Author: Tom Asacker
Publisher: Paramount Market Publishing
Year Published: 2005
Rating: 
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Having talked to hundreds of small business owners, I’ve found that ‘branding’ is one of the most misunderstood marketing concepts out there. Everyone wants to talk about their brand, yet to many, that is merely a logo, a mission statement, a tagline, or some type of message they want customers to think about them. To others, a brand is an esoteric or obscure concept that works for Fortune 500s but doesn’t scale well to small businesses with tight marketing budgets. And to others, branding is simply ‘building awareness’ or ‘getting your name out.’
The bad news is that all these definitions are flawed. The good news is that Tom Asacker has written a concise guide to branding that anyone can understand.
Let me first say that I’m rarely impressed with books on branding. In my experience, most are 95% fluff and have very little practical value to small businesses. In fact, initially, I had passed on this book. But a few months back, I started reading Asacker’s blog and liked what he wrote, so I picked up his book. I’m glad I did.
A Clear Eye is written as a dialog between Asacker and an executive while on an airplane flight. The executive holds a number of outdated ideas and misconceptions about branding that are addressed throughout the conversation, which is broken into 6 chapters:
- A brand is not a logo
- Marketing is not a place
- A mission is not a strategy
- Positioning is Passe
- Brand loyalty never was
- Innovation is the key
The book’s thesis is heavily based on the late management guru, Peter Drucker’s statement that because a business’ “purpose is to create a customer, any business enterprise has two – and only these two – basic functions: marketing and innovation.” In Asacker’s view, the execution of these two functions is “branding.” What a customer then thinks because of your marketing and innovation is your “brand.”
Straight-forward, isn’t it? Often you’ll hear things like a brand is a ‘promise of value’ or that your brand is what makes you unique or what message your company uses in its marketing materials.
The truth is that your brand is what customers think of your company. You can’t control it by running thousands of dollars in ads and marketing promotions. Instead, your brand is the culmination of every interaction you make with a customer – how you answer the phone, how long it takes to call a client back, how useful your website is, how well your product or service works, how friendly your customer service is, how frequent and timely your newsletter is, and everything else you do. Your brand is how that customer now sees you.
A brand isn’t about telling. You can’t tell clients and prospects that you have the most experienced executives or the most friendly customer service. People are skeptical and just don’t care about your business. What they do care about is how your product or service can help them – how it makes them feel. You have to consistently demonstrate to them that your company is worthy of their time and money. That by hiring you, they will receive the outcome they expect.
Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Most businesses simply don’t put in the required resources to make marketing a success. They constantly seek out that one magical formula that will bring customers in droves. They want
A recipe. You know, do X advertising. Do Y website and email promotion. Toss in a little PR, events and gimmicks and… voila! Customers flock to your marketing meal. But it doesn’t work that way. Imagine if I gave you a formula, say… that you should use the color yellow because the eye is attracted more easily and quickly to yellow than any other color. What would happen? Everyone would start using yellow, and before you knew it, you’d be swimming in a yellow sea of sameness.
Instead, branding means picking the types of customers you want to attract, finding out what they care about, and then tailoring your product or service to what’s relevant to them. It’s an ongoing process – you do some research, innovate (that is, create a new product or service that will benefit those customers), and then market to them (that is, demonstrate how your product or service will significantly make a difference in their lives). As customer preferences evolve over time, you repeat the cycle.
In my experience, Asacker’s abolutely right with this observation. Virtually all small businesses that contact our marketing firm wish to grow their business. But when we explain to them what it takes for their marketing to really be effective, they become disheartened that there’s not that quick fix or magical formula. Most don’t want to go through with the process because they don’t want to put in the time, effort or money it takes to really create a sustainable brand. They feel much more comfortable following what their competitors are doing and hoping that this time, things will work out. It’s because of that mentality, most businesses fail miserably at ‘branding’ their company.
Asacker does a wonderful job of addressing the marketing concerns and misconceptions of the modern executive and introduces a new, customer-focued framework for how companies should think about branding to stay competitive in the future. He illustrates a number of points by drawing charts and graphs on napkins – nicely keeping the feel of two strangers talking while on a business flight – and keeps the tone of the conversation light and informal. For instance, the executive interjects if Asacker says something he doesn’t agree with or wants Asacker to clarify and is quick to apply concepts to projects his company’s marketing department is working on.
I’d recommend A Clear Eye to anyone that needs a crash course in branding philosophy or is in the planning stages of their marketing plan. This book addresses the high level strategy required for any successful marketing campaign. Once you have these basics down, the rest is a piece of cake.
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