“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
This celebrated quote has become Andy Warhol’s most well-known statement. It led to the concept of “15 minutes of fame” — the idea that celebrity achieved from shallow moments of reality, will almost always be fleeting. However, achieving “brand and business fame” should be one of the most important organizational goals, as to be successful, you always need to be top of mind and relevant to your customers.
Many B2B businesses spend a disproportionate amount of time and effort in their marketing focusing on talking about their product or service, what they do and how they do it. Whilst it is important to have clarity on such things it is not what is going to keep you top of mind, it’s just ticket to the game stuff.
Brand fame is what will anchor you in the minds of the key people you need to reach and influence into taking action. Fame is achieved from a combination of four key factors, brand equity, brand strength, brand identity, and brand image.
Brand equity is often defined as the commercial value that derives from customer perception of the brand name of a particular product or service, rather than from the product or service itself. Paul Feldwick in his book, Why Does the Pedlar Sing? Suggests that Marketers should use a framework or four conditions for building their brand’s fame. But why does fame matter?
Why brand fame matters:
Fame is widely recognised as an important aspect of brand-building, but what fame is, and how to generate is, not widely understood by businesses or analysed by marketers.
There are four key facets of fame for businesses to consider:
1. The intrinsic appeal, attraction, or ‘stickiness’ of the product or performance, as experienced by the customer.
NB: Ask yourself does my brand emotionally resonate with my target audience?
Do they feel something for what we do? What do we do that helps them formulate that opinion?
2. The ability to reach target audiences, and be seen to reach those audiences
NB: Ask yourself or get a second opinion about are we using the right mechanisms and if we are, are we making them work effectively for us?
How do we stop them in their tracks? How do we engage them, attract them and reassure them about what we do through our marketing?
3. Distinctiveness that uniquely identifies the famous object
NB: Ask yourself what about us is uniquely identifiable, what visual and verbal assets do we have that make us memorable and instantly recognisable?
4. Social diffusion, or the active involvement of the customer base in advocating, sharing and otherwise engaging with the famous thing.
NB: Ask yourself where and how can we build advocacy?
The words of the hit musical Fame do not lie – “Fame, remember my name,” and if you win the fame game through your marketing delivery you will win the battle for relevance with your competition.
Simon Preece Founder of consultancy Bigger & Better Things, and Co-founder of SenseCheck
