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www.roster1.com

The last issue (#43) of the Roster Marketing Brief described what branding is and where to begin when launching a branding program. This week's Brief offers a strong example of the role perception plays in branding.

Branding: Part Three of a Series

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Branding:
Some companies
just don't get it. 

This week’s Marketing Brief is the third of a multi-part series on Branding: What it is, what it isn’t, what it can do for you, how to implement a branding project, and a case study on a successful, real world branding program.

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Many years ago we were invited to make a presentation to a potential client, a family-owned firm in western Massachusetts. From the moment I drove into the parking lot until I left after a successful pitch and a new client, something about the company nagged at me. I was much younger, stupider and naïve then, but I eventually learned to trust my marketing instincts.

The principle owner/president was breathtakingly egotistical and bombastic. Modesty had long ago abandon him. I probably should have just left while he was spewing a lava flow of self-praise. The conversation barely touched on his company’s customers, its service, his employees, nor even on how Roster could help him.

While leaving the building, that initial troublesome feeling became abundantly obvious. In the first three parking spaces (all labeled Visitor) were his Mercedes and his two sons’ luxury cars.

Clearly, these guys just didn’t ‘get it’. They compromised their brand. They violated the first rule of marketing for businesses of any kind: the customer comes first, always and in all ways. Even in parking spaces.

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