo in the last shot could easily be a logo from a bank, energy drink, or gas station, without the audience making any difference.
Because we have accustomed the audience to brand communication through general messages.
Generic messages have only one good thing to do. They are safe. Because they do not attract attention, they do not encourage discussion and comments. But they are safe only for the one who devises them and for the one who approves them. Because if there are no comments, there will be no negative comments either.
They are deadly for the brand, because, as we agreed at the beginning, the very establishment of a brand is predicated on its recognition among others. And brand-conformism is its defacement, generalization, alignment with all other brands that play it safe.
Therefore, any brand communication must aim to reinforce its recognition by pointing to at least 1 of the following three things: the brand’s unique competitive advantages, the values unique to the brand, or aspects of the brand’s personality that are, again, unique only for the specific brand.
Everything else is just overpriced brand awareness that does not bring any brand equity. That is, communication that will remind people that the brand exists, but not why the brand exists.
