COMMENTS
No doubt blogs are vital and most businesses still don't grasp their value, but it is misleading to suggest that blogs are the #1 marketing tool for branding.
You could launch a new cola company tomorrow and blog hourly, but you'd never make an impact on Coke or Pepsi.
I guess it depends on the product or service being branded but my feeling is that while blogs are awesome, a lot of things come before blogging when building a brand.
Steve, although I agree 100% with you on your thoughts about a lot of things come before a blog in the brand building process (naming, position strategy, logo development), these things lay the foundation, but how are you going to build a following and marketshare? Blogging is an inexpensive way to level the playing field even when competing against the cokes and pepsis of the world. Are you going to put them out of business? Probably not, but really there has never been a tool that will allow you to start chipping away at their marketshare so quickly in such a cost effective way. The right blogger using social media to promote their articles can build a strong following and engage customers like never before. This is why we think blogging is the new powerhouse of marketing and brand building.
Fair point Dale. Blogging does give you an instant and low cost way to tell your story.
I just feel that quite often new businesses are being misled by thinking that passive media (media that is searched out, like blogging) can replace intrusive media (like TV, radio, etc).
My feeling is that passive media only really starts to work when it is part of a bigger branding strategy.
Steve,
Honestly, in my mind tv & radio are no longer what they once were. 10-20 years ago this was a main option for building a global or national brand.
These days are over though. Online marketing is today what tv & radio advertising were 50 years ago. The difference now is that brands are no longer only talking to consumers in order to build their brands. We now have to include the customers in the brand building process. This builds a solid brand loyalty that is hard to create if you look at a dollar to dollar comparison.
A small company investing $30-50k a year in blogging, seo & social media can do what took several hundred thousand dollars in the past through traditional media.
While there is no doubt things have changed and continue to change, I don't think this is a question of "replace" but more an issue of "enhance". You can drop millions on SEO so that you appear at the top of a search, yet your click throughs will be astoundingly low unless you have a trusted brand. Established and trusted brands get the vast majority of search clicks.
Replacing all traditional intrusive marketing with blogging, SEO, and social media isn't a strategy I would recommend to anyone.
But I would definitely recommend investing in blogging, SEO, and social media in addition to traditional mass-media brand building. Ignoring it is crazy, especially for the cost/benefit.
Old Spice is touted as a prime example of viral marketing, but P&G still buys massive amounts if TV time for those spots. The SM and viral aspects are huge but they are an arm in an integrated branding campaign.
I do agree with your last point about a small businesses ability to accomplish a lot with a smart investment in social media, blogging, and even SEO. But I would love to compete against a brand doing ONLY those things. They'd be easily beatable.
Steve,
When it comes to brand building, yes starting with building a strategic brand via design elements and packaging are huge for retail business. For b2b business online is huge and highly effective.
The funny thing about old spice is the ad campaign get a huge amount of attention and maybe some marketshare. I will tell you though that my late father in-law used old spice deodorant and when on vaction I forgot my standard deodorant. He loaned me his and it was an awful experience and just did not work for me. So although the brand recognition was huge in one day I went to buy my own product because it didn't work for me. I am pushing 40 years old, but still have the idea of Old Spice is for my dad's generation, not mine. I have never once seen an add for my brand put out by P&G. I do know overall they do a huge amount of advertising though in traditional media.
If we could find a client that would be a good fit and we had equal budgets, I would be willing to bet you would be pretty surprised at what we brought to the table in business development and brand awareness through our online strategies only. Let's figure out a time, place, budget and client and do a case study on this. The marketing buyers want to know the truth!
Great dialogue Dale. I appreciate the intelligent back and forth. I think one of the defining factors in this debate is the type of company, competitive geography, and client expectations.
By the way, unconfirmed but widely distributed results from the Old Spice campaign show sales up 55% in the first six months, making Old Spice the leading men's body wash brand. Could be entirely anecdotal, but I have a friend who is in marketing at P&G and he provided similar numbers.
Steve,
I really enjoyed it as well. I also think all readers of this article will get more info from our back and forth. You have brought some great feedback to this article. Thanks!
One thing I would like to know about the 55% increase in men's body wash is how big is the market? It is easy to double sales for a product that does not have a big market. I think men's body wash is a newer market and small in the grand scheme of cleansing products. I would have to see the numbers though to understand what 55% increase in sales looks like.
