Fixing a brand is hard. Rarely does salvation arrive in the form of one product, tag line, commercial or initiative because a broken brand is rarely ill in just one area of operations. This fact, obvious though it should be, seems lost on too many brands. Forget improving product quality or the in-store experience. They want a silver bullet – a magic elixir that fixes all their ills with minimal time and effort. They are like a man who goes to the doctor and discovers he has extremely high cholesterol. The doctor advises, “I’m going to put you on Lipitor, and you’ll have to exercise five days week and completely change your diet from one based on powdered mini donuts to one based on celery and bran. If you don’t do these things, you’ll have a heart attack within two years.” The man balks, “What if I just take the Lipitor?” “That won’t cut it,” admonishes the doctor. “You’ll just die a little more slowly.” The patient considers this and then replies, “Nah, I think I’ll just give the pills a shot. Because, science.” Then, while on his way to the pharmacy, the man is struck and killed by a car driven by Alanis Morrisette.

That last sentence doesn’t transfer so well as an ad analogy, but the rest holds true – and how many brands do the same thing every day? Ignore the advice of those who know how business works in hopes that tomorrow will just be a magically brighter day because they ran an FSI with three coupons instead of just two? Worse yet, how many such clients are clogging up your agency roster with missed opportunities and wild placebo chases?

Exactly.

Later,

Fox