Your Brand History is Not Your Brand Strategy
By Paulo Ribeiro
Why your brand’s past is not what your customers today care about.
We work with many brands that have an illustrious history. The founder stories are often magical and brands do well to celebrate them.
But too often there is an assumption that brand strategy IS the brand story.
Let me share a thing that happens over and over again. We recently took a call from a former client who had moved on to another brand in the same category. They had a rich history abroad and were making significant investments in growing the brand in the US. Owned retail, product line extensions and a significant e-commerce push were all part of the brand. Brand awareness was well over 75% in their region and close to 95% in their home country (!). But awareness was well below 25% in the US.
When we asked what their strategy was to position the brand in the US, they shared their origin story. That's it. To be fair it is a rich story, set in the 60’s and a continent away. No doubt it is a valuable brand asset but the brand’s history is not even close to a strategy to connect with today’s US consumers. Factions inside the company had decided that since brand awareness was the problem here that all that was needed to move the needle was just to tell Americans about the brand's history. They would produce some films about that history, buy the media and Americans would open their wallets.
Um, where do I even start with this?
The thing is that this kind of misunderstanding is contagious because it gives license to avoid the hard work of coming up with something new and powerful. It buys time, while wasting money. Who is going to blame an employee for celebrating the company’s history?
A brand’s history is just a backdrop to a strategy that might cut through the noise and connect with people.
What about the audience definition? What about their needs? How will the brand differentiate from the competition in terms of the CATEGORY context, the CONSUMER context and the CULTURAL context??!?
If people made decisions on where to spend their money based on a brand’s origin story then Wikipedia wouldn’t be a non-profit.
I was lucky to be responsible for Nike’s brand strategy for some years at Wieden + Kennedy. That gig demanded that you understand the history and figure out a new expression if you expected to keep your job. Every brief, every category, every year. Know where you came from and figure out something new.
Before Serena Williams there was Prefontaine. He was the spirit of Just Do It. The wild child runner who was the face of a brand that was growing fast in running (but not much else). Nike wanted to expand to other categories. What the hell did Pre mean in basketball? Nothing. The movie AIR, which in addition to having Ben Affleck do the worst Phil Knight impersonation imaginable, tells the business story of signing MJ. This deal unlocked an opportunity for the brand that goes way beyond basketball - as big as that business was and now is. This shift proved that the power of the Nike brand wasn’t just embodied in a person, it was an idea.
The idea? That the potential for achievement exists in all of us and it can manifest in so many damn ways. Pre - > MJ and then when Nike made it a mission to rip soccer from Adidas control -> in the Brazilian National Team and their Ginga style of play. They applied this strategy as they looked to dominate each category Tiger Woods in Golf, Roger and Serena in Tennis that is until she became Nike’s most powerful ambassador for all of sport. And then this strategy hit a wall with Skateboarding (see skaters don’t always follow superstars because, you know, counter-culture). Then the brand took a grassroots approach partnering with local skate shops and eventually quietly funding parks and tours. Holy shit, the spirit of JDI can live in concrete?!?!. Below is a JDI (Just Do It brand campaign) creative brief circa 2009 that is a great example of taking an existing brand and shifting its voice while staying true. There are myriad ways of doing this. This is just one example.
[The Just Do It creative brief from 2009 which kicked off a search for a more inclusive brand voice.]
This is the playbook. To define a brand in a multi-dimensional way so that the creative expression can change to connect with new humans in ways that they care about.
This notion is so obvious, but it is an approach that is often ignored. The business landscape has become complicated, but simple truths remain. If you want to connect with people you have to meet them where they are. Yes it takes a bit more effort to do it right but we have a playbook to set that strategy in a way that will move the needle today. A year from now wouldn’t you rather look back knowing that you took the time to do it right? It's only money that you are throwing away when you skip the strategy. Only money, and time, and opportunity to connect beyond your current universe…
A brand’s history is just a backdrop to a strategy that might cut through the noise and connect with people.
This is the playbook. To define a brand in a multi-dimensional way so that the creative expression can change to connect with new humans in ways that they care about.
[The Just Do It creative brief from 2009 which kicked off a search for a more inclusive brand voice.]