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Once you understand Seth Godin’s ONE Secret to Measuring Your Brand - Everything Becomes Clear

Author

Dan Pope
May 24, 2024

Once you understand Seth Godin’s ONE Secret to Measure Your Brand - Everything Will Become Clear

A flashing blue and bouncy lemon-yellow Alien Apocalypse hurtled and screamed along the river. Pedestrians froze icicles. Faces pregnant with fear. Jaws jumping off their face. Eyes squirming and squeemish thick with wet spider-web-spunky films of fear.

It was me.

In my new running shoes.

Walking along the Richmond on Thames, toe path.

The sun decided to jump out the dark cloying and clotting clouds, like a spritely-zippy-happy-puckish, flirtatiously-fresh, whip cream-whippy tennis ball.

Summa, Summa, Summaaaaaaa Timeeee.

Obvs, after watching my friend chop the London Marry in 3 hours 10. I suddenly had a raging-STONK-ON to buy a fresh pair of trainers and start running (for the 10th time this year).

Alas,

I ventured to Runners Need, in Chertsey-which-is-actually-situated-inside-a-Snow-&-Rock- (also a great name for a 80’s Strip Club).

The Bloke serving me at Runners Need-situated-inside-Snow-and-Rock-Chertsey was, unsurprisingly, riddled with dandruff and mawkishly huffy breath. A Stew or Drew. No Clue. I was stewing in a stew of it’s bad breath - the side effects of telling-absolutely-everyone-about-your-silly-Paleo Diet. #Paleo-Pathology.

These Trotters or Runners or Frodo-feet-abodes were the colour of a lurid Alien Apocalypse. Gaudy, ghastly, geeky, freaky Gobstopper colours. Like two erg-fucking-onomic Tango Ice Blasts stuck on my to ankles.

Stew or Drew or It told me to “Wear them in”.

And wear them the fuck IN, I did.

Everyone could see my new runners a mile off.

After recording two podcasts in Richmond, I decided to walk along the river. Wear in my new trotters. Soak up the slow sway of the river, England in May. Boats bob-e-dee-bob-be-d. Beer gardens swelled with parched punters pining for pints. English Bliss.

Suddenly, when I walked into Waterstones everything made sense.

One question had been on my mind, on my walk: What is the power of a brand?

What is a brand?

The easiest was to understand “Brand“ and The Power of Brand is the act of buying books.

Surely, the best and easiest and most efficient way to buy a book in 2023 is via Amazon Prime.

You can Amazon Prime “50 Shades of Grey” and it’s there before your 5.45am Luton Flight to Fuertaventura laden with Full English-Fornication and Breakfast Buffet. “We’re going on our holibobs, Malcom, and I’ve packed my Naughty Nurse outfit” (please don’t call it holibobs)

Why is Amazon Prime the best way to buy books? Well, it’s obvious right?

Amazon Prime is

  • cheaper

  • less travel

  • faster

  • more efficient

  • less effort

so why on earth does Waterstones still exist?

Why are people happily and willing to

  • pay more

  • travel further

  • wait longer

  • make more effort

Brand.
Brand.
Brand.

Waterstones is an incredible brand.

Seth Godin:

Brand is a promise.
Brand is hundreds of stories that make people feel something.
Brand is changing peoples “feeling” for a little while.

Waterstones is a promise, a promise that says “C’mon in, everything will be calm and quite and peaceful and okay here, we’re a momentary shelter”

Waterstones makes people FEEL something a little while. A feeling of calm curiosity.

Waterstones and the delicious smell of books changes people for a little while. It takes them back to their childhood where they were read stories.

Waterstones is the hundreds of stories of buying great books as kids, before holidays, that feeling of escapism.

Waterstones is a brand. A brand so strong people:

  • pay more

  • travel further

  • wait longer

  • make more effort

Now we’ve sorted out the power of a brand.

There is also a huge lesson here for Food and Drink founders.

There is a huge DIFFERENCE between performance marketing and brand marketing

performance marketing: promotion at JS, discount at Tesco, coupon at Waitrose, Facebook advert with link to D2C website

brand marketing: sponsoring a podcast, running a supper club, sampling sessions, throwing an event, a weird collaboration, doing something that doesn’t scale.

Seth Godin talks at length (and girth)- said no business coach ever.

performance marketing is easy to measure and manage

brand marketing is hard to measure and manage.

For challenger food and drink brands:

Brand marketing is brave, it doesn’t show immediate return on investment, it may not work, but it builds a deep connection with consumers.

Performance marketing is less brave, everything is measured and managed, it’s safe, (your board will love it) but it builds shallow connection with consumers.

As food and drink brands scale, founders often move from brand marketing obsession to performance marketing obsession.

Why?

  • Boards of investors want to measure performance marketing. They ferociously wank over this stuff.

  • Marketing managers want to cover their arse if a decision goes wrong (performance marketing is a safe bet… “that’s why we love market research)

  • Founders believe as their brand gets bigger, there is more at stake, number obsession keeps the anxiety at bay.

Look, performance marketing is crucial to brand building.

But where it gets messy for founders.

Measuring your brand depth and stickiness and connection using performance marketing metrics.

What gets miss measured gets miss managed - Rory Sutherland

Using Performance Marketing metrics to measure Brand (brand stickiness) is like using a tape measure to measure the speed of an Antelope.

NPS scores are also fucking stupid for challenger brands. Guess what? You’re awareness is always going to be TINY and no one knows about you. But, don ‘t you worry the board will love you for doing it.

Pointless.
Simply, doesn’t work.

What gets miss measured gets miss managed - Rory Sutherland

Julian Metcalfe giving out free croissants at Pret a Manger = brand marketing marketing
Botivo creating a yellow piano outside Waterloo train station = brand marketing
Bold Bean Co. creating a cookbook when everyone told them it was pointless = brand marketing
Rude Health creating a cafe in Parsons Green when people told them it was stupid = brand marketing

As you scale and unlock more distribution, you’ll by default be required to do more performance marketing (JS promo’s, Waitrose discounts etc etc)

You need BOTH performance marketing AND brand marketing to build an insane brand.

But watch out, don’t EVER get muddled, don’t ever use shallow performance marketing metrics to measure brand performance.

What gets miss measured gets miss managed - Rory Sutherland

Something Big is coming and would bloody love your help pretty-please…

Next Monday, 27th May at 8am. The Seth Godin podcast goes live. You’re in for a treat. I worked my fucking tits off on this one. I’d be so grateful if you could please share the podcast on your social channels, WhatsApp groups, to friends and family. Would really, really mean the world to me xxxx

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