I'm Sorry To Have To Say This But Branding Is Dead, Over, Finished!

And if Branding is the cause of advertising what lies next for advertising? Because today, the deal trumps image every time!

After all we're in the 21st Century and venerable, once solid brands are vanishing. And direct marketers are flourishing. After all look at the detritus of branding. Here's Levitt, a giant name in home building: Chapter 11, Levitt follows automobile brands Plymouth and Oldsmobile: Vanished. Then there's Intel, one of the most highly advertised brands with huge chunks of market share lost to a little-known AMD.

Then there's Merrill Lynch the giant revised its entire securities marketing structure to be able to compete with Web upstarts.

And so it goes on. Compete or lose. Wal-Mart had a next to zero image and Sears had a next to 100 image. AT&T and Xerox had their universe to themselves. IBM owned the PC market. Kodak and Polaroid were riding brand-horses long after their steeds were dead. Jordache jeans were de rigueur. And so it goes!

The Internet stamps across brand worship. The Web is price driven, and it has become the dominant sales medium, the new mantra is. Adapt or lose!

The "How much do you spend on advertising" advertising agencies interpret the whole concept of branding as brand awareness however today's potential customer both in consumer and business are very cynical. They are after a deal they can regard as reliable and certainly not a tribute to an arrogant chest thumping no longer competitive brand.

If branding were paramount, New Coke would have succeeded. It was an extension of what many regard as the best-known brand in the entire world. The Wednesday version of CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" wouldn't have flopped. Linux wouldn't have scored such a gouge into Microsoft's turf. Want me to buy your brand? What's your deal?

So where next for advertising? Generating Brand Loyalty? Difficult? Ask any car dealer about how hard it is to hold on to the customers who used to trade in cars every three years but this year got an extra $100 discount from a dealer 30 miles away!

Total dependence on brand as a marketing force parallels a marketing student striving for an "A" when using lecture notes his grandfather scrawled during kinder, gentler pre-Future Shock times!

Outside it's freezing. You want ethylene glycol antifreeze in your car. Do you care which brand, as long as it's ethylene glycol?

You have a mild prostate problem. A prescription for Hytrin, on which Abbott Laboratories spent many millions of dollars, costs more than $100. A prescription for the generic, terazosin, costs about $20. Your doctor and pharmacist probably suggest the generic. So do Wal-Mart and Target, which sells the generic for $4. Hey but wait please, the generic has no brand, no image. Maybe not, but it has the primary contemporary incentive, price.

Perhaps combining brand with 21st -century awareness is the Kingdom of Heaven, but that kingdom opens its borders to those who actually combine instead of bowing to a personal prejudice based only on tradition.

In closing may I say how surprised I am that direct and brand seem to be out of sync with each other. I find myself defending direct as a stand alone, surviving when brand isn't a factor. Does Direct need a defense? - No. Does Branding need a defense? - Yes.

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