What Brand Promise and Brand Delivery mean to Digital

In order to solve complex problems, we often must simplify our way of looking at them. On any project I work on, the simplest way I can boil it down is to ask 2 critical questions: what is the brand promise? And, are we delivering that promise?

While this distillation might seem over simplified, in my experience it has served as the most effective guide to both frame and solve a problem. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

To illustrate my point, I will offer a few examples.

Successful delivery of brand promise:

Apple - Think Different.
In the late 90’s, Apple faced a lot of problems. The machines were still costly, the OS was staggeringly out of date, and they were knee deep in the “clone” debacle. I owned an agency at the time and the only reason we stayed on Mac instead of PC was that we were a design firm, The things we needed most (Adobe software and typefaces) were all better on a Mac.  At that time, I wanted to switch to PC, but couldn’t. But it was only a matter of time.

Re-enter Steve Jobs and a stunning new brand promise – Think Different. People were still on the fence, but that was enough to keep the faith. But Apple still had to deliver.

Not long after that came OS X, iMacs and Apple was re-born.  The machines were innovative, the designs were beautiful, and Apple was again the brand we fell in love with.  Since then, Apple has continued to deliver on that promise at almost every step of the way.

Pepsi - Refresh Everything.
When Pepsi recently re-branded, they got off to a fairly rocky start. Not only was the logo re-design questionable, but the initial campaign stunningly missed its own point.

The new brand promise – Refresh Everything – was everywhere you turned. It was a bold call to action that offered absolutely no action. In this age of engaging consumers to build a brand, it was an overwhelmingly one-way line of message delivery. If you went online, you could only view pictures and videos, but not participate. It was one of the largest missed opportunities I had ever seen. It was obviously leveraging the Obama election, and there was a rabid country of people who wanted to take action, and here was Pepsi with a huge call to action and no way to actually do anything.

But then Pepsi got its act together and introduced the Pepsi Refresh project. Not only is it exactly what the brand promise initially offered, but its rollout was based on bypassing a large super bowl message in lieu of an online initiative. It was groundbreaking as well as effective. They offered a way for any person to make a change.

Now, some examples of not-so-effective Brand Delivery.

AT&T - Rethink Possible.
Recently, AT&T has been in a huge uproar over Verizon’s claims of network superiority.  AT&T has responded with a new campaign of their own, as well as a huge new Brand Promise – Rethink Possible.

The problem here is fairly clear. Anyone who has AT&T service knows that it is terrible. Instead of fixing their problem, they have created all this noise to “Rethink Possible” as a distraction.

To deliver it’s promise, AT&T needs to stop talking and start acting. A first step would be a mea culpa to its customers for its service, in order to restore trust. The next step would be to improve the service. It’s that simple.

Instead, I walk around throughout the day with my phone dropping calls and losing signals while seeing huge ads reminding me to “Rethink Possible”.  Not only does this not help the situation, it hurts. It reminds me of the old saying, “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining”.

Microsoft - ?
Microsoft has always has a bit of a brand problem, a lot of which has to do with the size of their business.  It’s very hard to say Microsoft and refer to one thing. They have Windows, Office, Zune, SharePoint, IE and many, many others. Their core problem is that as a consumer, no one really knows what they stand for.

The majority of Microsoft’s perception these days is based on the Mac vs. PC argument. Most people’s experience with Microsoft is with the Windows, Office and IE products. In these areas, people’s general perceptions are that Microsoft is not innovating and they don’t care about their users. This feeling is created by troubled products and virtually no customer support.

Apple has amplified the feeling with its “I’m a Mac” campaign, not only creating a specific image for Microsoft but also rallying their existing customers.

In response, Microsoft is very clearly ratcheting up their Brand Promise, with a somewhat schizophrenic message. First they ran the Mojave campaign to show that the product itself was fine, people’s bias was the problem. Then they ran the fairly ho-hum Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld ads which showed they were really trying to just gloss over the issue at hand with shtick.  There was some effort to define the platform as “without walls”, but that disappeared quickly. Then was the price angle, which gained some momentum in the recession. And finally, we now have the “I’m a PC” campaign that demonstrates that Microsoft really listens to its customers.

At the end of the day, what will change Microsoft’s perception is the reality of its product. They recently introduced the Windows Phone, which looks incredibly promising. They also have the potential of the Surface platform, but have yet to gain any real-world traction with it.

So the verdict is still somewhat out on Microsoft. They appear to have the will to improve, the determining factors will be whether they both have the vision and ability to realize a vision into tangible products.

So what does this all have to do with digital?

In the simplest terms, digital agencies are in a constant process of helping companies either communicate brand promise, or deliver it.  Prior to digital, agencies were only in the business of brand promise, with slight exception. But now that brands live and die in the digital realm, a brand’s delivery is becoming far more critical than its promise.

What I mean by that is that digital has become a brand equalizer. Brand’s can no longer dominate a conversation with empty promises. Consumers have the power to not only instantly decipher the truth of a Brand’s message, but the means to vocally expose falsehoods and shortcomings. Conversely, customers also have the ability to shape brand’s offerings and extol the virtues of their favorites.

Digital has also opened the doors for firms who were once only in a position to help craft communications (branding, advertising, PR, etc.) to be able to delve deeper into a company’s business and deliver their promise. Agencies are now (or should be) in the business of conducting transactions, sales, customer support, etc.

So if you’re in the world of building digital experiences, and you aren’t aware of a client’s fundamental promise to their customer and whether you are delivering it, how can you build something successful for them? If you’re working solely from the perspective of solving a business problem, how can you gauge the effectiveness of your solution?

For modern brands (and agencies), digital has become the great ‘moment of truth’ in a customer’s relationship with a brand. It is often the critical moment when a brand’s offering either works or doesn’t. It is also the channel where a customer’s voice is heard, and businesses can learn.

A customer/user will see the matter this simply, they have an understanding of what a company or product is offering and believe it based on whether it delivers. As creators of digital experiences, we need to not get lost in the minutia of research and analysis and lose sight of the larger, more fundamental premise between every brand and customer – keeping its promise.