I was a party recently and a friend’s college-aged daughter was telling me what she’d been doing since graduating from high school. She started with telling me that she had completed French pastry school in California, which I thought was pretty cool. Then, just as I asked her what she planned to do with that “degree,” she continues to tell me now she is learning pastry photography.

Pastry photography.

I was awestruck. Not only have I never heard of such a profession, but my mind was swimming with questions:

• How many pastry photographers are there in the world?
  
• Are the baguettes ever moody or hard to work with?
  
• Do the models make a lot of dough? (Sorry, I can’t help it)

The question I chose to verbalize, though, was a simple one: “Wow! So what are you going to do with this experience in pastry photography?”

At this time, her step-mom stepped in and said “Oh, she’s 20 years old. She doesn’t know.” And the daughter nodded in agreement. And that was that.

But what I wanted to tell this girl was that she’s extremely smart, and she’s already got at least a 15-year head start on probably all of her competition. That she’s doing the right thing by chasing her passion, and figuring the rest out as she goes.

I wanted to tell her about the power of a niche.

The Courage to Chase Your Niche

There are countless blog posts on how the Internet is giving any niche its space, and that those who can really “niche down” can rise to the top relatively easily. That’s not the point here.

My observation is the courage to chase your niche once you know it. To boldly follow your passion into uncharted waters, figuring out the next step just after making your last step. Doing it all with the mindset of a college student who really has no concept of responsibility yet, but they do know what makes them happy. So they just keep doing it.

The advantage is that, if you stay with it, you’ll build an amazing reputation in a specific area. If you don’t stick with it, you’ll still have the attitude and experience of knowing that chasing your dreams is nowhere near as daunting as adulthood likes to make you think it is.

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People, we’re witnessing a fall from grace of epic proportion.

Forget the rubbernecking that we all can’t resist whenever TMZ has the latest on the Tiger Woods scandal. Let’s look at all the marketing lessons here. Tiger Woods is simply one of the biggest brands of our generation, and we’re watching it quickly go from a peak to a valley.

Among many other things, it points us to sponsorship as a true sign of brand integrity (in several senses of the word). When your brand is strong, the others want to be associated with it. When it’s not, even the most loyal businesses will drop you like a bad habit. Because they are, after all, a business.

Not a charity. Not a rehab center. Not a halfway house. But a business.

Travis Dahle of Dahle Communications has some great insights on this, and prompted this post.

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Segmenting makes perfect sense when it comes to your customer list. It doesn’t make sense when it comes to your brand.

The key to a strong brand is having a clear position. Not positions, but one single position. It’s the bull’s eye. That said, I bet you have some customers who were attracted to you for reasons other than your stated position. I bet you have customers that don’t at all resemble the target market that your position seeks to attract. Fine. Take what you get regardless of why.

The danger is in letting the variety make you think you should over-extend your brand. If you sell dress shoes, and many of your customers are athletes, it’s tempting to think that you could create a tennis shoe for athletes and be hugely successful. But we all know that wouldn’t work; it would backfire. The athletes wouldn’t buy your athletic shoes because you are positioned in their mind as a good dress shoe. Except now, they’re probably rethinking that, because you’ve stretched yourself too thin.

Brand Extensions are a Crutch

The ignorant like “brand extensions” and “segmenting” because it doesn’t require a commitment. It doesn’t involve neglecting a market. It doesn’t force you to make a decision. It’s a crutch.

The thing is, if you can’t commit or neglect or decide, then you can’t have a position.

When you’re in a meeting, and colleagues start trying to put a finger on the real essence of the brand, and no one agrees, and someone has the amazing idea that you should launch a brand extension or segmented campaign, calmly get out of your chair, slap them across the face and tell them “That’s a stupid idea.” Let them wonder why.

It should leave a lasting impression. And save your business from a bad mistake.

Remember, crutches are used when something is broken. If you can fix it, then why bother with the crutch?

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The idea of branding is to make identification of an idea and position simple and quick.  Ranchers would brand their cattle’s backsides so everyone knew who they belonged to. Stop signs have been the same shape and color for, well, forever. The Yankees wear pinstripes, regardless of the latest fashions.

These brands work because they are consistent. They’ve been around long enough to give us a chance to give them meaning way beyond their literal makeup.

A stop sign is more than a red octagon. Just a quick glance at it automatically makes us hit the brakes, take a little caution.  It stands for something.

Yankee pinstripes are a lot more than a uniform. It’s Ruth and Dimaggio and Mantle and Mattingly and Jeter.

When you rebrand (whatever that means), you throw away your investment in your brand. You buy just before the brand is going to start making its impression. You change the color of your stop sign. You wear something other than the pinstripes.

And the result is you now have something that means nothing.

Rebranding is almost never the answer. Brand amplification and clarification is normally what companies should be doing.

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I had Hugh from Hugh’s Service in Irving stop by my house yesterday to fix a rattling dryer. He did a great job. In his 60s or 70s, Hugh is the type of guy that really knows his stuff, and likes talking to you about it. He tells you how every part of your dryer looks, is working, what needs fixing, what doesn’t. He guides you through the process, and it’s pretty reassuring. You know that Hugh knows what he’s doing.

As he was leaving, I asked him if he did any handyman work. I’m needing a few other things fixed around the house, and considering that I am worse than the reincarnation of Tim the Tool Man Taylor, it’s best to farm these jobs out. Hugh started on a story of how he once put in a glass window for someone, how it shattered to pieces, and how he ended up spending $120 on a $30 job. He used it to answer my question: no, he’s not a handyman. He’d made the decision to not go down that road shortly after picking up the pieces of this customer’s window.

But he didn’t stop there. He went on to tell me he didn’t work on AC/HVAC units. He said the thought crossed his mind long ago, but he was warned to pick either appliances or HVAC, but not both.

Then, he went on to tell me he doesn’t even do much refrigerator work. He said they all work the same, but each brand has enough special intricacies that you just can’t learn them all unless that’s all you do.

Then he dropped his money quote on me: "You just can’t become an expert at something when you’re doing too much of a variety of stuff."

The funny thing here is that I bet Hugh could fix a fridge if he needed to. I bet he could tinker his way around an air conditioning system. I bet he could even handle the handyman work I need someone to do.

And I bet he could really use the work during a recession.

But he doesn’t, because Hugh is an expert at washers and dryers. He’s in business because it’s clear that he’s good at what he does. People like working with experts. We value them. We’ll even pay more for them.

There’s something you could be developing your expertise in if you’d just stop taking on all the other stuff. What is it, and how soon can you stop it?

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Stain Your Brain

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I think former Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin is a buffoon.

With that being said, I was shocked when, while listening to his radio program last week, he used a term that hasn’t left my consciousness yet.

While arguing the point that the Celtics/Bulls series isn’t worthy of being considered one of the best series of all time, he hung his hat on a simple, profound point. Because it wasn’t a championship series, but only a first round series, we would soon forget it. In his words, it didn’t have what it takes to “stain your brain.”

Whoa!

Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do as marketers? Isn’t that the best definition of branding, succinctly speaking? Isn’t that the point of every ad, blog post, email, presentation, tweet, interaction, trade show banner, EVERYTHING we do on behalf of the brands we represent?

Going back to a previous post of mine, I’d like to amend my three word summary:

I’m Brett Duncan, Dallas-Ft. Worth Brain Stainer.

p.s. Thanks, Mike. I have put your buffoon status on hold for now.

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Phil Bernstein points out an interesting exercise from Scott Ginsberg:

“PICTURE THIS: you’re sitting in the CNN Green Room, ready to be interviewed about your cool new idea, company, or product. After giving the producer the correct spelling of your full name, she asks you, “Oh, and one last thing before you go on the air in five minutes: what two or three words do you want written underneath your name?”

Phil does an excellent job of putting this exercise into practice with his description: Portland Advertising Expert:  it quickly communicates his authority, his area of expertise, and the geographic specialty of his expertise.

Here’s my shot at it:

I’m Brett Duncan, DFW Marketing Specialist.

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You have no idea what branding is.  

I don’t know, either.

I don’t know that anyone does, actually. At least definitively.

I think “brand” is one of the most misunderstood, inconsistently defined words on the planet.

Some people think it’s the logo. Others think it’s the vision statement. Some think it’s advertising and promotion. Others think it’s packaging. Others think it’s the essence, the position, and all those other frilly words . . . . of the company.  

• This guy thinks it’s an art. This guy thinks it’s a science.
• These guys think it’s all buzz and word-of-mouth. These guys still believe in traditional advertisting.
• This guys thinks it’s really simple. This guy thinks it can be more complex than we give it credit for.
• These guys think it’s an identity. But not a tagline.
• This guy thinks it’s a stamp on a cow’s butt.

For sake of simplicity, I’ll just say that the brand is the overall impression, and all that implies, of your company/product/service.

Branding is what makes . . . .

• Target so different than Wal-Mart.
• Apple so different than Microsoft.
• Coke so different than Pepsi.
• Barack so different from Hilary.
• Kentucky so different from New York.
• Half-Price Books so different from Barnes & Noble.
• Dunkin Donuts so different from Starbucks.
• Baptists so different from Pentecostals.
• Ozarka water so different from Fiji water.
• T.D. Jakes’ church so different from Charles Stanley’s church.
• Me so different from you.

So I guess if you can define all the differences among these groups, you’ll have a pretty good definition of branding.

I’ll stick with it being the overall impression. Or mabye better, branding is the difference.

Brett’s note: This post is part of a series known as The Vault, which looks back periodically at some of the better moments of MarketingInProgress.com. This post was originally posted on February 17, 2007. 

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My brain has latched on to this interview by Mark Earls with Hugh MacLeod at GapingVoid, and it won’t let go. Thanks to Valeria for originally doing the latching. 

I’ve copied Valeria’s excerpt of Mark’s ranting below just to get you going. Here’s what I want to know as your reaction:

1. How do you define branding (or do you)?
2. What are the most common misconceptions you face in reference to “brand?”

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Just posted this on VintageBrett.com, but I think there are some lessons that make it worthy of a marketing paradigm. Read my post on Obama’s victory, Charisma Always Wins. Then answer these questions:

1. What story are you telling? 
2. How well are you telling it? 
3. How would your customers answer? 

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