I’ll be speaking about the role of “truth” in branding at an AIGA event in mid-January 2011 (http://aigatruth.eventbrite.com/). The presentation will explore the role of truth (and lies) in building, sustaining, and evolving brands. I’d appreciate the thoughts of this distinguished forum and its guests on where and how veracity or deceit have profoundly changed the trajectory of brands. In your view, is truth sometimes an impediment to progress? Are lies (mild or major) useful? Which brands today are grand liars and which are beacons of truth? Who will fail or thrive because of their approach?
My own experience is that it is not as straight-foward as: truth = good or lies = bad. HP stagnated for years despite a pure and true adherence to the HP Way. AVIS’ “We try harder” campaign is a classic example of how communicating the unvarnished truth can rescue a failing brand. Joe Firmage, the successful CEO of USWeb/CKS during the dotcom surge, talked candidly about his belief in extraterrestrials. Risky, but Joe’s quirky ‘truthfulness’ wasn’t what tanked the stock. Xe Services (a.k.a. Blackwater) continues to thrive despite a culture of deception. SIGG implied its water bottles were BPA-free (they were not)—and built a huge market advantage by riding the wave of BPA-fears. What are your favorite examples?
By Tony Spaeth
23 DEC 2010, 1:05 GMT
When is a brand a lie? It’s an important question, Scott, with potential traction.
A brandmark, I suggest, essentially means “We own this: we accept full responsibility for its performance, quality, safety, and social and environmental impact.”
On February 12, 2009, fifty people died when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed on a house in Buffalo. The Bombardier Q400 carried Continental Connections livery. Its passengers had bought Continental tickets, and are likely to have assumed that brand attributes like aircraft maintenance and pilot training and supervision would meet Continental Airlines standards. It appears the Flight 3407 pilots were both inexperienced and exhausted.
Continental’s branding for that flight was a lie, a lie rendered legal by the licensing of the Continental brand to Colgan Air (or to Colgan’s actual owner, Pinnacle Airlines). Other Colgan planes are painted in US Airways or United livery. To the extent that customers think they are served by the major carrier, the entire feeder airline industry is predicated on what is essentially a brand lie. Wikipedia sums it up thusly: “Many airline passengers find all this sub-branding very confusing, while many other airline passengers are content to think they are on a mainline or flagship airline’s aircraft, while in actuality they are far from it.”
For me, there’s a legal as well as a moral issue in brand licensing. Should it be legal to rent out a brand, stripped of the responsibility it is meant to promise?
There is also a place in hell, I suggest, for branded services who unilaterally sell customer relationships to third parties (think mortgage loans), instantly converting their brand into a lie.
By Andrew Sabatier
23 DEC 2010, 17:42 GMT
People care about brands because brands make people more effective at intervening in the world.
It is a profound fallacy that brands (or people) require truth to be effective. Brands only need to enable greater intervention in the world to be credible. It’s this capacity to enable intervention that determines a brand’s value; not truth.
This does not mean that because brands do not require truth that they are untruthful or that they deal in lies. Truth is too problematic a notion to be taken seriously on a philosophical level and this has a profound impact on all moral frameworks. The general public may still think in terms of truth. Accounts of the world might still require truth-based narratives but we are moving steadily towards a post-moral worldview.
Because a brand appears to be something it is not does not mean the brand is a lie, it only means the effectiveness of the brand has been compromised. It means that the brand is easier to make fail than before. It’s not ever possible to be truthful about anything (at all). This would require the possibility of an ideal realisation of any truth. Ideal realisations are never possible under any conditions. The only remaining options in a truth-based worldview are personal and social truth.
As an individual you can believe anything you like, in any type of reality, determined by any type of logic. But, when it comes to brands, social consensus needs to be reached for a brand to exist in a stable enough form for it to be of value to more than one person. When it comes to brands, other people need to be persuaded that the brand is credible. This credibility is not based on a brand’s ‘truthfulness’ but on its ‘effectiveness’ – it’s capacity to enable intervention in the world.
Brands can only ever exist as socially constructed opinions. Some brands are more compelling than others, not because they are more truthful but because they draw on the most effective means available at the time to intervene in a given activity.
A.
By Scott Lerman
23 DEC 2010, 17:56 GMT
There is no question that brands must be compelling to thrive, but I believe they also have to be ‘true’ to their nature. That isn’t True with a capital T, but congruence with what Andrew called, “social consensus” on what the brand has promised. What’s tricky is that, over time, people outside of the company or organization believe they know better than the insiders what is true or not for the brand.
So Tony, who’s responsible for the brand’s actions when its customers have taken control?
By Tony Spaeth
23 DEC 2010, 22:52 GMT
Scott, I suggest the brand doesn’t act, the brand maker/manager acts, and is responsible for what is in his control. (Or hers.) Can third parties — customers, distributors, competitors — impact the brand, for good or ill? Of course, and the brand manager must at least try to anticipate and control such impacts.If by “truth in branding” you mean merely consistency, as in Keep Harley Harley, who’s to argue? I thought we were talking about the use of brands in acts of lying, i.e. we are not really who we say we are. Or maybe we were, but we aren’t any more. (You think you have a Citibank mortgage? Surprise!)
By Meghan Still
04 JAN 2011, 6:12 GMT
When I think of deception through branding, BP immediately comes to mind. Remember those odd little commercials back in 2008 of animated toddlers choosing BP as a “little better”? (If you don’t, you can watch one here.) For many, the suggestion that BP was more socially and environmentally conscious than its “big oil” counterparts was a message that many people bought right into — myself included. All of that fell apart, of course, with the gulf spill but the well informed had recognized this brand positioning as a farce from the get-go. Greenpeace, for example, awarded BP the first ever “Emerald Paintbrush Award” for precisely the topic Scott plans to speak about. (They call it “greenwashing” and you can read more about it here.)
I have to wonder if lies and deceit in the field of branding are ever possibly sustainable. Short-term effectiveness seems likely… but long term? Scott, I hope you’ll be sharing some of your findings following the event. Wish I could attend!
By andrew giannelli
15 JAN 2011, 2:17 GMT
I attended the role of “truth” in branding AIGA event on January 13 [a presentation by Scott Lerman in Stamford, CT] and felt that there was a negative attitude about the value of web and social media and its impact on the role of truth in branding.
Delivering on a brand promise is truth to most consumers and when brands do not deliver on their promise customers now have an effective worldwide network to communicate their experience with the brand.
For most brands whether we like it or not, social media has become the time of truth in a customers relationship with a brand. It’s a critical space for a customer to be able to communicate about their experiences with a brand. And it is in this space that businesses can learn whether they are delivering on their promises.
By Scott Lerman
15 JAN 2011, 22:03 GMT
I’m not at all negative about the accountability engendered by social media. I’d just like to see more.
By Joris van Zoelen (Identity Strategist - The Netherlands)
18 JAN 2011, 0:07 GMT
It’s all about values. Brands (companies) can have a very important role in society. Not only because in these transparent times consumers will drop brands that lie, also because brands feel responsible, they should be totally true.
And - this seems to be a ‘communication’ topic while an identity-driven brand can answer this question also on a more abstract level: being true to their self, to their own identity: who they are and what they mean to the world.
Interesting to follow Simon Sinek’s ‘Start with the Why’: http://www.startwithwhy.com/
Regards!
Joris van Zoelen
By Tony Spaeth
18 JAN 2011, 1:13 GMT
I agree that a clear expression of “why we do it” is critical to good corporate brands, Joris — but only if the answer goes beyond “to make money.” For great brands, the “why” contributes to a better world (even if in a small way).
The Why is the Mission element in a Corporate Brand Platform.
By Joris van Zoelen
18 JAN 2011, 10:51 GMT
@Tony: Yes, I agree completely. And - if making money is the main goal - also be honest about it. Might be challenging, but if you deliver valuable products or services that are unique and relevant, you will still be in business and … true.
By saffron
22 MAR 2011, 14:22 GMT
most of the fmcg brands promise the things they have kept in mind when they start building their brand. when they make something the product / service is never the same which they have planned in earlier days it goes through several channels. while branding the service mostly we promote what we have thought tht brand to be in this process we always tend to make it look good in the market which I think is a not a white lie. I am agreed with tony spaeth that management can lie so communication message can be a lie but brand will be perceived by the consumers who will decide the integrity, preciseness and the service.
By Scott Lerman
17 MAY 2011, 4:58 GMT
Here’s a link to the ?truth talk if you’re interested.
http://vimeo.com/19229287