The Great Brand Controversy

I know just when it was that I found myself in the midst of the brand-vs.-direct argument. Well, make that battle, because opinions and tempers blow hot.

One of those omnipresent committees was deciding on subject matter for a conference. The agenda was complete, and we were putting our laptops into their carryall beds, when the representative of an advertising agency injected, “Wait a minute. We have to have some sessions on branding.”

That reopened the discussion, if not the laptops. Agency people leaped to the chase. The rest of us listened, nodded and shrugged. Eventually the group agreed, and the guy who suggested the topic (and who stressed “image” as the primary sales weapon of the 21st century) would be the presenter.

In conversations afterward, I was mildly surprised that direct and brand seemed to be out of sync with each other. In conversations since, I not only no longer am surprised, I find myself defending — get that, defending — direct as a stand-alone, surviving even when brand isn’t a factor.

Does direct need a defense? One-word opinion: No. Does branding need a defense? One-word opinion: Yes.

Oh, I’m instantly aware that I’m helping to polarize the differential. But, as the brand proponent himself declared, we’re in the 21st century. Venerable, once-solid brands are vanishing. Go-for-the-jugular direct marketers are flourishing. Here’s Levitt, a giant name in home building: Chapter 11. Levitt follows automobile brands Plymouth and Oldsmobile: Vanished. Here’s Intel, one of the most highly advertised brands: Huge chunk of market share lost to little-known AMD. Here’s Merrill Lynch: The giant revised its entire securities marketing structure to be able to compete with Web upstarts.

So it goes. Compete or lose. Wal-Mart had a next-to-zero image and Sears had a next-to-100 image. AT&T and Xerox had their universes to themselves. IBM owned the PC market. Kodak and Polaroid were riding brand-horses long after their steeds were dead. Jordache jeans were de rigueur. So it goes.

In came the 1990s, and the Internet tromped across brand worship. The Web is price driven, and as it has become the dominant sales medium, the new mantra resonates: Adapt or lose.

So another hate-mail-generating opinion: The “What’s your budget?” advertising agencies are equally culpable for interpreting the whole concept of branding as brand awareness, instead of spending marketing money on a more difficult level — generating brand loyalty. Difficult? Ask any car dealer about how hard it is to hold on to the customer who used to trade in cars every three years but this year got an extra $100 discount from a dealer 30 miles away.

Today’s potential customers, both consumer and business, aren’t necessarily savvy…but they’re necessarily cynical. They’re after a deal they subsequently can regard as reliable, not an extension of an offer from a deceased Nigerian mogul nor a tribute to an arrogant chest-thumping but no longer competitive brand.

Combining brand with 21st-century awareness is the Kingdom of Heaven, but that kingdom opens its borders to those who actually combine instead of bowing in obeisance to a personal prejudice founded only on tradition or learned catechism. Total dependence on brand as a marketing force parallels a marketing student striving for an “A” when using lecture notes his grandfather scrawled during kinder, gentler pre-Future Shock times.

It’s midwinter. You want ethylene glycol antifreeze in your car. Do you care which brand, as long as it’s ethylene glycol?

You have a mild prostate problem. A prescription for Hytrin, on which Abbott Laboratories spent many millions of dollars, costs more than $100. A prescription for the generic, terazosin, costs about $20. Your doctor and your pharmacist probably suggest the generic. So do Wal-Mart and Target, which sell the generic for $4. Wait, wait, the generic has no brand, no image. Maybe not, but it has the primary contemporary incentive, price.

I’m just about finished with this blather. One more point to consider: If brand were paramount, New Coke would have succeeded. After all, it was an extension of what many regard as the best-known brand in the world. The Aztek, that strange semi-car from Pontiac, would have found a marketing niche. The Wednesday version of CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes” wouldn’t have flopped. Linux wouldn’t have scored such a gouge into Microsoft’s turf.

Want me to buy your brand? A three-word recap: What’s your deal?

HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS (www.herschellgordonlewis.com) is the author of 31 books, including the newly published “Creative Rules for the 21st Century.” He’s also written “Hot Appeals or Burnt Offerings,” the curmudgeonly titled “Asinine Advertising,” and “Effective E-Mail Marketing.”