SELLING ISN’T BRANDING
There is this misconception to mistake selling for Branding, perpetuated by many, even those in advertising and media.
And businesses follow suit. They slap their logos on their products or on an image intended for social media and call it branding. It has become a running theory for many SMEs who don’t appreciate the difference to run highly personalized ads on social media, or list features of their products, in tandem with good images and term it branding.
That isn’t brand building, but selling.
Brand building isn’t the targeting of individuals or selling to just one person at a time. Instead, Branding is the changing of the cultural landscape and imprinting of the identity of the company in the minds of many.
Selling on the other hand just targets the individual and hopes to convince her to part with her money.
When you see a Nike ad, it doesn’t necessarily include any call to action, or even tries to sell in the traditional sense. In lieu of that, it portrays an association between Nike and Athletic excellence. The same goes for Coco-Cola whose ad always presents a relationship between the drink and happiness. The purpose of these ads is to make the audience to internalize these creeds and later associate them with the brands in the long-run, creating a cultural shift in the process.
Running a highly targeted ad on social media isn’t branding because it doesn’t create a cultural imprint — it only manages to get the individual seeing it to buy your product, and does nothing more.
For you to build a brand that lasts, it needs to be public and not personalized. The only way to shift cultural perception and build a world class brand, is to get your ad in front of as many people as possible, and to do it in a way that ensures the viewer knows others have seen it too.
Example, an anti-tobacco ad that lists all the dangers of smoking, enlarged and placed in every bus-stop in Lagos, has a higher chance of stopping a man from smoking in public where everyone has and can see the ad, than if the ad was targeted at him on Facebook. The pressure from knowing others have seen those posters which specifically state that smoking is a dangerous, even deadly habit can stop him from lighting a cigarette in public altogether. The difference between seeing it on Facebook and in public is cultural imprint.
If your aim is to build a big brand, it is better to get your brand/ad in front of as many people as possible, and rooted in the broader culture. Brand building is about creating a cultural identity more than it is about listing features. Selling is the opposite.
#Branding #Selling #DigitalAds #BrandIdentity #CulturalImprints
