Does the act of branding matter?

Probably not.

Does that answer surprise you? Did you expect someone devoted to branding to say these words?

If your brand is religiously-consistent in its execution and brand values, it should be running itself. No action required. Live up to the hype and consumers will respect that.

I find most company’s who spend wads of cash on brand studies and consultants primarily do so to fix a problem. Something happened to deviate from the original brand promise or values. Someone at the company introduced a new positioning, changed the product over time or added a new line extension without understanding the dynamics of the consumer’s relationship. Some company’s make changes because they can, or better yet, because they are bored with the same old. There isn’t anything wrong with updating a brand to make it relevant and current, but don’t change it unless the customer gives you permission.

Remember, the brand lives in the customer’s mind. It’s their relationship with your company or product(s). Keep doing what you’ve been successful doing and the brand will continue to grow – understanding if the product or service is continuing to fulfill a need.

But if you need to change (technology, competitive realities, boss tells you to) you must understand the covenant bond between your brand and the customer. Otherwise you might be better off starting a completely new product brand or company to avoid confusion. You also want to position the new idea as something first in the consumer’s mind; which is hard to do when transferring from an existing brand. Many companies try to transfer heavily-invested brand equity to a new product, only to watch it fail. The problem: as consumers, we associate a brand in our mind file as a simple word, term or value so it can be easily retrieved for future reference. As change may be an easy and exciting option to execute for a company, the consumer’s mind file might find the change confusing, difficult and a downright break-up to the relationship.

Some brand examples:

Xerox

The Xerox brand became synonymous with photocopying. People would say they were “Xeroxing a copy.” Eventually photocopying was replaced by the internet. The company has been trying for years to shift to the document company. I don’t know how successful they have made the transition over the last 15 years in changing the mind file.

Kodak

George Eastman coined the slogan "you press the button, we do the rest," in marketing the first simple film camera in 1888. In so doing, he made a cumbersome and complicated process easy to use and accessible to nearly everyone. Since that time, technology has abandoned the complicated film process to digital that is everywhere. Today, Kodak is trying to find there new brand positioning. Like Xerox, they are trying to go broad and less focused not necessarily an easy way to get into the mind file.

Harley-Davidson

In 1920 Harley-Davidson Motorcycles was the largest motorcycle manufacture. Then in the 1970’s it was the vehicle of choice for the Hells Angels and unsavory law breakers. Today, its retro image has tapped into a new market of nostalgic, older and wealthier consumers reliving their youth. This would not be possible if the brand didn’t stay true to it roots and to its original mind file.