BRAND MARKETING AND DIRECT MARKETING ARE NOT THE SAME THING. STOP MEASURING THEM AS IF THEY ARE.

BRAND AFRICA WEDNESDAYS

POSITIONING & REPUTATION

BRAND MARKETING AND DIRECT MARKETING ARE NOT THE SAME THING. STOP MEASURING THEM AS IF THEY ARE.

A C-SUITE CONVERSATION ABOUT BRAND, DEMAND, ROI AND LONG-TERM ENTERPRISE VALUE

MN COLLECTIVE | INSIGHTS UNFILTERED**

BELIEVE. BRAND. BUILD AFRICA.

There is a conversation I believe more African boardrooms need to have.

What exactly are we asking marketing to do?

Generate leads this month?

Increase bookings?

Drive traffic to the website?

Sell inventory?

Build awareness?

Strengthen reputation?

Create preference?

Command a premium?

Enter a new market?

Make the company famous?

These are not the same objectives.

And therefore, they should not necessarily be funded, executed or measured in the same way.

One of the most useful distinctions Seth Godin makes in This Is Marketing is between direct marketing and brand marketing.

It is a distinction CEOs, CFOs, CMOs and boards should understand.

Because when we confuse the two, we can end up killing long-term brand building because it cannot demonstrate the immediate attribution of a performance campaign.

Or we can waste millions calling something “brand building” when it is actually poorly measured advertising.

FIRST: WHAT IS DIRECT MARKETING?

Direct marketing asks for an action.

BOOK NOW.

BUY NOW.

REGISTER.

CALL US.

DOWNLOAD.

SUBSCRIBE.

REQUEST A QUOTE.

Digital technology has made this extraordinarily powerful.

Run a Google campaign.

Spend KES 1 million.

Generate 8,000 clicks.

Receive 400 enquiries.

Convert 80 customers.

Generate KES 5 million in attributable revenue.

Now management can begin asking:

What was our cost per acquisition?

What was our conversion rate?

What was our return on ad spend?

Which audience performed better?

Which creative converted better?

Which channel generated the highest-quality customer?

This is the beauty of direct marketing.

IT GIVES MANAGEMENT NUMBERS.

And Godin's argument is essentially that when you are doing direct marketing, you should measure it.

Test.

Learn.

Optimise.

Scale what works.

Stop what doesn't.

Direct marketing is fundamentally about response amd conversion.

THEN THERE IS BRAND MARKETING.

Brand marketing has a different job.

Its job is not necessarily:

Click this button today.

Its job is to influence something deeper:

WHAT DO PEOPLE THINK ABOUT US?

WHAT DO THEY FEEL ABOUT US?

WHAT DO THEY EXPECT FROM US?

DO THEY TRUST US?

DO THEY REMEMBER US?

WOULD THEY CHOOSE US OVER AN ALTERNATIVE?

WOULD THEY PAY MORE FOR US?

That is where positioning and reputation enter the boardroom.

Your brand is occupying space in people's minds long before your performance ad asks them to buy.

THINK ABOUT NIKE.

Seth Godin uses a brilliant thought experiment.

Imagine Nike opened a hotel.

You probably already have an idea of what that hotel might feel like.

Energetic.

Performance-oriented.

Bold.

Modern.

Athletic.

Inspirational.

Nobody has shown you the architectural drawings.

Nobody has shown you the rooms.

Nobody has shown you the menu.

Yet your mind has already constructed expectations.

THAT IS BRAND.

The organisation has accumulated so much meaning that its reputation travels ahead of the product.

That is an extraordinary corporate asset.

NOW BRING THIS INTO AN AFRICAN BOARDROOM.

Imagine two companies selling almost identical products.

Company A spends aggressively on performance advertising.

Every month:

Ads.

Clicks.

Offers.

Discounts.

Conversions.

Retargeting.

More ads.

Its dashboard looks fantastic.

Company B also invests in demand generation.

But over several years it simultaneously builds something harder to see on a monthly dashboard:

Reputation.

Distinctiveness.

Customer experience.

PR.

Thought leadership.

Consistency.

Cultural relevance.

Trust.

Employer reputation.

Executive visibility.

Community.

Storytelling.

Product quality.

Distribution.

Word of mouth.

One company may become very good at buying customers.

The other is attempting to become a company customers look for by name.

That distinction matters.

BECAUSE PERFORMANCE CAN RENT ATTENTION.

BRAND BUILDS MEMORY.

Turn off a performance campaign and traffic may fall tomorrow.

But a strong brand can continue generating:

Search.

Recommendation.

Preference.

Direct traffic.

Repeat purchase.

Media interest.

Talent attraction.

Partnership opportunities.

Investor confidence.

And potentially pricing power.

That is why CEOs should stop treating brand purely as a communications expense.

Brand can become an enterprise asset.

 SO WHAT IS THE ROI OF BRAND?

This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.

A CFO can reasonably ask:

If I give you KES 50 million for brand building, what exactly am I getting back?

That is a legitimate question.

Marketing should never use “brand” as permission to avoid accountability.

But the answer should not always be reduced to:

How many people clicked the advert?

Because that may be measuring the wrong thing.

Brand investment should be evaluated through a broader set of indicators over time:

Brand awareness.

Consideration.

Preference.

Share of search.

Direct traffic.

Organic demand.

Customer retention.

Repeat purchase.

Price premium.

Customer acquisition efficiency over time.

Reputation.

Earned media.

Employee attraction.

Market share.

Brand equity.

And ultimately:

Does being known, trusted and preferred improve the economics of this business?

That is the C-suite question.

DIRECT MARKETING ASKS:

DID THEY ACT?

Brand marketing asks:

WHAT DO THEY BELIEVE ABOUT US?

Positioning asks:

WHY SHOULD THEY CHOOSE US?

Reputation asks:

DO THEY BELIEVE OUR PROMISE?

Strategy asks:

CAN WE SUSTAIN THAT ADVANTAGE?

Those questions belong together.

THE REAL DANGER FOR AFRICAN BRANDS

Digital marketing has given us extraordinary tools.

But it has also created a temptation.

Because clicks are visible, we begin believing clicks are everything.

Because impressions appear on dashboards, we mistake visibility for brand equity.

Because followers are countable, we mistake audiences for customers.

Because ROAS can be calculated quickly, we begin starving investments whose returns compound over longer periods.

And then we wonder why so many African companies sell products but relatively few build globally recognised brands.

We mastered promotion.

Now we must master positioning.

We learned how to generate attention.

Now we must learn how to build meaning.

SETH GODIN'S OTHER IMPORTANT IDEA: PERMISSION.

Long before today's social-media ecosystem, Godin argued in Permission Marketing that businesses should move beyond constantly interrupting strangers and instead earn the privilege of communicating with people who actually want to hear from them.

Think about how relevant that is today.

An email subscriber who genuinely wants your content.

A customer who downloads your app.

A community that follows your thinking.

A traveller who searches specifically for your hotel.

A consumer who walks into a supermarket asking for your product by name.

That relationship is enormously valuable.

You are no longer constantly renting somebody else's audience.

You have earned attention.

AND THIS IS WHY BRAND AND DIRECT MARKETING SHOULD NOT FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL.

You need both.

BRAND CREATES PREFERENCE.

DIRECT MARKETING CAPTURES DEMAND.

BRAND MAKES PEOPLE REMEMBER YOU.

DIRECT MARKETING GIVES THEM A PATH TO ACT.

BRAND BUILDS TRUST.

DIRECT MARKETING CONVERTS INTENT.

BRAND COMPOUNDS.

DIRECT MARKETING OPTIMISES.

The sophisticated organisation understands the role of each.

THE CEO'S QUESTION SHOULD THEREFORE CHANGE.

Instead of simply asking:

What was marketing's ROI this month?

Ask:

What demand did marketing capture?

What future demand did marketing create?

Is our cost of acquiring customers improving?

Are more customers searching for us by name?

Is our reputation strengthening?

Are we becoming easier to choose?

Can we command a premium?

Would customers miss us if we disappeared?

And perhaps most importantly:

WHAT POSITION DO WE OWN IN THE CUSTOMER'S MIND?

Because competitors can copy your campaign.

They can copy your promotion.

They can bid on your keywords.

They can hire your agency.

They can copy your product features.

They can even undercut your price.

But a distinctive position, reinforced consistently through product, experience, culture, communication and reputation, is much harder to copy.

AFRICA, BUILD MORE THAN BUSINESSES.

Build brands.

Build reputations.

Build trust.

Build communities.

Build distinctive positions.

Build organisations whose names mean something before the customer even sees the advertisement.

Use direct marketing to generate today's revenue.

But use brand building to influence tomorrow's preference, pricing power and enterprise value.

Because the ultimate marketing victory is not simply getting someone to click:

BUY NOW.

It is getting them to enter the market already thinking:

I WANT THAT BRAND.

That is positioning.

That is reputation.

That is brand equity.

And that is a conversation worthy of the C-suite.

BRAND AFRICA WEDNESDAYS | POSITIONING & REPUTATION

MN COLLECTIVE | INSIGHTS UNFILTERED

BELIEVE. BRAND. BUILD AFRICA.

[This Is Marketing — Seth Godin](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600458/this-is-marketing-by-seth-godin/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

[Permission Marketing — Seth Godin](https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=qgtgVsBTVEcC&utm_source=chatgpt.com)

[1]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600458/this-is-marketing-by-seth-godin/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "This Is Marketing by Seth Godin: 9780525540830 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books"

[2]: https://thefpagroup.com/book-summaries/this-is-marketing-by-seth-godin/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "This is Marketing by Seth Godin – FPA Group"