TREND SPOTTING: Whose Brand Is It, Anyway?
By Nick Shore

Have you noticed how lately everyone is jumping on the "brandwagon," as if it were some new nexus of enlightenment, as if "brand" hasn't somehow always been the most important word in the vernacular of marketingese? As it gets hot in the brand kitchen, it's unfortunately all boiling down to the key question: who owns the brand territory? Certainly, that was an issue at the recent 4A's meeting, where branding consultancies were criticized by some speakers for poaching on ad agencies' rightful turf. You've just heard one view of what agencies need to do to reclaim that turf. Well, here's a rather different opinion from one of the alleged poachers.

Before we opened our doors as a brand agency in 1994 we bounced our business plan off a few industry confidantes, most of whom speculated that it would never work because the clients would fight it. "You're taking away the brand bit, and that's their turf" was the general sentiment. Our experience thus far with clients like McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Lever Brothers, Motorola and Black & Decker has been quite the reverse. Clients are, it would seem, crying out for partnership with an entity (who isn't selling anything!) that can offer smart help wrangling with new and existing brand issues. Rather than fighting over turf, the client reaction has tended to run more like, "Finally, someone to help me focus on the brand from first principles, not just steps 93 through 100 in the process!"

As was seen at the 4A's, the reaction of the ad agencies to the brand agency concept has been somewhat less mature. For reasons that at first glance seem logical, when a client throws a brand agency into the mix, the ad agency folks start to get very territorial very quickly. Believe me when I say it gets ugly: in a supersaturated ad agency marketplace of hypermergers and megapitches, the brand "advantage" looks like the holy grail, the last stop before parity and commoditization. Just like "integrated" was a few years ago. Just like account planning was a few years before that.

But drawing the battle lines with brand agencies seems to be shortsightedness driven by panic. Advertising needs to take a piece of advice that it perpetually gives its clients: focus. Advertising agencies need to stop trying to own all of the marketing pie, stop trying to circumscribe everyone else's specialty, and focus on their own. Focus on the creation of great brand- and sales-building advertising, advertising that solves the business and brand problem in hand. It is, after all, a single tool (albeit expensive and complex), but a tool nonetheless, in a box full of tools at the disposal of the marketing world, each designed to solve different kinds of marketing issues.

For many years I worked in ad agencies here and in England, and I concluded that one of the single most frequent causes of frustration and rift between agency and client is that the agency is ill-briefed at the beginning of the relationship. Fundamental questions are left unanswered (and go unasked). What is the nature of our brand? What would we like it to be? What problem have we identified with the business or the brand for which we believe advertising is the appropriate solution? The best briefing we ever received was Nickelodeon, who gave us a suitcase full of stuff-Gak, videotapes, an orange foam brain-and said, "This is us. Don't try and change it."

Ad agencies need to recognize what clients already do, that the insertion of a brand agency into the equation can vastly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the advertising process. By spending focused (that is, specialized) time wrestling with the nature of the brand and where it needs to go, and getting the client to buy into those conclusions, the brand agency is helping to clear the way for the ad agency to do what it does best, in a pointed and optimal way.

In reference to the point counterpoint debate. The old saying, "it comes in threes." It's been forty years since the sixties, and thirty years since the seventies when the paranoia ceased. During this time a new Consultancy was born to compete with advertising.

Corporate and Brand Identity Consultancies won the battle and advertising lost the war.

The relationship between Advertising Agencies and the new Corporate and Brand Identity Consutancies was ambivalent. Initially many Advertising Agencies saw Corporate and Brand Identity as something their own 'collateral' or 'below the line' departments could readily handle either for a small fee or if the accounts were big enough, free.

Again, the time honored phrase, "you get what you pay for." Not many clients were satisfied with the results. Another Ad Agency reaction deriving from their insecurity, was that the Corporate Identity Consultant was a threat. Branding Consultancies were viewed by Ad Agencies, it was thought, as a new kind of Consultancy aimed at stealing Ad Agency business and reducing their influence. Another agency reaction was that Corporate and Brand Identity Consultants were simply grandiose design studios with an inflated ego of their own significance. Year 2001 all of these misconceptions are dead and died by the seventies.

For the most part, far-sighted advertising agencies encourage their clients to use Corporate and Brand Identity Consultants where appropriate for Brand Strategy, Brand Research, Brand Positioning, Naming, Name Systems, Image Assessment, and Competitive Analysis.

Pioneering Corporate and Brand Consultancies such as, Saul Bass/Herb Yager and Associates; Paul Rand Inc.; Lester Ball, Don Ervin; Brownjohn/Chermayeff and Geismar; Morton Goldsholl and Associates; Ramond Lowey/William Snaith; Donald Desky Associates; Jerome Gould; Gerstman + Meyers; FHK Henrion Design Associates, and other World Design Masters paved the way.

The professionals were Lippincott & Margulies, Walter Landor Associates, Soyster Orenshall, Unimark International, Siegel & Gale, Anspach Grossman Portugal. (others). The aforementioned professionals employed sociologist, accountants, economist, psychologist, designers, marketing, trademark and patent lawyers.

Corporate and Brand Consultants understand everything in branding springs from the identity of the product and company, its architecture, interiors, print advertising, media communications, and e-branding. Advertising Agencies alone cannot comprehend clearly the nature of a corporation's brand. Too many cultural, organizational, political, economical and psychological factors are involved for which advertising executives have no training.

Realistically, I do not see management consultants competing with Advertising Agencies. Management consultants may retain an independant Corporate and Brand Consultant (e.g Tony Spaieth). Mega Communication Consultancies such as London based Incepta Group plc which owns Citigate Lloyd Northover-London,and Citigate Corporate Branding. Under this umbrella, Corporate Branding, Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, and Management Consulting are integrated. The same is true for Omincom, WPP, Interpublic and True North. All of these power house communications conglomerates intergrate strategic and creative communications solutions under one roof. I cannot imagine Mercer Consulting giving advise in reference to corporate branding without recommending their client retain the service of Mercer Group's branding entity Lippincott & Margulies. Neither, do I see management consultants such as, Arthur Andersen or Booz Allen Hamilton giving advise on brand and identity issues without expertise.

I see Advertising Agencies wising up and taking a page from the Corporate and Brand Identity Consultants. Integrated personnel diversification is key.

Ultimately though, I believe, advertising agencies will evolve to acquire the necessary talent to compete on the more strategic elements of the brand. They must! (suggestion - ad agencies please hire some former brand managers to supplement the account management/planning function) Plus, most of the time the strategic brand work is naturally followed by creative work which the ad agency is obviously best suited to create.

Part of the fault is with the business development process--in order to win business, agencies jump into spec creative without first doing the homework required to fully understand the company, its competition, and the audience. The result? The prettiest picture, logo, or ad wins, not the one that builds a compelling, unique brand image.

There is no shortage of smart people sitting in agencies, brand, management consultancies or design firms. However, even if you put a cross-discipline assortment of these entities together, without a model to work with, it’s difficult if not impossible to deliver high value to any client (ego, personal and corporate agendas, industry rigidities, sacred cows, fear, etc.) Consultants in silos working for clients that perhaps have titanium silos between operational entities -- net zero.

Neither of three entities -- ad agencies, brand or management consultancies -- will dominate in delivering highest value. Their solutions will continue to be valuable in specific situations but lose relevancy for CEOs who are systems thinkers. At the end of the day, the CEO has to make sense of the whole company even though it may seem easier to split the problem into manageable pieces.

Driving change in how a company develops and manages the internal and external experience(s) of itself is a difficult conversation to have with a CEO.

How?