APPRECIATED BRANDING

Cal Newport, author of the book Deep Work, said: “Focus is the number one skill of the 21st century.”

Surprised? Me neither.

In this media fragmented, marketing saturated, distraction economy, how are advertisers supposed to build a meaningful brand? How can consumers – to whom they hope to sell – be inspired to care?

Strong brands still command higher profit margins. But advertising has changed. The interruption model has propagated far outside the bounds of the original, mutually beneficial “ads paying for program creation” bargain. (Heck, we now pay mobile phone data rates for the privilege of having more ads interrupt us in more places.)

After 30 years as an ad agency copywriter and creative leader, I wanted to find a new path - for the good of advertisers, and consumers. I studied the campaigns I’ve been most proud of in my career. I studied the ones I’ve most admired in our industry. And I examined how they created outsized results. One theme floated to the top:

In other words, instead of spending millions with interruptive selling, spend a fraction of that proactively solving. Media buys cost a lot of money. Solving bigger problems can be a lot cheaper, more attention getting, and much more gratifying for all involved.

I call this approach Appreciated Branding.

Isn’t this just what is commonly known as purpose-driven marketing? Purpose-driven marketing, often conflated with brands undertaking a social mission, usually take on big worthy causes. But it’s usually untethered to customer’s daily problems, cares, and needs. So, the space between that message and customer’s daily experience is often wide.

Appreciated Branding closes that gap.

Here’s a specific example. Two laundry detergent brands in India – Unilever’s Surf and P&G’s Ariel – were doing the share shuffle every year. Each alternately spending millions to get some kind of growth. In 2017, Ariel found a problem they could help fix. In ninety-five percent of households in India, women were still expected to do all the laundry. Ariel launched a campaign on behalf of their best customers, women, by appealing to others in the family to #ShareTheLoad. Wow. Thank you, Ariel.

This campaign drove a 76% sales increase. Seventy-six. You don’t get that from data tracking, internet transaction chasing or even funny commercials. You get it from a big, as yet unstruck emotional chord that solves a bigger problem and earns appreciation.

In my 25+ years as a copywriter, creative director, and executive creative director, I’ve worked on both regional brands and big national brands like H&R Block, Toro, The Mayo Clinic, Burger King and many more. I’ve won the awards. I’ve eaten at the fancy restaurants. It was time to take branding apart from a creative director’s point-of-view and put it back together in a way that works in our multi-platform, data-driven world.

Some of what I go through in this book…

• Brands have become vulnerable to the whims and rules of the tech platforms they use to advertise, or to potential legislation of those platforms. Without media agnostic emotional brand meaning, they are at risk.
• Multiple cases that prove how proactively solving human problems, outside talking about your parity product, cuts through like the prow of an icebreaker.
• An examination of proven research from the grandfathers of effectiveness, Les Binet & Peter Field, including their “60% on branding, 40% on activation” guideline.
• How brands, mature brands in particular, can get off what I call the Plateau of Indifference. A place where you’re known but taken for granted and ignored. (Unless you have a budget the size of a large Caribbean Island.)
• How values-based targeting is now more powerful and efficient than demographic targeting because the reason for consumers to care is built-in. You’re the signal, not the noise.
• How to use the Brand Appreciation Pyramid to categorize, focus and plan Appreciated Branding efforts.
• How marketing leaders deserve a more meaningful, rewarding, and satisfying career, and how Appreciated Branding is a new path.
• Brands that ignore the innumerable opportunities to earn consumer appreciation do so at great expense. As more is asked of companies and brands in coming years, brands that solve first instead of selling first will become more relevant, more impactful, and more profitable.