Selling the Invisible: a field Guide to Modern Marketing \(Biz Books to Go\) pdfdrive com

Brands are alive—and you could use one.
The Warranty of a Brand
What is a brand?
A brand is more than a symbol. In the public’s eye, a brand is a warranty. It
is a promise that the service carrying that brand will live up to its name, and
perform.
A brand is even more important than a warranty. No warranty does enough,

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because no warranty compensates the warranty holder for the lost time, the
frustration, and the inconvenience of suffering the problem and making the
claim. The brand, then, becomes even more important because it is the closest
thing to a guarantee that the customer will not need the warranty and have to
endure the claims process.
Brands are even more important to service customers, because few services
have warranties—in part because many services are very difficult to warrant.
How do you warrant, for example, that legal advice will be good? That a
waiter’s service will be satisfactory? That a tax accountant will find every
permissible deduction? In many cases, you cannot. Left without a warranty, the
client has only the brand on which to depend.
And depending on brands is just what service clients do.
A service is a promise, and building a brand builds your promise.
The Heart of a Brand
When a prospect initially agrees to use a typical service, what does he own?
Nothing but someone’s promise that they will do something.
The most desirable services, then, are those that keep their promises.
This also means that the heart of a service brand—the element without which
the brand cannot live—is the integrity of the company and its employees.
The value of any brand rises or falls with each demonstration of the
company’s integrity. The balance is fragile; every slip can be costly. We all have
worked with services that failed us only once, but fatally. They lied or came
close. From that one experience, their brand lost all its value to us. When others
later asked us about that company, we may have said very little, but our message
was clear—and it spread.
A service can be faster, cheaper, better, and still fail if it does not win the
confidence of people that it will keep its promises and tell the truth.
The heart of a service brand is not artful packaging, slick advertising, or the
company name emblazoned on everything from sweatshirts to key chains. The
heart of a service brand, and a key to a service’s long-term success, is the
integrity of the people behind it.