Companies pay precious few marketing dollars to research companies that all too often use a one-size-fits-all template for identifying segments. The creative work goes into describing the 'lifestyles' and customizing the titles of these segments, typically based on psychographics (more bunk). Then of course, the thinking and marketing dollars are segmented based on the segments and what do you get? Utter confusion and not enough money put towards any particular endeavor to convince anybody to try the product.

Marketing starts with the product. If you don't have a relevant and meaningful difference built into the product - and just as importantly, know how to communicate the difference - you will fail. And all the market segmentation research in the world won't save you.

Rather than differences, it's better to find the similarities amongst the audience. Once that's known, concentrate your message and dollars and you'll be more likely to break through and create a famous and profitable brand.

Any comments, thoughts and suggestions on this important topic would be most welcome.

A brand has a sustained, meaningful difference

Or a difference that’s forgotten and allowed to erode

A brand is a fulfilled promise

Or a broken one

A brand is utility and innovation

Or the boring and safe, same old

A brand is the one time it failed

Not the many times it succeeded

A brand is its current advertising

Not the great advertising that may have gone before

A brand is the values of company executives

Not the values engraved on a plaque at reception

A brand is service calls handled promptly and courteously

Or service calls routed to India

A brand is made profitable through customer stakeholders

Not stockholders

A brand is why employees are proud of their job

Or hate it

        A brand is the act of offering non-customers deals to switch

        While offering current customers nothing

        A brand is policies to make the company more efficient

        While making customer’s lives less convenient

A  brand can be built or broken

Not by advertising

By the people managing it

In a post titled, ‘What is a brand?’ I finished with the words, “…branding is a verb. It is the consistent, continuous and single-minded creation of a unique concept in the prospect’s mind, based on fulfilling rational and emotional needs. Therefore, a brand is not a product, it is an evolving concept in the customer’s mind.” However, at the time, I was thinking of ending the article with this thought:

I’m starting to wonder whether a brand is also the culmination of everybody involved with it. Not just the consumer, but namely, management and employees.

I think there’s good reason to ponder this question. Take a look at GM, for example. At one time it was one of the greatest companies in the world, with a brand portfolio others only dreamed of having. It’s now basically a penny stock and its brands are in the toilet.

By contrast and in comparison, according to Interbrand’s latest assessment, the brand value of Coca Cola is $68.73 billion, making it the world’s most valuable brand.

Why has Coke’s brand held, or increased in value, while GM’s brands have plummeted?

In one word: People.

According to Coke, its mission is to refresh the world; to inspire moments of optimism and happiness; and to create value and make a difference.

Seems to me the people involved with the company and brand are doing a pretty good and consistent job of it.

Whereas and from a distance, GM’s methods strike me as arrogant and deserving of failure. From the botched handling of their pioneering electric car, the EV1, to how their current multi-million dollar, publicly funded advertising is telling us they’ve changed, without, you know, actually changing - the company has been in a downward spiral.

An article in Harvard Business Revue talks about a few reasons for their failure, including that GM makes cars people don't want. It’s too slow to innovate because of its size. And it’s too bureaucratic and unable to adjust to changing markets.

To be fair, the authors also claim that GM had trouble cutting costs, because most of the costs were fixed.

What does this have to do with brands in the age of social media?

Quite a bit, I think. GM is still acting as though communicating with consumers is an outbound monologue only. They haven’t appeared to retool and put a better product on the road, despite what their advertising says. They seem to be ignoring the fact that consumers can talk back and massively talk with each other through social media.

Overall, there seems to be a lack of transparency, honesty and acknowledgment, especially given that the public knows it’s our dollars that bailed them out. In continuing to do things the same old way, GM missed an opportunity.

People like underdogs. They like comebacks. But most importantly, they first have to like the contender.

What might GM have done to earn public support and empathy? Why not turn the distaste of public funding into an opportunity? For example, why not create a public advisory board and use social media in the election process? They could have also gotten the public involved in suggesting design and features they want. Hell, we're the investors, why not give us a sense of ownership? There’s lots they could have, should have done.

None-the-less, I think GM would have been further ahead had they spent more time conversing with and involving customers. Not to mention, changing their products, service and people’s beliefs about the company and its brands in the process.

All in all, social media is primarily about people first and technology second. A brand is about people first as well. Poorly managed and uninspired people, provided with no belief or vision - or even simply employing the wrong people - will likely result in wrong decisions, affecting a brand and pissing off its audience. And this scenario will only be magnified through social media, whether the people managing the brand like it or not.