The Consumer may be King, but the Brand Rules the Kingdom
We’ve all heard it: the consumer is king. Yes, what the consumer wants remains forever critical, but the brand puts forth the message, sets the tone, establishes the voice. The brand itself is the ruler of the kingdom. Everyone else helps and supports this effort. While brands must be hyper aware of consumers, influencers, retailers and others, they can’t just hand over the keys to the kingdom to any of them.
That happens a lot in marketing. Brands cross the line from listening to consumer needs and wants to pandering to them. We smile when focus group attendees say all the right things. We beam when Influencers get us engagement with their fans. We celebrate when the trend we chase gets us borrowed attention. But is the brand establishing itself with a unique, authoritative voice or just giving the people what they want? And many times, the people have no idea what they want. Steve Jobs famously asserted “people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” This extreme perspective probably works best for groundbreaking tech, maybe less so for laundry detergent. That said…
Only the brand can present to the world a pure, unadulterated message and POV about itself.
It can, and it must. We call it Brand-Generated Content. The brand speaking to the consumer in its own voice. Not interpreted. Not filtered. Not diluted. Direct. If the brand doesn’t say it, no one will, and by default, it will be defined by the interpretations of others.
Marketers come and go. Agencies come and go. CMOs come and go. The brand remains. We all serve it and must realize it is more important than any of us. We need to stay true to it, respect what came before, hold what works, evolve what needs to move forward, and speak on the brand’s behalf. Otherwise, we let it down.
In a world drowning in creator content, borrowed equity, and algorithm-chasing, the rarest thing is a brand with conviction. So, put forth its proclamation and don’t abdicate the throne.
