‘The customer is always right’
There is some debate as to who first actually came up with this now ubiquitous phrase. Some say it was Harry Selfridge, the founder of the London department store, Selfridges. He used it to convince shoppers that they would get an excellent customer experience and to remind employees to always provide high-quality service. Others attribute it to the hotelier César Ritz, who said, ‘Le client n’a jamais tort’ (‘The customer is never wrong’) and went on to tell employees, ‘If a diner complains about a dish or the wine, immediately remove it and replace it, no questions asked.’
In today’s marketing world it is taken as a ‘given’, especially in an era where people power seems to be growing. What concerns me, though, is when this is taken further and becomes ‘the consumer owns your brand’, truly handing the power to the people. While I can see the simplistic appeal of this, I believe that it is ultimately a dangerous concept for marketers and brand directors. It is undoubtedly true that people wield influence over brands through their purchasing power and their advocacy or derision of those brands to friends, family and increasingly on social media.
People also have their own individual perceptions and experiences of a brand which they ‘own’
It’s not surprising then that there are numerous instances of brands changing their behaviour, offer, and communications in the face of people power. However, this doesn’t mean the ‘people’ actually own the brand. As any corporate lawyer would tell you, saying someone else owns your asset could set an unwanted precedent.
In a world where counterfeit brands are big business (c. $2 trillion as of last year), I wouldn’t want to encourage the practice anymore. It is not just the legal argument, there is still a strong case for the old kings — the brand owners — to retain or if necessary, reclaim ownership of their brands. Despite people power, brand owners need to set and drive the direction of their brands. Clearly, if everyone stops buying a certain brand, it is likely to go out of business and, as such, people (we, its customers) are perhaps the most powerful influencing force or pressure group on that brand.
But the people are not, and never will be, the owners. We can stop buying it, we can ignore it, we can suggest and influence alterations, but we do not actually enact those changes or have final control.
It is the role of the brand owner, through their brand, all its touchpoints and all the different brand encounters, to try to create and manage the best perceptions of that brand.
The aim of marketers and brand owners is to create a positive, motivating, and distinctive set of associations with their brands, and to do so coherently and, importantly, distinctively among a large group of people. It is they who can choose to change things or not.
Furthermore, the best marketers know and accept ‘you can’t please all of the people all the time’
Brands are about choice: customers making choices, employees making choices, investors making choices but also the brands themselves making choices. Choices about what they want to stand for and what they want to stand against. This is where the owner truly pays a part. They set the philosophy — the purpose and the beliefs of a brand that will shape and differentiate it in the market.
Without this, it seems likely that brands would all coalesce about what people want at that point in time. So, I believe it would potentially be very concerning if the people, the general public, were completely in charge. Sometimes public opinion might suggest pushing a brand away from its core beliefs or purpose, but this is another dangerous precedent.
To paraphrase the late founder of Oglivy & Mather ad agency, David Ogilvy, the ‘consumers’ may not be ‘morons’, they may be your wife, husband, or partner. But they aren’t always right. Paraphrasing another marketing icon, Steve Jobs: ‘Sometimes we don’t know what we want, or at least don’t know until we are shown it’.
So, I would conclude that there is a difference between marketing and branding: for me, marketing is about answering your customers profitably (or effectively for not-for-profit brands). As such, it should be customer-focused and take into account the growing influence of ‘people power’.
However, branding is about having a vision (a purpose) and converting people to it profitably (or effectively). Having this clarity will provide guidance on how your brand will behave and, indeed, what it would do and what it wouldn’t do. It will differentiate your brand from other brands, facilitating the choice that brands have been created to provide. Marketing, as the name suggests, is about how you choose to market your brand.
Featured image: Steshka Willems / Pexels