Why is Branding important? Is branding over-hyped?

0:00in my opinion branding is one of the most overused and over-hyped ideas in the modern business world is branding over-hyped that's what we're going to talk about today let's go hello friends welcome back to flux where we talk design business everything in between my name is matt brunton and today we're asking has branding been over hyped some people really gravitate to the things that are easier to measure they feel more tangible how is our website converting what about our advertising how many click-throughs are we getting what what's the data or perhaps things like quality control if we just have a good product so how many years does it take for the product

0:46to break how many returns do we get out of a batch of 1000 and and grabbing onto those numbers and if we can optimize those things so the product breaks less frequently more people visit the website it converts better then hey they're the things that really matter and branding branding's kind of this flowery thing that's done around the edges and it's it's not really important for most businesses is that true well i wonder about a brand like teenage engineering you see here on their website they've got wireless audio synthesizers look at this computer case this orange thing what a thing of beauty that is it's almost making me want to move from

1:27mac to pc well this uh radio this it's basically a bluetooth speaker it's 649 pounds so the best part part of 1 000 us dollars but the whole way this is presented with this photographer but it's all built all the way through universe typeface is consistent with their whole modernist aesthetic but it's not just an aesthetic it's a it's a whole attitude it's an aesthetic when it comes to the product design and the user interface of the products and that bakes it all the way through into their photography and the graphic design that comes through on the end it's a consistency of brand things like their

2:12uh synthesizers so most synthesizers kind of look like um you know an electronic keyboard if you're not familiar with this sort of world but look what these look like this is the op z with this green blue yellow red uh wheels along the top or the famous op1 that's one kind of all kinds of design awards but it's presented as sculptural as architectural and that presentation is on the end of a consistent brand journey all the way through through all the elements of design it's a design-led brand and this is a whole strategy behind what they're doing but when you talk to people who are skeptical i don't recommend

2:58arguing with them even giving them examples like this because i think the important thing is not to argue in general let's be let's try and avoid conflict if we can but let's find common ground with people that's the way to win people over and if they don't want to talk about branding talk about reputation glastonbury festival sells out every year before they reveal the lineup every other music festival has to book the best acts possible to try and sell tickets and it's all about who's going to be playing glastonbury i think last time it sold out in like 30 minutes like 100 200 000 tickets whatever it is

3:41and it goes on its reputation alone a brand is a promise if we go to a local restaurant anywhere in the world and order a chicken sandwich what would get is going to be something different every time it might have salad with it might have different types of bread the chicken cooked in different ways you're not quite sure what they're going to bring out but if you go to kfc and order a zinger burger your expectation is that it's going to be the same every single time that's their brand's promise and it's their reputation it's what you expect beforehand and it's funny because in this book that

4:23i i read from in the pre-roll it's the the personal mba by josh kaufman and it's actually a really good book i recommend you checking this out it's kind of got like a glossary of a lot of business uh terms and it's a really helpful uh overview but he actually this quote about branding was in this section called reputation he goes on and says there's nothing magical or complex about building a brand when business professionals say they want to enhance their brand or build brand equity they almost always mean improve their reputation end quote so in a way kaufman here is actually rebranding branding he wants to talk about the idea

5:06of a brand but he just wants to call it reputation in fact he says at the end of this chapter building your reputation takes time and effort but it's the most effective kind of marketing there is i mean i'd call that building a brand it's that long-term effectiveness of marketing because you have such a great reputation but there's more to it than that or more nuance if they don't want to talk about branding talk about positioning find that place in the market i want to show you a couple of print magazine brochure catalog type documents that you'll find in two supermarkets in the uk this one is from

5:50alde which is a discount supermarket which i know is also in the us and in germany and across europe and this is all about offers buys we can see here we've got the different brand colors going on there's blue and orange and red and yellow and we've got box outs with these drop shadows all these different offers we've got prices on the cover with red bars behind them and kind of lots of things to look at and as we go through this document we see there's offers on every single page that's what it's for and and this is presented on their website that this is the thing that they want to share it's

6:31the thing you can find in print in the stores and all the way through its offers it's box outs it's highlights it's grabbing your attention and it's totally product focused if we go to another supermarket called waitrose which is a much more upmarket supermarket in the uk you can see here they've got royal standards appearing on their cover we see here something that's more editorial it looks like a magazine that you might buy it's got many more pages in it we have use of white space here the editorial style one full bleed image that's it and as we move through we have a welcome from the editor we have this

7:12magazine style list of contributors and table of contents so this is what they're choosing to produce i think aldi may do all the publications too but these are what they're sharing on the website and it is what you'll find in the store and it's interesting the choice that they make look they're given a whole page here to a strawberry dipped in chocolate that's very indulgent not just food wise but um in their choice of layout the type of products that they include and the way the photography is presented look we've got kale here shot in a very editorial style and these differences help us realize you may have not been

7:53familiar with these supermarkets you might not be from the uk you've never heard of waitrose but just by looking at these brochures it's very clear that one is for a discounter and one is for a more high-end offer and that's quite obvious now people may say that's not just branding there's a clear difference here in the products but what about when there isn't think about a brand like colorful standard you may not be familiar with them but what they do is simple basics in solid colors with no uh visible logos on the products on the outside of the product you can just see this label inside

8:33and they don't they don't have stores everywhere they have this flagship store in london and the way everything is presented is minimalist no external logos nothing brash it's very ordered it's very calming and they just present these basics but these products are actually made in a factory in portugal and they're very good quality they're very high quality they're not like the basics you would get from a discounter or from a supermarket they're much better quality manufacturing and also the materials check out this guy he looks like a friendly bloke so you know who's making it so ethics and sustainability and the environment and less consumption are at

9:21the heart of their branding so they have a message they have a story that they're telling the product themselves is actually the same as a lot of designer labels who manufacture their products in portugal portugal is well known for its shoes and its clothing manufacturer being somewhere that produces high quality goods so products might come out of this very same factory that have gordy fashion brand labels emblazoned all over them and it's the exact same factory with the exact same materials but with colorful standard it's their story that is differentiating them from a brand that perhaps charges twice as much even though these products are not the

10:04cheapest because they have a large logo emblazoned on it and that's the difference that branding can make and these people are choosing to position themselves in different way even with what's effectively the same product i wonder what somebody like josh kaufman who wrote this uh this book we call it from the beginning would make of a brand like supreme i mean all they have really is their brand their story i mean bizarre the things that they've sold and and done but if we look at their website we should have to zoom in quite a lot here to read this but they talk about the fact that their brand is their key

10:42element it's all about their culture um culture culture is repeated it's a brand norm for quality style authenticity and i think this is the key sentence at the end a unique identity and attitude that's what characteristic characterizes supreme even though it must be a white t-shirt or a white mug or some bizarre merch that they've sold over the years but people pay a premium in fact people line up to buy this stuff because there's something about supreme's attitude they have their own identity so with positioning it's that intelligence to compete where you can win and that just makes sense you've got to use your relative strength against

11:28your opponent's relative weakness or you've got to move into an area of opportunity and that's what positioning does and brand strategy is often about finding that position in the market where you can compete and you can win and finally if people don't want to talk about branding then talk to them about personality a brand like innocent smoothies and these were bought by coca-cola for some huge amount a few years ago a real startup success story but they don't just sell fruit smoothies they have their own style their own take their own personality and they're very wacky they're a little bit offbeat and this is part of who they are as a brand

12:14even on this page which you can find about information about their products like the ingredients and things that go in it things that you'd find on any food manufacturer's website but they have this bit check out the back of the pack even the way it's written in this sort of handwritten style and they've got these weird little copy on the back diving head first into a plunge pool getting your head around a cryptic crossword watching pavarotti perform nesendorma there are loads of ways to energize yourself but not all of them are quite as tasty as this super smoothie so it's just random and it brings across a

12:52feel it brings across a vibe and this is where again some people might start getting a little bit twitchy in business saying branding's all about hype up vibe what you're talking about is this where branding just becomes bs but personality is characteristics it's quality just be because something's more difficult to quantify on a balance sheet doesn't make it any less real your friends people you know each of them has their own personality their own vibe maybe that's why you're friends with them and it and it means something and you feel something and humans are behind brands it's humans that write this copy and and we can relate to

13:31things and we can feel things through aesthetics through copy through our experience through the story that we can buy into people often forget when they're trying to be a bit hard-nosed about these things that there are different levels of brand loyalty and they think it's all about utility but utility is only the first level utility means i use this because it it works for me that shop is close to my house that garage is on the way home this is in my community or it's they offer next day delivery or the product works it's it's functional that's utility but that's the first level of brand loyalty people also use

14:14things because of community i do this because my friends do it also or because of what my peers think of me like you might join a local sports club because it's the nearest one to your home but then you make friends there and even if you move house you might continue your membership there because now you're part of a team you're part of a community but the next level of brand loyalty the highest level is identity where it's not just because the thing works or because you're part of something but because it becomes part of who you are that even something like a nation which really is a brand i mean countries don't

14:53exist in nature these are human constructs that have emerged throughout history now you might move to a nation because of utility perhaps you're persecuted or perhaps you've just been offered a job in another country or perhaps you like the lifestyle somewhere else so it's better weather so you move because of utility but then you make friends or you build a network that's community so you're there for that reason but for a lot of people their nation is part of their identity who they are they say i am british i am kenyan i am japanese i am australian i am brazilian and that becomes part of who they are

15:30and the story that they tell themselves and they tell others about themselves and all this psychology is part of the way that people make decisions even about things like the car that they buy and it's not all about utility and it's naive to forget that branding is over-hyped if we create a narrow definition of what branding is and then pick that against all of the business functions but that's a straw man argument and it just results from insecurity people want to say the thing that they do is the most important or it's just click bait and they want to criticize branding so they can get you

16:13in to talk about the thing that they're interested in but to me it's good sense as well as good business to think about how do you want to be perceived and why are you in business in the first place more fundamentally and then position yourself where you can win and ensure that everything that you do from aesthetics to customer service is consistent with that position that's building a brand that's a brand platform from which you can communicate your value you can tell your story and you can adjust non-fundamental elements as you go and i think that's right and the data is important but you need a direction you need a

16:51reason for existing and you need a meaningful difference to be able to share with your customers if you have something thoughtful to contribute then keep this conversation going down in the comments and if you're here at the end of this video then you're definitely interested enough to subscribe to flux because we have more branding content coming very soon

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