Do brand names attract more, sell more, mean more? Much has been written about the Decline of Brands in the Web 2.0 new web order —-the “NeoWeb”, as I like to call it. They say it’s now all about quality and price and the consumer is fickle and disloyal. I disagree.
I think brands are not in decline and never have been. It is a generally accepted sociological, or is it psychological, principle that human beings tend to form groups. We are not, by nature, isolationists. We are all gang members, of one sort or another. And the brands we use or wear are the gang “colors”. MySpace is a gang, digg, Fark, Facebook, you name it. Realtor.com is a real estate professional’s gang— Real Estate’s Angels, if you like.
But Craig Newmark is the Marlon Brando, the Wild One, of internet gangs, with his craigslist.org. Craigslisters are loyal devotees of the brand, despite less than stellar search, presentation, re-postings, bait and switch ads, and other apparent deficiencies when compared to the slicker, googlish, mashable bird’s-eye viewable gangs like Zillow.com. It doesn’t matter if Zillow has Barton & Frink cache and catchy zillisms. It might as well be Funk & Wagnall’s as far as Craig’s gang is concerned. They will never become Zillowists. Now that’s brand love. That’s something to ascend to.
The so-called fickleness of consumers is more a desire to leave one gang to join a better one for them, one where they are more accepted, where their opinion counts, where they’re heard and appreciated. Brands that no longer meet the needs of its members will weaken and die off. The partiicular brand may decline but not BRAND. Brand is forever. Brand is love.
How are you building your brand? Are your blogging efforts creating readership loyalty to YOUR brand?
This may be your best post ever!!! Love it. Craig Brando!!!
On the branding note…look up a book called LOVEMARKS!!!
Wait! The argument is that brand is in decline, not that it no longer exists.
Of course brand is still with us — you have to call the companies you do business with something. But do we relly consider them our friends?
Companies could once build brand loyalty with logos and advertising campaigns. But the Internet helps consumers base their decisions on the quality and price of services provided.
The vast majority of people who use craigslist probably have no idea who Craig Newmark is. Craigslist doesn’t have a logo, they don’t have advertising (do they?) — they don’t “build brand” in any way except to provide a service that’s easy, effective and cheap to use. The second someone else beats them at that game (easier said than done), their customers will be gone (as you acknowledge).
Spending your resources building brand — rather than providing the best services and price — doesn’t pay because it doesn’t take consumers very long these days to figure out who’s got the best deal. That makes it harder to just coast on your (brand) reputation, so your brand is less valuable.
And in real estate, isn’t it more about personal relationships? If broker or agent A goes from company B to company C, where do their clients end up? With the person or the brand?
I’m not one of the fickle ones. Once I find something that works, it’s hard to change even when it’s an improvement. It took me a long time to finally switch blog platforms even with the advice of many more tech conscious people than myself! Same thing was true of radio stations. I hated to bail on the station I had been listening to for years, but the owner of all the good hosts I liked transferred them to another station. What was left behind was milk toast. So I became loyal to the hosts and not the station. Besides being “gang” oriented, humans are also resistant to change. Change takes effort and is unsure and sometimes uncomfortable! Most times we’d rather be complacent!
Matt
Wait. I did not pose the argument that brand is dead. In fact, I said brand is forever.
The post argues that brand is not in decline, as Wired once wrote. Consumers are still loyal to brand, despite better alternatives—AOL & IE are two cases in point. I think Bonnie is right.
Brands and friends—the strongest brands garner fierce loyalty (brand love). I don’t know if it’s friendship but fierce loyalty is a good thing for business. I know people who will only drink Budweiser and if I was on fire, I wouldn’t want it poured on me.
As for Craig: Having spent some time in the craigslist forums, I can assure you that most users do know Craig. Maybe they don’t know his last name or couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, but does that really matter? They do know he exists &, more than that, they know his philosophy (which is his brand). Craig is active on the site and his title of customer service rep is accurate. Users appreciate his presence and sense he cares about the users.
We both agree that Brand is not a logo (but logos do help in recognition, like gang colors), it’s more a philosophy of doing business, a relationship built between product/service and consumer. It’s a reliability, a constancy, a sense of quality or value, from the point of view of the customer. It’s a perception reinforced by experience. Brand makes the customer feel good in some way.
Beating Craig at his game is not how I would put it. There are many sites that do it better in any number of ways. But craigslist remains vibrant. Once again I think Bonnie is right.
Spending money on brand is wasteful only if you have a crappy product or service. You won’t fool people for long with your shiny logo or zippy ads. But if you offer a quality product, even if it is only equal to other’s, you best build your brand to set yourself apart. Also, Brand lives & breathes outside the internet too, maybe more so. In fact, if you believe the recent studies, the Internet is NOT an influencer for buyers of every product or service.
http://tinyurl.com/y5tsy4
I do agree with your statement that real estate is built on personal relationship but I don’t know the answer as to where the customer goes if the agent leaves. That’s a good question. I want to think it’s with the agent. But when my stock broker left the big name firm for a firm I never heard of, I stayed with the brand (i thought the support system was better with the name brand).
But here’s a question that may be better—Does the consumer come to the broker or agent via the brand in the first place? I think so.
Thanks for your thought-provoking comment Matt.
BTW, did you pick up your present in the Santa post? You deserved it for what you’ve done at Inman.
How are you building your brand? Are your blogging efforts creating readership loyalty to YOUR brand?
Good post! On my side, slowly but surely. It’s hard to build that loyalty but I’m not one to sacrifice my brand.
I’m right in the middle of this “brand” issue, as it relates to real estate.
As some of you know, I just opened my first Remax Beach Properties office, here in the Hamptons, a strong resort and second home market, 90 miles from Manhattan on the East End of Long Island, where our market’s average sales price is around $1.4million.
National real estate brand proliferation here is fairly new, starting with Prudential about 10 years ago. Sothebys acquired a local brokerage in 1998 and things stayed that way until recently when NRT bought up three local brokerages in 3 years, including the market leader, Allan Schneider, and put them all under the name of Corcoran, a Manhattan brokerage.
Brand regarding the agent comes down to one thing: Are YOU responsible for generating most of your business through referrals or do you depend on the BRAND (your company) to generate business for you? If it is YOU, and you’be built your business to that level, then you should be at Remax, where you retain 95% of your commissions - you’ve earned it!
Why would you want to give 35-50% of your commissions to a broker who just holds your license?
Brand regarding customers and clients comes down to previous experience. I see time and time again that people follow their agents IF their agent has done a good job developing a personal relationship with them. If not, they will go with the brand that they most identify with. Fact is, that the agency that has the best agents does the most business, regardless of their name.
Brand is a multi-facated razor sharp sword that different people respond to in different ways and that in different times mean different things - think Wonder Bread.
“where you retain 95% of your commissions - you’ve earned it! Why would you want to give 35-50% of your commissions to a broker who just holds your license?”
Having been a RE/MAX broker/owner for many years, I can say with authority that this above comment is pure baloney–inccurate and untrue. The fact is that after the RE/MAX agent (by the way RE/MAX was the original discount brokererage IMHO) is finished paying all their persoanl marketing, adminstrative and operating expenses (not to mention a substantial desk fee) most of them (on average) end up being at a 60/40 split, or less. The idea that any RE/MAX agent gets to keep 95% of their commission dollar just a marketing gimmick. The real question to ask is what is the average RE/MAX agent net earnings. Based on my personal experience, they are often lower than they would be if the agent were operating under a more traditional model.
Again, based on experience, the Broker/Owner is not much more than a glorified administrator for RE/MAX Coporate.
Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms/Dr Ya-but:
Sorry Remax didn’t work out for you. And at what brokerage are you spreading your sunshine today?
Oh, BTW, Craigslist does have a logo
http://www.craigslistfoundation.org/index.php?page=Craigslist_Foundation_Store
Hi! (to whoever is writing this blog — couldn’t quite figure it out)
I think it remains to be seen just how “wild” Craig really is…
Delia
P.S. spooky picture, BTW
I had no idea there was a blog critical of Craig. Interesting. I will have to read more. What seems to be the main grievance(s) against him or the website?
yeah, you’d *have* to read…; hint: the first post is a good starting point:)– tells you what it’s all about (I couldn’t believe there wasn’t hardly *any* earnest craigslist criticism in the MSM or the blogosphere when I started this…)
Delia
P.S. Happy New Year!