Permission Branding and its relationship to B2B lead management

If you follow this blog, you should know that I frequently whine about the fixation so many marketers still have on “Brand”.   My beef is that for the most part, branding is justified by ambiguous terms like awareness that are difficult to measure, and therefore can’t be translated into money.   Branding is the most expensive aspect of marketing and the least measurable.

This week I participated in both the Marketing Sherpa Lead Generation Summit in Boston and the CMO Council Summit in Monterey.  (yes I saw both oceans in one week)

Carl Pascarella the former President and CMO  of Visa caught my attention when he mentioned a concept I hadn't’t considered before:  Branding Gets You Permission.

Permission?!  Hey, that’s our term! It shouldn’t be coming from the mouth of a trillion dollar branding guy!?

But as he spoke the concept began to jell for me.   Branding helps get you to that first permission.   Wow.   I’m not sure how to use it, but I can't deny is it’s a heck of a lot easier on the cold callers if the prospect on the other end of the phone has an already favorable impression of your company…but how to do it?...

Clent Richardson Chief Marketing Officer from Nortel also spoke about some of his revised thinking on branding.  His quote was something like:  “It’s not about awareness, it’s about Consideration!”

Permission and Consideration

I can see value here and something that in fact can probably be measured.   Imagine….measured branding.   

I’ll be thinking a lot about this over the weekend.  Stay tuned.

Comments

[Kathy Knepshield]

Yes, permission and consideration are indeed a great big foot in the door. Just look at YMCA's- they are a "Name Brand"(yet every YMCA is different and unique in their programming and their approaches to their specific programming.)
When one hears "YMCA" or for that matter, any known "brand", certain expecatations are inherant in the understanding of the product. With knowledge of a product the expectations follow close behind giving both the consumers and the company "permission" to build on/rely on the product's image. Companies that look at their consumer base in terms of trying to adjust their product to the needs of a specific target base will enhance the relationship between the two giving the "consideration " necessary to move ahead- creating and re-creating the product/service.