Who builds the brand?

So, ad agency, when last did you build a brand? How’s NEVER sound? That’s because the ad agency’s role is not to build brands, says Walter Pike.

Advertising’s role is not to build brands. Why then do so many advertising people suffer such delusions of grandeur in thinking of themselves as brand architects? Why do some even think that agencies create brands?

The answer lies in a complete misunderstanding of the whole process of marketing.

Firstly, you must realise the brand is actually created at the customer interface with the customer’s actual experience of the product or service. It is here it satisfies or disappoints – it is here that the customer relationship is made, and it is here that reputations are made or destroyed. To a new car buyer the customer interface is the showroom, the service reception at the dealership and the driver’s seat of his new car. It is also the dinner table and the boardroom and the opinions of his mates.

Ok, so let’s think about the brand then. Put it another way, a brand is the reputation of the product. I am going to use the term product from here on but I mean service as well. The brand will have a positive image if it always, mostly or sometimes outperforms the customer’s expectations, or even if it just meets these expectations or if the average consumer believes that it does.

There are two dimensions to consider in brand building. Firstly, the design and delivery of the customer experience, and secondly, the management of the expectations. I shall not dwell on the former in this short discussion – more than to say that that is the function of the business processes and strategy and operations to understand expectations and to design experiences.

But let’s spend some time on the management of expectations. First, consider how expectations are created.

From the customer’s frame of reference, which consist of his or her life experiences, experiences with that product, other similar products or just other products – for my experience at the motor vehicle licence department influences my experiences at the cinema or a restaurant. As a customer I develop an expectation of what is acceptable service not limited to the product category.

Secondly, as a customer I have a need that I am trying to satisfy, a need I understand and I know what level of performance will satisfy me, and this is built into my expectation.

The role of the marketer is simply to understand my level of expectations, decide which you wish to satisfy using your technology and skills, innovate and design an experience that will satisfy them, package it and deliver it to me.

The role of the agency is to let me as a consumer know that you, the marketer, have a solution and what that solution is. And so advertising assists in managing my expectations – and that’s all that it does, and it does so by producing communications that are relevant and impactful.

So let’s get some perspective out there.

A lot of money and energy would be saved if the real task of advertising was properly understood, and a lot more effective, coordinated and aligned advertising would be produced.

Remember, the brand is created at the customer interface, and advertising is used to in some measure influence the customer’s expectations… That’s all!


* Walter Pike is the founder of PiKE, a marketing and business strategy consultancy. He is a speaker and thinker on marketing and is in the process of writing a book on the subject. He runs management seminars, www.sussed.co.za including “sussed email marketing” an introductory seminar on the topic. He is the driver of an innovative process of creating a network of entrepreneurial consultants. www.pike.co.za