Brand awareness isn't enough.

Brand awareness isn't enough.

Branding in the digital age is quite different than in the broadcast era. B2B and B2C audiences are exposed to thousands of messages every day, and have vast control over incoming messaging despite numerous screens, platforms, technologies, and unparalleled "noise," with which to contend 24/7/365. There are unparalleled brand choices.

Awareness is important, but it isn't enough.

Today, most products and services are commodities with direct competitors or close substitutes for nearly everything. Even brands look, act, and feel like other brands — the very nature of differentiation has itself become a commodity.

It used to be that a great product from a good company meant a loyal customer base, sustainable competitive advantage, and ultimately shareholder value. Not anymore.

What is the answer? Customer experience. Customer success. Loyalty. Relationships, feelings, and experiences are typically hard to replicate — or beat. Features and benefits are a dime a dozen. Even titans like Apple and Coke are not immune to a bevy of "me too" competitors. But a great brand transcends the product.

The brand starts inside.

It is understandable that people often associate a brand with a logo; identity is a critical component of branding. But identity should be the manifestation of what is happening inside — with the people.

Identity reflects vision, strategy, and execution.

The internal brand is crucial because internal stakeholders must know the brand vision, believe the brand promise, and live the brand. If not, the external brand might fail or simply fail to reach its full potential.

Iconic brands cast a long shadow over lesser-known brands. Coke built its brand over 130 years. Nike over 50. Apple over 40. Smart people. Great products. Loyal customers.

Countless great brands exist in more obscure categories and industries, but are iconic in their own right. Why? The internal brand drives the external brand through passion, authenticity, and belief of the people inside the company.

The power of positioning.

When you think of a favorite product, company, or brand, you probably associate them with a specific word or "image concept" in your mind. Companies spend extraordinary time, effort, and money to occupy that corner of your mind known as a position.

Position can be a place of power.

Well-known examples for sure, but even local and regional brands capitalize on the power of position. And when your brand occupies that corner of someone's mind, that can be a wonderful — or awful — place to be.

There will always be competition. There will always be customers (hopefully). There will always be an ever-changing, technology-driven environment. But the space for a position within your prospects' and customers' minds is limited, coveted, and needs to be respected and protected.

People do a lot to occupy a "good" space in others' minds, and to avoid a "bad" space. Brands are no different.

People-focus vs. product-focus.

Considering we are living in an era of unparalleled access, unbridled choice, and ease of purchase to virtually any product or service imaginable, it is natural that many companies are largely product-focused.

The 4Ps are missing something.

In 1960, the "4Ps" of Marketing — Product, Price, Place, and Promotion — was first published, and is still taught throughout the world today. A marketing truism, but 1960 was a different world in countless ways.

It was a product-focused world; America was not a services-oriented economy yet. There were only so many companies manufacturing products. In terms of sales and marketing, it was an analog world; companies advertised through broadcast media. Sales happened in the local retail store, door-to-door, and over martini lunches. Naturally, the first "P" emphasized product.

A different world.

Today: The digital world. Hyper-competition across town, the country, and globe. America is largely a services economy. Over 200 million active websites. Millions of blogs published every day. Multiple screens. Social media. Real time. Consumer control over media reception and consumption. Transparent pricing in countless industries. Unparalleled "noise" — some estimates put the average person's daily brand-message exposure between 4,000 and 10,000 messages.

Reaching an audience, much less selling them something, is more difficult than ever. So as timeless as they are, how is it that the 4Ps are still the foundation of our collective marketing thought?

People make purchases.

Unparalleled competition. Transparent pricing. Customer control over media consumption. Nearly unlimited offers and promotions. Doesn't it make sense that our marketing should be focused on people — the target audience or customer persona — rather than the product?

Great products are a must. But great products fail all the time, and in many cases due to never finding an audience. Successful products require buyers. Brands need prospects and customers. Both necessitate a massive — and different — focus. A people-focus versus product-focus.

Relevance beats preference.

The digital world is rife with a seemingly endless choice of products and brands; the competition is endless. How does a brand create that position in the mind that they represent something special, different, and relevant?

Relevance isn't relative.

There is a big difference between brand preference and brand relevance. You may prefer a specific product — like a brand of peanut butter — but there are other situations where there is only one relevant choice for you.

This is the holy grail for brands, because it means loyalty, price inelasticity, customer advocacy, sales, profitability, and brand value.

Branding guru David Aaker states that brand relevance is about making competitors irrelevant. "Preference" indicates just that, but leaves an open door for a lower price, better terms, or a new feature. Relevance means there is no other choice; the position is locked up in the customer's mind. What a great place to be.

Brand and culture.

It is apparent that brand-building is about more than building a better mousetrap. In a noisy world with an endless array of products, services, and brands, what is a real difference in stand-out brands? Is it more than just a great product?

Leveraging cultural innovation.

Nike makes great products. But so does Adidas, Under Armour, Reebok, and others. For decades, Nike has tapped into a bigger idea: personal perseverance, or "solo willpower."

Go back to the '80s and you will see that most of their ads had little to do with the actual product; the message has always been bigger, and not about the proverbial better mousetrap.

Douglas Holt and Douglas Cameron, authors of Cultural Strategy, show numerous examples of breakthrough brands — Nike, Ben & Jerry's, Starbucks, Patagonia, among others — that leveraged cultural innovation to sell something much bigger.

The digital brand.

Marketing and technology are two sides of the same coin, opening up myriad challenges and opportunities for branding via audience building and customer experience.

Pull versus push.

Customers are empowered with limitless research, transparent pricing, and myriad choices. Digital branding and online presence — website, social media, and apps — enable opportunities to establish your brand's voice, position, and credibility, and gain customers in ways not possible in the offline world.

Inbound marketing is about pulling people to your brand. A stark contrast to the broadcast model of yesteryear of "pushing" messages that are often viewed as just that: pushy, interruptive, and preferably avoidable.

Pulling is the new black for attracting people to your brand through inbound marketing and the strategic use of content.