Like a lot of things in the marketing world, opinions on design and advertising are very often subjective. If you ask someone’s opinion on an idea or concept, you often find their opinion is based on whether or not they have a personal affinity with it – is it similar to things they like and have done in the past? Does it appeal to the consumer type that person fits into? Very rarely however do you get an objective opinion on a design i.e. does this piece of work answer the brief? Have you researched the stated target audience and found out what they think?
When it comes to branding, this issue can go even deeper than it does just with design because these subjective opinions and ideals go right to the very core of what a company is about. If these things are wrong at the start then the project you’re working on could be fatally flawed before you even begin.
Let me give you an example:
Imagine a company came to us looking to rebrand their business. As we do on all branding projects, we would begin by asking lots of questions about who their customers are – demographic profiles, likes, dislikes, which other brands they buy from, where they shop, what they do in their spare time, what makes them tick, average customer spend etc.
When you ask these questions you will get one of 2 types of answers. The first answers will come from the clients you should be listening to because they are objective answers. They will either refer to actual information they have on who their customers are based on research and sales data, or they will just be in tune to who their customers are having run the customer facing side of the business for some time. Their answers will always be quantifiable in some way and you will get a sense of true objectiveness.
The second types of answers will come from the clients you’ve got too watch out for because their answers will be more subjective. You can tell because many of the answers are not backed up with anything more than vague anecdotal evidence. More important than that though you will notice that the client doesn’t tell you who their customers and target audience ARE but who they WANT THEM TO BE.
Even more important than that is that, in the vast majority of cases, the client will want their customers to be like them. They will project their upbringing, economic background, cultural attitudes and buying habits onto their target customer – even if the product or service they’re offering actually fits a completely different customer profile.
So imagine a company was selling a consumer good that they wanted to create a new brand for. Also imagine the product was selling in a competitive market place where there are a number of different products and price points ranging from lower-end, through to premium, through to extreme luxury.
Let’s say this product fitted into the lower end of the market – it was relatively cheap to make, had low price points, used fairly low-end materials and components and would probably be sold in department stores such as TG Hughes or BHS.
Also imagine that your client doesn’t shop in BHS and TJ Hughes, they shop in John Lewis or Harvey Nichols. They are from a relatively high socio-economic background. A certain type of advertising appeals to them and they’re exposed to it in media such as Country Living Magazine or the Telegraph. You’re more likely to find them at the ballet than you are at McDonalds tucking into a Big Mac!
So if you ask that client who their customers and target customers are they’ll probably start telling you they shop in John Lewis, are from an ABC1 socio-economic background, pay attention to adverts they see in the Telegraph or Country Living magazine and often attend the ballet!
There are 2 reasons why this happens:
- The first reason is that it’s common for people to project an image of their customers to be just like them. Most of us surround ourselves with people are just like us – our friends and acquaintances have similar opinions, like similar things and are pretty likely to come from a similar socio-economic background to ourselves. Because of this it’s actually very difficult for anyone to truly put themselves into someone else’s shoes and understand what their wants and needs from a product or service might be.
- Secondly it’s also common for brand owners to be ‘aspirational’ when it comes to their business – they want to be seen as premium even if their product or service doesn’t suit this brand type and even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with selling a ‘lower-end’ product.
But what can I do to fix this?
I suppose that depends what your relationship with your client is like. If you have a relationship where you as the agency are expected to challenge your client’s assumptions then it’s all about convincing the client round to your objective way of thinking with good reasoning. If you don’t have that kind of relationship and your client can’t be convinced then you can either create what they want you to even though you know it won’t be effective OR walk away.
A tough decision that I’ll leave up to you!
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