The BIG Kahuna

It’s been a while but Andy Sernovitz has made the branding blunder blog again, as WaMu used to say… Whoo Hoo! As you know Andy Sernovitz is a self proclaimed “word of mouth marketing guru“. Today in his post titled ” The “Great Green Marketing” Issue” he informs his readers on the right way to market using green tactics. Some snippets of his advice include:

1. Create an amazingly cool shopping bag. Something that is reusable and so cool that people will want to carry it around. For $1 you can have all of your customers become walking billboards all over town (and be happy to do it).

Yea, Andy…that makes your company instantly green. I like the amazingly cool idea as green people will only?use it if it’s “cool”? And here is the rub with me. “Green marketing” isn’t something you try to?do, it’s a conscience decision a company makes, not to help spread word of mouth or trick consumers into believing they’re green. They do it because it’s part of the brand identity and has a real true meaning. But keep telling your readers how these silly tactics (in my opinion)?will help change their brand image.

2. Remember the jelly jars you got as a kid that turned into collectible drinking glasses? No waste, lots of fun — and fantastic marketing. When you get someone collecting your packaging you get instant brand loyalty until the customer completes a set.

Obviously (in my opinion)?Andy does not even know?the basic definition of brand loyalty. But I’m pretty sure even if this simplified tactic did work a customer would NOT develop brand loyalty. I certainly don’t consider brand loyalty to be collecting a set of anything only to leave the brand after said set is collected. I like my customers coming back all the time, where I’m the ONLY choice,?hence brand loyalty. Not brand gimmick loyalty. BIG difference.

Andy doesn’t like me much. He thinks I’m out to get him, so I’m told. But it’s not true. I don’t even know Andy but when he and others advise potential marketers with these silly suggestions (in my opinion) I think it’s important to point out the branding?ramifications. And there are definitely brand image concerns if you follow advice from people who clearly don’t know branding.

Producing a “green” shopping bag is not going to help move your brand forward. All it’s really going to do is make you look like a green hypocrite if you’re not fully committed to being green. And that’s all part of your brand identity. In my opinion these gimmicky tactics that Andy recommends could really work against most companies brand identity. Don’t do them unless it leverages your brand identity.

Remember, a word of mouth marketing company will always promote (sell) what they do best. They can’t help it, otherwise they don’t make sales. If you’re looking for a marketing company to help support your efforts try and find one that doesn’t have any bias against specific tactics. A word of mouth marketing?company will obviously promote word of mouth and most likely will not understand the branding strategy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 10:36 am and is filed under Branding Blunders, Branding News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.