The Brand Before the Horse

James Dyson kicked up a tempest in a teapot last month while speaking at a conference hosted by Wired magazine.The creator of the high-end vacuum line that bears his name emphatically stated, "I don't believe in 'brand' at all," noting that the word is "banned" at his company and qualifying the remark by explaining, "We're only as good as our latest product."The response from the marketing cognoscenti was that Dyson's comments were about as relevant as the floor debris sucked up by his vacuums, given the fact that his company has invested millions of dollars in advertising over the last 10 years and that its original creative strategy was to use the founder himself as spokesperson. Truth be told, they countered, Dyson has been building a brand all along.But the media responses didn't really evaluate Dyson's comments in the context of the question he was asked: "Does product make the brand, or does brand make the product?"So while his answer may have been a bit disingenuous, the point he was making might have been right on target: that the product makes the brand, period. It seems to me that Dyson wasn't so much denouncing the concept of "brand" as he was knocking the act of "branding."That, of course, is a big no-no in an industry that has made branding an exercise unto itself, a process that all too often is distanced – even disconnected, on occasion – from the product in question.Dyson's advertising unrelentingly emphasizes the unique technology behind the products that lets the company claim superiority over other vacuums. It doesn't suggest that buying a Dyson will improve your life or give you more time to spend with family or win you more friends, just that it will give you cleaner floors. There's still a brand lurking in that creative strategy, for sure, but maybe Dyson was simply suggesting that he prefers to let the brand be defined by the product, not the advertising.Dyson's near-blasphemous comments came about two weeks after our Shopper Marketing Summit, at which keynote speaker and TV personality Mike Rowe had this to say during what he noted was his first-ever talk about branding: "Anybody who ever sets out to build an authentic brand with purpose, deliberateness and intentionality is, therefore, fundamentally inauthentic.""You can build a brand and hope it becomes authentic," Rowe offered. Better yet, he implied, you can take stock of your product, identify its inherent authenticity – the way it is perceived by consumers – and then build your brand from that.Rowe spent much of his very entertaining time on stage at Summit explaining how he worked with Discovery Channel to develop "Dirty Jobs," and how the series arrived at an ideal time in the nation's history. It was only in retrospect, after the series had become a hit and the media had crowned Rowe as the "hero of the working man," that he consciously recognized the authentic elements that made "Dirty Jobs" resonate with consumers in a troubled economy. The horse came before the cart, so to speak.Speaking at the Shopper Marketing Expo back in 2010, Kroger vice president-corporate marketing & advertising Evan Anthony said, "I believe that, if I stopped every bit of my advertising and was the best in this country at the inside of that store and taking care of that customer, I would win." Was Anthony (inducted into the Shopper Marketing Hall of Fame at this year's Summit) renouncing the profession in which he's made his career? Of course not. He was simply acknowledging the fact that giving shoppers what they need is far more important than telling them that you can give them what they need.When I first began covering this industry in the late 1990s, a veteran colleague was quick to correct what she saw as a fundamental error in my early work: the unwitting use of the phrase "brand manufacturer." "You can manufacture or market the product," she explained, "but you can only market the brand." Sometimes, it seems as if some brand marketers consider themselves manufacturers, too.Procter & Gamble's "First Moment of Truth" assumes that many shoppers who "stand in front of a store shelf" are mentally sifting through reams of branding messages to help inform their purchase decisions. But it also recognizes the distinct possibility that many others have little or no preconceptions about the products they have in their hands.And then there's P&G's "Second Moment of Truth," when the product is "put to the test" through use at home. At this moment, is the consumer really evaluating fulfillment of the brand promise?If you ask me, they’re just looking to see if their floors are cleaner. And if they are cleaner, then Dyson's built himself a brand.Peter Breen is managing director-content for p2pi.org. He can be reached at (203) 852-8912 or pbreen@p2pi.org.

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