As a corporation, Stealing Share battles many misconceptions because we define
ourselves as a brand development firm. Most companies confuse the idea of brand
with the product name and only think about brand when they are launching or re-
launching a product into the market. The misconception is that brand is something
you consider and invest in only at the product’s germinal stage and is simply
“managed” for the rest of the product’s life cycle.

Few Need Name Changes
However, the majority of our work does not involve a name change or new name. In
fact, most of our critical brand work is designed to empower an existing brand to be
more important to the target audience and to make all advertising and
communications more effective. This indicates that there is a big disconnect
between what the market believes BRAND is and what brand actually controls and
effects.

The tendency today is to hold your advertising and marketing goals beyond
reasonable possibilities. We expect our advertising to deliver our marketing
message in compelling and convincing manner. We expect our marketing
department to segment and understand the target audience in a way that finds
opportunity to grow share and exploit competitive weakness. Both of these
expectations are valid, but advertising is tactical and marketing strategy needs to
support it brand strategy provides the permission to both to be important.
Great brand development understands the preceptive (not perceptive) fabric of the
target audience and accounts for the societal context. It then builds a foundation of
permission on both. This permission is the DNA code that makes your marketing
and advertising thrive and drive. Without this foundation, your marketing and
communications cannot reach their full potential because your target audience does
not see them as either fully believable or “lawful” based on their own sense of brand
permission.

Brand Needs an Oustide View

Companies have marketing departments and most have advertising departments
but none have brand departments. They might have brand managers but brand
development cannot happen internally. You must have an objective view to develop
brand strategy that steals or grows market share. To do it effectively you must have
the freedom to challenge everything and that includes all preconceived notions or
tightly held beliefs. Brand is so germinal to your success that it is nearly impossible
to see it objectively when you are on the inside. This is the fatal flaw that pushes
brand onto the back burner as only a “name change” or “product launch”. To
evaluate your current brand objectively is akin to looking at your beloved family
photo album and commenting to yourself that your “kids are very homely.” Many
times, this is precisely the place where Stealing Share® finds itself. It is our
objectivity and lack of political ties that allows us not only to say it but to be heard.

When your advertising is not delivering the goods and sales are not as robust as
they should be despite a robust product or service your problem may very well be
a brand issue and not an advertising. How many ad agencies has your company
changed in the past 10 years? Newness will give you a bump in sales but after that
bump are you back down in the doldrums again left to trying to boost sales through
discounts, promotions and increases in media spending. Brand makes your
advertising work harder because it is a strategy and not a tactic. It only grows more
powerful as time moves forward and is the counterbalance to “new and improved.”
When your brand is defined properly, as a highly polished reflection of your
customer’s precepts (beliefs) then your advertising works harder, your marketing
improves and your product or service sells even if it is not the lowest priced or the
most convenient.

The market is so crowded and noisy today that your customer spends most of his/
her time filtering out messages. The 1,800 marketing messages that they receive
everyday does not even include those that they receive on-line. The noise that this
chatter creates is such a din that the customer must find a means to turn down the
volume just to maintain a sense of normalcy. This means that they tune out
messages that they believe are not vital to their own sense of self.

Messages are Filtered
If you have ever bought a home you have seen this phenomena first hand. While in
the market for a new home, everywhere you went you noticed “For Sale” signs.
Funny thing: after you bought your home, they all seemed to disappear. Your mind
decided that the noise of “For Sale” signs was no longer part of your core identity
and it simply pushed them off into your mind’s junk mail box and turned on your
SPAM filter. Just delivering your product message battles these filters everyday.
Your goal is to get past the filter and into the considered set. Tactical marketing
and advertising plans try to overwhelm this filter by talking about the category or
product or service. Brand permission moves around the SPAM filter it by identifying
the PERSON and not the product or service promise.

The need to buy a house goes away and gets sated. The need to see oneself as a
caring provider does not. Finding the key to personal importance is the domain of
brand. Uncovering the preceptive life markers is the science of it. Understanding
this perspective and keeping your marketing and advertising on brand strategy is
the difference between winning and losing.