Why brand building is B*llsh*t.

I'm about to save you thousands of pounds:

If you catch any marketing consultant talking about the importance of brand building...

...they don't know what they're talking about: ditch them

Especially since…

There are no tangible results that come from “brand awareness”

“Brand building” is simply impossible to measure from a statistical perspective.

Sales can be measured.

Generated leads can be measured.

Even the number of traffic you build onto your website can be measured.

But if brand building is your sole focus when running an advertising campaign, that is not a statistic to give you any feedback on how well your ad performed.

It is like getting an artist to build a bridge: He might come up with a flashy design, but if he doesn't know how to BUILD a bridge, is that something you want drive your car along.

Sounds nice to say that loads of people saw your slogan; sounds much worse to say you don't know how much money you made from it.

This gets me to the other point;

You Can’t Afford It. 

Tell  any “marketing expert” that brand building isn’t important and you’ll instantly be hit with

“Well, what about McDonalds?”

“What about Apple?”

“What about Coca-Cola?”

“You don’t think branding is important for those companies?”

Yes absolutely! Brand building for them is very important, but these are companies that are worth billions of dollars!

It’s almost impossible for those companies to lose because they're everywhere. They practically run the world.

Plus, if you look back at the history of all these companies, they didn’t make their fortune from advertising by “Brand Building”.

They made their fortune… by selling their products!

McDonalds sold burgers.

Apple sold phones.

Coca-Cola sold…well, Coupons actually.

So what goals should you make for your advertising? If I had to write down all the elements of the formula we'd be here for weeks, so let me give you one of the best mnemonics I've found.

Some may recognize it as Pearson's Law.

“What is measured improves.”

If you want to immediately and drastically increase your advertising results...

...make them measurable by adding a reaction mechanism. A call to action in every ad that asks the prospect to do something.

And then you follow that action like a hawk.

Now you can measure. To test. Finding out what works and what doesn't.

No more “brand awareness” when you look at how well an ad performed. 

One of the first things I do when I start working with a client is implement this simple rule:

“Every ad we place must be measurable, no exceptions.”

No more jargon. No more vague marketing jargon. Measurable, tangible, solid results.

There are plenty of ways to do this and it's feasible for any business, including yours. If you would like to know how we would do this in your company, please contact us here.

Take it easy,

Daniel