Is Your Brand Lying to Itself?

Your customers and prospects have incredibly high expectations of brands. Not only do they expect great, relevant products and services, they want to know how you do business, how you source materials, what certifications you have, who you hire and how you spend money, for instance.

The new word of the decade: transparency. It’s obvious everywhere, from the revealing blog posts of previously ivory-towered CEOs to the secretly YouTubed videos of rude service providers. Your brand is constantly being watched and assessed for trustworthiness, whether you know it or not. Today’s consumers have a great big megaphone called the Internet. If they’re happy, you’re happy. But if they’re unhappy, you’ll be very, very unhappy. Conclusion: there is no place to hide.

Even if your brand is big and successful, don’t rest on your laurels. Consumers have fallen out of love with well-established brands. They’re seeking out small, locally-grown brands that they deem deserving of their dollars. Many of the great have fallen – and there are obvious patterns to brands falling out of favor.

Misleading the public

Volkswagen’s recent diesel emissions cheating scandal has hurt their stock price, their sales and their brand’s golden patina. Sure, it was just a little code written into the emissions test software. But really, it represented a breach of trust. My VW recently needed a new engine – just as the scandal broke. A quick web search showed that other owners of my vehicle and model year suffered similar problems…yet VW didn’t offer to help pay for the new engine. I used to be a huge VW fan: now I’m driving a Toyota. And I’m active online, as you see here.

Tainted or unsafe products

This is probably the most common reason why brands lose their luster. Many food, consumer and automotive brands have suffered, from e. coli breakouts to exploding tire rims to lead-tainted toy paint. And how often have you heard about outbreaks like these on Facebook or Twitter rather than on CNBC? Point made.

Financial irresponsibility or dishonesty

Two words: Bernie Madoff. Many a well-heeled celeb or businessman trusted Madoff with their investments because he promised unusually high returns. Because he was so well-connected, he managed to fly under the radar for years. But his Ponzi scheme was found out in 2009 and he’s now doing 150 years in prison for fraud. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

Questionable ethics

Martha Stewart spent time in jail for insider trading. Yet she exited from her stint behind bars to re-enter her media empire fairly intact. Perhaps Martha’s ability to gamely speak to prison officials on behalf of her fellow prisoners proved to consumers that she knew how to make the best of a bad situation. And they have continued to follow her.

Misrepresenting products or services

Perrier’s “French spring water” was found in 1990 to contain trace amounts of Benzene. Recent tests have shown that filtered (or in some cases, unfiltered) tap water is actually as drinkable as some bottled water, putting the whole industry in a new light, especially alongside heightened awareness about the massive pollution caused by un-recycled plastic water bottles.

Being rude or disrespecting customers or prospects

For decades, airlines have famously treated customers as if they are cattle. I love the story from the book, Where The Suckers Moon, about the advertising agency that made a potential airline client wait in the agency lobby for an hour, updating them about the status of the meeting room’s availability in 15-minute increments. At the beginning of the long-overdue meeting, the agency principal said, “This is how you treat your customers.” The pitch was based on addressing service issues head-on, since a great ad campaign couldn’t overcome awful service. If only they’d listened.

Jerry Della Femina, a well-known advertising exec, explains:

“There is a great deal of advertising that is much better than the product. When that happens, all that the good advertising will do is put you out of business faster.”

How can this be? It’s because marketing sets up expectations and attracts customers to your brand. But what your brand delivers must then live up to what your marketing promises when customers experience your brand. If it doesn’t, you won’t get repeat customers. In fact, you’ll get ex-customers who tell others how bad their experience was. And in this age of social media, you may actually be investing in marketing that loses you more customers than it gains. So make sure that your brand’s products, services and people deliver on the things that your brand’s marketing promises.

Illegal business practices

Microsoft was alleged to have violated antitrust law with its Explorer web browser, bringing to consumers’ minds the possibility that perhaps Microsoft was limiting their possibilities for freedom of choice in other ways, too. Even if this was not the case, perception is reality.

Social irresponsibility

Goldman Sachs handed out over $16 billion in employee bonuses during the recession. AIG followed suit by sending executives to a weeklong California getaway and giving out $100 million in employee bonuses after receiving a government bailout. These types of actions left a bad taste in the mouths of many who found themselves hard-hit during the recent recession.

Sex scandals

The golden boy of golf, Tiger Woods, found himself embroiled in a sex scandal that lost him more than $100 million in endorsements. And he has never quite returned to his past level of public adoration.

How did we get here?

There are lots of reasons. Greed. Sloppiness. Pressure to speed up production and get ahead of competition. Trusting untrustworthy partners. A sense of invincibility that can come along with power. The list goes on. Want to learn more? Read our e-book, “Why Your Brand Is Failing.”

In other words, your brand’s actions trump its marketing messages.

Your brand may have a great theme line, an awesome web site, and fabulously engaging brochures. But if the actions you and your team undertake on your brand’s behalf don’t match what you say – or worse yet – if they call into question your brand’s overall integrity, all the marketing in the world won’t make up for it.