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The obvious marketing
Written by Giacomo Felace
2020.10
Often when it comes to communicating the brand equity (the additional value that a brand adds to a product), the communication becomes a bit confusing — remaining in the territories of the obvious, the territories of the known.
The safe marketing or informative marketing of a product usually goes through banal phrases, claims, or payoffs like: “The best pizza in the city”, “Only fresh products”, “100% quality”, “Our company cares about the employees' welfare”, “We offer the best solutions” and so on. I personally call it the marketing of the obvious. And communicating the obvious means don’t communicate at all.
A pretty girl who wears a T-shirt that says “I’m a pretty girl” is not saying anything, just like a restaurant that says that its products are fresh, it doesn’t add value to its brand.
Another thing would be if the same girl was wearing a T-shirt that says “I am also a great chef”. That would be a good marketing operation. The questions are: why should I choose your brand over another? Where do you play? How do you win?
Does your communication make it clear how your brand can solve your costumer needs?
The inability to build a story around a product that is detached from the logic of the intrinsic quality of the product itself means forget about the importance of why you do what you do. The construction of a brand beyond the product (or around the product) is about journalistic/literary dynamics more than corporate dynamics—they are closer to Netflix than to industry. Storytelling must be created around a product and around the brand. Unfortunately in many cases products are treated as if they were just products.
Everything starts with storytelling. And the "safe" marketing, it is the one with shit storytelling. Without good stories, your marketing will always be half as good as it could be.