The research company GlobeScan annually surveys a thousand top thought leaders, as well as the general public, in a majority of countries around the world on some really pertinent issues. At the Sustainable Brand Conference in 2007, Rob Kerr, Executive VP of GlobeScan, discussed recent key findings. That research showed how rapidly the consumer’s sense of empowerment is increasing. Does the consumer believe they possess the power to influence a company’s behavior? Over the last few years there is strong and steady growth in mainstream activism in most countries.

It’s no surprise there is now a strong belief that a company should be rewarded for being socially and environmentally responsible, but there is an even stronger sense that a company should be punished for harming social and environmental health. In North America, 46% of leaders say they would reward a company for good behavior while 55% say they would punish a company for behavior that may damage social or environmental health.  Now, that’s a sense of empowerment.

These statistics indicate there are a growing number of individuals around the world who feel they can apply pressure that will force companies to comply with their desires. And, of course, they are right. Companies desperately need those who will purchase their products or services. There is no business without someone to do business with.

It is interesting that the sixties helped us distrust authority, but it took until now sometime after the turn of the century—to really understand that the buyer, not the seller, has the power.

So now, we come full circle. We, as a culture, have begun to awaken and realize that without a reason for being, we will end up in a lost, pointless existence. Now, everything has shifted. We want more—more than just “stuff” for the sake of having it. We want more than the emotional high of associating our personal worth with the brands we choose. We want less jargon and more for our money. We want to save the trees, save the planet, save the children, and educate the poor, and we want a product that does what it claims it will do. Or we’re out.

This is an exciting time for those who prefer telling the truth. It’s encouraging that we are all demanding more from the products and offerings we spend our money on. It restores a little faith in human nature. But it will also increase the demands on the business owners to pay attention to their customers.

As a culture we used to evaluate a product based largely on the brand. We would overlook functionality and satisfaction. What could fill that huge gap in logic?

Emotion.

Our affluent culture offered us, as consumers, far too many decisions to make in a typical day. We were grateful for anything that could speed up any of those decisions, especially one that is emotionally changed.

It’s impossible to know all the reasons why our culture, at least for a time, fell prey to the egotistical message of the Brand. But I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that we evolved to a place where we had the affluence and leisure time to move higher up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, without the discipline to do so.

Here’s what I mean by that statement: We, as a culture, had been working really hard—toiled through the infancy of the industrial revolution and a couple of world wars—and then the fabulous time-saving, pre-packaged goods rolled into our homes and made our lives a breeze.

That’s the point at which we became lost in the pleasure of our reprieve and quickly forgot why we had worked so hard. We wanted a well-deserved break, a little time to bathe in our newly won luxury. We lost touch with the bigger goals and meaning of life. Without a more noble pursuit that humans naturally long for, we were left with stuff, experiences, and purchases that we then used to make us feel alive and important. In that context, an exciting brand illusion appeared to be just the thing we needed. Good branding could offer us the timesaving, pre-packaged replacement to a meaningful life. Thankfully, this shallow solution was not going to last forever.

A perfect example of this would be Coke. In blind taste tests there is no obvious favoritism, according to results published in the October 14th issue of the journal Neuron, but in taste tests where the brand is visible, Coke is preferred by 75%. Coke is a powerful icon worldwide.

The idea of brand became so powerful for a while. There was a short stretch in our history when making a product that was needed, performed well and satisfied its user was no longer the priority. In fact, belief in the strength of branding made us consider whether a quality product was even necessary. Even those of us who made a living by marketing and branding started to drink our own Kool-Aid. We no longer felt the need to actually tell the truth about the products or offerings, because the brand was the thing that people would buy. There was no need to obsess over the product; that was the old way of doing things. Now all we had to do was tell the potential buyer what to think through great branding. With enough really smart creativity, we would motivate the purchase.

The hard thing for me to admit is that it actually worked for a period of time. Most of the buyers jumped on the branding bandwagon and were genuinely influenced by the grand illusions presented by marketers.

It’s generally understood that brand, as the term is now used, began in the twentieth century. Linguistically it has a long history, but as it applies to the stakeholder’s image of a business, it has a fairly short one. All its diverse origins and evolutions could be investigated, but it’s not necessary to go that deep into history to gain an effective understanding. Simple definitions are the most useful.

An academic would be disappointed without years of research and pages of references, but smart business demands only the essential elements be evaluated and applied. That’s the difference between people who like to talk about business and those who like doing business—theory vs. hands-on implementation. Often, it is also the difference between a useful consultant who has the track record to evolve your company and one that has an impressive sounding theory about “how one might grow one’s business.” Use caution.

The short story about brand goes like this: As the mass-produced products from the industrial revolution came to market, it created an identity problem in the local store. The question arose: How does one differentiate a new, modern product (like a healing salve, for instance) from the local product everyone has trusted for years? The problem of communicating the unique value of any given product was born. Eventually this created an entirely new industry category that became part art and part soft science, which is now referred to as branding.

Brand equity, brand personality, brand valuation, brand experience, etc. are all useful terms and they help us discuss many crucial aspects of the sophisticated marketing approaches we have developed over more than a century. Brand does have a strong upside and has fueled economic engines around the globe for years.

It also has a downside. As the idea of brand evolved, it grew in strength as a separate entity from the business itself. This caused a dual vision for those who were in charge and misperceptions grew. The ideas of business and brand became more and more disconnected. Separate departments formed with separate directors. Silos began to emerge within the corporate culture with conflicting agendas and goals. Branding’s power grew to a point where the old ways of running a unified business were left in the dust.

Unfortunately, branding lost its head and became ego driven. It seemed to be able to generate its own power with little accountability to the rest of the company. For a time, the old way of doing business appeared to be dead.

Unrivaled entrepreneurs have the humility to uncover an accurate set of strengths and weaknesses, the boldness to delegate, and a solid, transparent criteria for decisions.

My opinion is not a popular one in this industry, but the self-indulgent waste in the branding, advertising, and marketing was the thing that pushed me to the point of being philosophically opposed to the industry. I went on a quest to find a way to redeem “marketers,” and the result was a systematic, efficient approach that streamlines the evolution of a company, and subsequently, a new service offered by my company Pivot Lab. It’s the accumulation of years of soul searching, study, and practical application of the theories I collected along the way. These are the theories that succeeded in practical application in the real world of business. What use are ideas if they don’t produce the results we are looking for?

It’s the one thing (other than stable cash flow) that businesses long for—loyalty from buyers and from their staff. Some would say that it is nearly impossible for a business to hold a person’s attention and trust. What would cause this? Too much clutter and too many distractions? The unraveling of moral fiber in our culture? What?

Here is an interesting fact. Gallup says, “Many employees are highly motivated when joining a company but then become increasingly disillusioned.” That sounds quite similar to how a consumer looses interest in a product or service.

It seems clear that, in the beginning, the employee or buyer is pleased they have made the right choice for themselves, but some how there expectations are not met.  The source is easy to find the solution simple in understand, but challenging to execute.

If a company truly understands themselves and their offerings and then has the discipline to represent it correctly, in both hiring and communicating with potential buyers, there will be little disappointment. The company will have accurately explained what the person is about to experience and the person will then have the exact experience they expected, hopefully an even better experience than they expected. It’s likely the decision maker will feel more committed to the business, and loyalty will be built, as it always has been, with one trustworthy action after another.

The difficulty really lies in defining the true values and principals that naturally propel a company forward and aligning the company according to those guidelines. But once you’ve done that, it all becomes straightforward, your business and marketing strategy as well as how you relate to your staff and buyers.

We may have all been better off without the invention of the “Brand”. It’s truly unfortunate that the term “Brand” became so fashionable. It’s caused a bit of confusion. The thing we call brand is understood in its simplest form as the outward expression of a business—the image its consumers, partners, and competitors come to identify with any given business. But in the last sixty years, it has become so much more. It’s become an entity that exists somewhat on it’s own and has subsequently become separated from the business itself.

An indicator of this phenomenon is that we’ve come to the place where there are typically different strategies developed, one for a business and another for its brand. And they may not overlap all that much. “Brand” has even become a unique economic asset in the valuation of a total business. It continues to entice the already emotional stock market to behave even more emotionally, and we’ve all seen how branding has unscrupulously influenced the uninformed consumer.