Hive Health

All ‘new’ industries strive for legitimacy, a movement that is often accompanied by an entire lexicon of terminology and process. For a long time we have been developing terminology and processes that seek to formulate an approach, clarify our position and differentiate our offer. The world of  demand chains,  brand onions and disruption is one that all clients and agencies occupy.

Case in point is the numerous phrases that describe essentially the same thing — brand essence. Some networks have gone so far as to trademark their terms and the processes they use for determination. End result = terminology galore and as much process explanation as strategic clarification.

Spending some time on holiday last week – I revisited Kotler (it was this or be left with a book about a girl in love with a complex man she couldn’t love in the world within which she had to live and her struggle to make do with an empty life with a simple but good man who provided everything he could but not enough for her to be happy) – a comparitively magnificent book on marketing that I first brought to enlighten me when I first came into the industry. It’s a dry read and although wanders into the theoretical it’s pretty refreshing in its lack of terms.

I like Kotler’s steadfast use of the term Unique Selling Proposition (in my mind a potential forerunner of brand essence), a concept developed and named by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company. A 50 year old term that has stood the test of time and been universally adopted. Some argue that with the advent of product parity it has evolved into the Emotional Selling Proposition. ESP is certainly a concept much closer to our common understanding of “brand essence,” as its focus is on the brand’s intangible differentiator. Although I find it hard to believe that me-too products are a recent phenomenon I think that the ‘U’ still stands up whether that be a feature led ‘portability’ or due to some emotional unmet need like ‘popularity’. Either way to be unique emotionally or functionally is still to be different.

This book seems to either have been penned prior to or has ignored the multitude of copyrighted verbs describing the logical processes for develop brands by agencies needing with some irony, you guessed it – a USP. I would love to see each agencies model worked through with their own brand – please someone in procurement construct this legend! Two birds (process understanding & agency offer) with 1 stone. Please, please, discounted please.

Reviewing the alternatives to Rosser’s, here is a collection of words and phrases used to describe what is unique about a brand:  Brand Essence, Brand Soul, Brand Heart, Brand Mantra, Brand Promise, Signature Strength, Core Strength, Core Attribute, Brand Description, Brand Differentiator, Brand Uniqueness, Brand Individuality, Brand Meaning, Brand’s Central Nature, Brand Proposition…

Any more?

 As usual Tom Fishburne’s nailed the process here.

Ps. A note to purists: I admit that there may be shades of difference between some of these terms. You could make a case that brand personality and brand promise, for example, mean two completely different things. My point is that the differences are largely semantical and do little to advance the clarity of the branding process.