My Thoughts on Marketing After 40 Years of Working with Over 250 Brands

I have had a long career as a marketer. I have worked with Fortune 100 companies, pre-seed startups and everything in between across almost every product and service category, B2B and B2C. This is what I have learned over the years.

• Marketing always starts with customer insight gathered through qualitative and quantitative customer research.
• This implies that you have identified the optimal customer market segment for your product or service.
• Your product or service must meet an important customer need.
• Ideally, your product or service is superior to or different from existing products or services.
• A product or service that connects with people emotionally or experientially will fare much better than those that do not.
• If your product or service signals something positive about its intended customer, all the better. This is referred to "brand as a badge" or a "self-expressive brand."
• Related to this, if your brand shares important values with its intended customers, all the better.
• The decades old advertising formula of problem/solution still works very well.
• People tend to manage against these two scarce commodities - time and money. If your brand can save people time or money, it has an edge up on competitive brands.
• An exception to saving customers time, is to create a purchase experience that is so entertaining, interesting or engaging that they lose all track of time. Then the purchase experience itself becomes a part of the brand's unique value proposition.
• A brand that is available 24/7 and that ships quickly if ordered online has an advantage in the marketplace.
• Related to this, a brand that accepts every payment method - cash, personal checks, all credit cards, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. has a distinct advantage.
• Make shopping quick and easy. Don't ask for the same information more than once. If the customer has bought with you before, allow for autofilling the customer's information.
• Follow up with customers who have started but not completed the online purchase process. Most online store platforms include this feature. 
• Brands must tell a story. It could be a story about the product or service solving a specific problem or it could be a brand origin story.
• Awareness is the cornerstone of any strong brand. If there is no awareness, the brand might as well not exist at all. The first thing a marketer must do for any brand is build awareness. 
• Widespread distribution leads to greater awareness and greater accessibility, two key components in building customer brand insistence, loyalty and advocacy. The one exception to this is a luxury brand whose demand is based on limited access at only the most exclusive establishments. 
• Humor often increases the effectiveness of marketing communications, but only for brands for which humor is appropriate. 
• Every brand should now have some (or many) digital components. These include a website, Facebook page, social media presence, email marketing automation, SEO, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc.
• Ideally, you are able to own the URL that is your brand's name followed by ".com."
• Proactive publicity, especially what might be labeled outrageous "publicity stunts," can provide some of the best media coverage at a very low cost. 
• Carefully crafted taglines can immediately communicate what the brand stands for and why people should be interested in the brand. The taglines should be short, pithy, memorable and carefully crafted to communicate the brand's primary "unique value proposition."
• Trade shows and trade magazines are often the best ways to introduce and market new and existing B2B brands. There are many ways to maximize the impact of participating in a trade show. Unfortunately, that is a topic for another blog post. 
• Whenever you can, collect a person's name and email address for future communication. This is especially true for trade show interactions with customers and potential customers. 
• Each brand should develop and carefully manage its brand's identity system. This typically includes a name, logo or symbol, type fonts, colors and a tagline. But it can also include a scent, sound, or even a texture. 
• Product development is a never ending task. One must always keep ahead of the competition. Product enhancements should be the result of ongoing customer discovery and feedback. 
• The same goes for marketing strategies, tactics and campaigns. They need to evolve based on effectiveness feedback including A/B testing on different campaign concepts, subject lines, marketing copy and images. 
• Going back to my first bullet, anyone who does not start with customer discovery and insight is not a real marketer - period!

I hope this helps in reminding you about what is important in developing good marketing. 

Marketing Always Starts with the Customer

Over the past twenty-seven years I have helped more than 250 organizations with their marketing efforts, from Fortune 10 companies to pre-seed startups in almost every product and service category. Over those years, I have discovered one critical error that some organizations make. They start with the product or service, not with the customer and his or her needs.

Whether it is a variation on an existing product in the marketplace or an entirely new product or even a new product in a new category, one must always identify the target customer and usually also the most promising market segment within the broader customer group. Then, one must conduct customer research to better understand the customer's functional, emotional, experiential and self-expressive needs and desires as they relate to the intended new product or service. This includes understanding what product/service functions and features or brand positioning can create a unique enough value proposition so that some customers will choose the intended product or service over current offerings in the category. Further, the marketer needs to discover how much value the new function, feature or brand positioning adds to the product or service in question.  Is the enhancement compelling enough to cause product or brand switching? Is it compelling enough to charge a price that will result in an acceptable profit?

While most organizations do this required upfront research, some rely on enhancements identified by product designers or engineers. And this is often informed by personal preferences or intuition. Sometimes a person's intuition can be spot-on, but at other times, the market segment that would appreciate the new product or product enhancement is just not big enough. At other times, it is valued but not enough to result in product or brand switching or not enough to cover the additional cost associated with the new product or product enhancement. 

Further, assuming the new product or product enhancement is sufficiently valued by the target customers, then one must determine the pricing, distribution, communication and other marketing strategies that will give the new product or product enhancement the best chance of success. This too requires market research.

In summary, marketing must always start with the customer. Companies that start with the product are quite likely to underperform those that start with the customer. Having said that, some of the more successful companies can ideate product functions and features that the customer could not imagine or articulate. Smart phone features are a good example of that. However, even Apple and Samsung conduct rigorous customer research, even if just to confirm customer acceptance and adoption of those new functions and features and certainly to test and optimize user interfaces.

A boss of mine at Hallmark (sales VP) used to say this to all of his direct reports: "You only have a job and are receiving a paycheck because of our customers. Without them, Hallmark would not exist. Never forget that." 

Marketing Strategy vs. Tactics

 

I often hear talk about the pros and cons of different graphic design or marketing automation software. Marketers also talk a lot about the mechanics of Meta ads and the pros and cons of using Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Then there are the decisions about images, colors, subject lines and copy. While all of this is important and can make a significant difference in the effectiveness of a marketing campaign, fewer marketers first step back to thoughtfully develop the marketing objectives and strategies that these tactics will support. Here are some of the things that must be considered first:

• Who are our primary and secondary target customers? Do we understand their motivations and behaviors well enough?
• What is the unique value proposition that we communicating to them?
• Is our product or brand differentiated enough from competitive offerings?
• What is the target customer's awareness of our product or brand?
• Is our brand even in the target customer's consideration set?
• Are our customers emotionally attached to our brand? Are they loyal to our brand?
• What media do these customers most rely upon?
• Are our product, pricing, packaging and distribution strategies optimized and aligned with our brand's positioning?
• How convenient is it for customers to find and purchase our products?
• Does our product or brand deliver a good or outstanding value to the target customer?
• How are we selling our products? What is our sales process? Is it working?
• What sales barriers do we have to overcome? What concerns do we need to address?
• How many leads are we generating?
• How successful are we at converting those leads into sales?
• What seems to be working?
• What is not working as well?
• What is the broadest marketing "toolkit" that we could potentially apply to promoting our brand and its products? Which of these tools have the potential to deliver the highest ROI?

This is just a small list of strategic considerations upon which the marketer should build a marketing plan. Some have said that a poorly defined strategy executed well will achieve better results than a well defined strategy executed poorly. Clearly the goal is to have both - a well defined strategy supported by outstanding execution. I would admonish you to complete both the strategic work and the tactical work when developing marketing plans and campaigns. 

The Demise of the Tesla Brand

 

I had always admired Elon Musk and what he had accomplished. And I always wanted to own a Tesla car. I decided that the Model S was out of my price range, so I waited for the Model 3. I was one of the first ones to purchase a Model 3 seven years ago. And I am considering getting my next Tesla Model 3 soon. 

Having said all of this, I want to speak to the demise of the Tesla brand. Since Elon Musk funded a significant portion (at least $277 million according to one source) of Donald Trump's US presidential campaign and is now a "special government employee" leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Donald Trump, the Tesla brand has been under attack. 

Why? Tesla's early adopters wanted to support Tesla's EVs at least partially to combat climate change. They viewed climate change as an existential threat and purchasing a Tesla vehicle as something they could do to reduce that threat in some small way. When Elon Musk supported Donald Trump, who has denied climate change, is hostile toward Electric Vehicles (EVs) and has been quoted as saying "Drill, baby drill," Tesla's founder and his motivations became suspect and out of sync with Tesla's unique value proposition,

People then began to conjecture that Elon Musk's end game in the EV market wasn't as altruistic as it first appeared but rather a brilliant ploy to "own" the fuel supply of the growing EV market through Tesla's Supercharger network, which has now been opened up to most other EV brands. That may also be the reason he shared his EV technology with other automotive manufacturers, so that they would be able to use the same charging technology. 

Then one realizes that the Harris administration was very likely to have continued to pursue the Biden administration's investigations of and legal matters against Elon Musk's business interests, something the Trump administration would not likely do. Plus, there are numerous opportunities for increased government contracts for Elon Musk's businesses under the Trump administration.

On top of that is the impact of DOGE's draconian cost reduction measures that have shown a total disregard for functional consequence or human suffering.

Tesla stock hit a new high by the end of 2024 but has declined by 31% since then and some analysts are predicting that it could plunge another 50% over the next year or so. European sales of Tesla's are plunging from 2024 to 2025, because Europeans are tiring of Elon Musk's far right diatribes among other reasons.

Source: https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/tesla-tsla-sales-are-dropping-like-a-rock-in-europe-but-its-not-just-because-of-elon-musk/

California is the biggest market for Teslas in the US accounting for 35% of all Teslas sales, however Tesla's share of EVs in California dropped from 60% to 52% from 2023 to 2024. This corresponds with a double digit decrease in Tesla vehicle sales from one year to the next. And this is despite a growing EV market in California. 

Since Elon Musk's Roman salute, anti-Nazi activists have begun calling Teslas "Swasticars" and people driving Teslas have been warned that anti-Nazi activists have begun vandalizing Teslas for this reason.

Several of my friends own Teslas. Some of them are so fed up with Elon Musk that they intend to sell their Teslas and purchase other vehicle brands even though they all admit that they have been very pleased with their Teslas. Country music star Sheryl Crow announced on Instagram that she had sold her Tesla to protest Elon Musk's involvement in President Donald Trump's administration, and donated the earnings to NPR.

All of this speaks to the cognitive dissonance that occurs when a company's founder tarnishes the image of the brand he or she created due to behavior that goes against the brand's raison d'être and unique value proposition. Elon Musk's more recent behavior and rhetoric have worked against what Tesla's admirers thought the Tesla brand was all about. 

Now, back to my next car purchase, if it is a Tesla, I will likely get it at a great deal given the state of the Tesla brand, especially if I purchase a used Tesla. (The used EV market tends to be soft anyway given the concern about battery life and cost of replacement.)

This is a cautionary brand story that may go down in the history books and marketing students may be reading about this for years to come. 

Brand Research & Brand Positioning e-learning Courses

 

During February and March of 2025, I am offering "Brand Research" and "Positioning Your Brand to Win" e-learning courses for $35 instead of the normal $150, for a $115 price discount. This very low price will only be available for these two months. These courses are intended for beginning through intermediate study of the topics. They include videos, links to online blog posts and articles, numerous examples, tools, templates, exercises and a quiz. You will emerge from these two courses with a much better understanding of these topics.

• Brand Research
• Positioning Your Brand to Win

Marketing Needs Assessment

 

In conjunction with BrandForward, Inc., we are conducting a marketing needs assessment. If you are a marketing professional or business executive of any type who is aware of your organization's marketing needs, please help us quantify those needs so that we can report those needs back to you in a subsequent blog post. Your response will be combined with other responses and your identity will remain anonymous.  It is estimated that it will take you 6 minutes or less to complete.

Here is the LINK to the survey. 

Thank you in advance for helping us report the most pressing marketing needs back to the marketing community.

Generic Market Segmentation

 

We at BrandForward have conducted dozens of market segmentation studies for our clients, some very sophisticated testing over fifty attitudinal statements with ending samples as high as 5,000 consumers. The sophisticated studies have employed cluster analysis, factor analysis, multi-variate regression analysis and other advanced statistical techniques. These sophisticated studies identify the top few market segments for a brand together with the key messages for each.

But I am not writing about that here. I am writing about the four generic market segments:

• Price driven consumers
• Convenience driven consumers
• Brand driven consumers
• Category enthusiasts

The two scarce commodities in most people's lives are time and money. One is very blessed if he or she has an abundance of both. But most people have one or the other or neither of these. This makes the price and convenience driven segments intuitively obvious. The brand driven segment prefers a specific brand, is happy with that brand and does not want to go to the effort to discover new brands, while the category enthusiasts love the category and are constantly in search of the latest products and brands in that category.

Historically, price driven consumers have been between 20-25% of the overall market, but in the last decade or two, and especially lately, that segment has grown to 50% of the market. Recent research shows that 50% of consumers in the US have indicated that they have become more price sensitive. And with the increasing bifurcation of our society into a very large group (80+% by some measures) whose wages had not been keeping up with inflation (while the top income groups are becoming richer), this may only get worse. 

This bodes poorly for brands because the only thing that separates brands from commodities is relevant differentiation that can command a price premium. Very few brands can win by claiming lowest price. And trying to "own" that segment is a downward spiral, especially regarding profit margins and overall profits. 

It is well known that a brand's products sold in big box stores (Walmart, Home Depot, etc.) are not of the same quality as seemingly identical products sold directly to plumbers, contractors and end consumers at specialty stores. For instance, my wife and I recently bought a well-known supposedly high quality branded kitchen faucet at our local ACE Hardware store only to find out that it kept on coming loose from our counter due to a plastic washer. It also had a plastic wand. We turned around and replaced it with a kitchen faucet that we bought directly from the manufacturer. It had a brass washer and a solid metal wand. It does not come loose and it will last much longer. We discovered the same when we bought our Cub Cadet riding lawn mower. We bought ours at a speciality store. It was a higher quality than supposedly the same product that we could have bought at Home Depot. 

Brands will increasingly have to figure out how to address mass markets, which have become much more price sensitive. On the other hand, the top 5% and 1% are seeking out the highest quality in luxury categories. And these products are highly profitable. 

Here are some related articles and blog posts that you might find useful:

• Market Segmentation
• Market Segmentation
• Share of More/Less Price-Sensitive Consumers
• Increasingly Bifurcated Consumer Market
• Evolution of Luxury Brands
• Luxury Brands and Exclusivity
• Purchase Patterns of Wealthy Households
• Brands as Social Status Symbols
• Luxury Brands Quiz