There are two kinds of marketing: Direct Marketing
and Brand Marketing. Direct marketing targets
wallets. Branding is about hearts and minds.

DIFFERENT BY DESIGN

Ads designed for branding are cool. They don't
plead and beg and cajole, they just sit there.
They may be loud, but in a very smug way because
they already got what they want. They may tell
you where to click or who to call, but they don't
really care if you do. You saw them... that's
enough. An impression was made.

Think Absolut Vodka.

Direct sale ads have a real do-or-die attitude
that can make them a bit annoying and undignified,
especially amid their mellower counterparts. By
their directives shall ye know them: Call Now!
Order Now! Click Now!

Think infomercials.

You can't track the results of a branding campaign
like you can a direct sales campaign, but you
don't have to. You don't need to prove that an ad
performed its function when its function was to
just sit there and look cool.

But where does that leave the accountants who need
those stats to further trim the marketing budget?

Who cares?

THE NEW CUSTOMER

Say it's your friend's birthday and you buy her
a t-shirt with the logo of the Mikey Running Shoe
Company emblazoned across the front. Does that
make you a Mikey person?

No. You're just some putz who bought something.
As far as the Mikey Running Shoe Company is
concerned, you're irrelevant... a statistical
aberration.

Frankly, Mikey would rather have their shirt back.

But say you buy ALL your friends gifts with the
Mikey logo - plus most of your own wardrobe. You
don't even have to think about it, you just do it.
Now you're not an aberration, you're a customer,
and that's a whole different level of commitment.

You pay money to be a walking billboard for Mikey.
You strive to represent the Mikey ideal. You craft
your self-image based on the models and sports
stars in Mikey ads (even if you're a pudgy smoker
with a lazy eyeball and a ten dollar-a-day twinkie
habit).

IMAGE IS

But your adoption of the Mikey image runs far
deeper. You're not just a Mikey customer, you're
a Mikey PERSON.

If someone bad-mouths Mikey, you set them
straight. If someone speaks well of a non-Mikey
product, you respond with autonomic contempt. If
someone converts to Mikey-hood, you embrace them
into the fold.

If it were a cult, it would be called programming.

If it were an ideology, it would be called
brainwashing.

If it were a religion, it would be called a
conversion.

But it's a shoe. It's called branding.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

In any field, there are two brands and a bunch of
off-brands or wannabes. Democrat and Republican
are brands. Reform, Libertarian, Green Party and
whoever else are merely Other.

It's a Yin Yang interdependence thing. Note how
Democracy is diminished without Communism for
counterpoint?

In the new world order, stores and websites are
clubs, brands are families, and The New Person is
defined simply as the combination of several dozen
brand settings, like toggle switches on a
motherboard: Coke (not Pepsi). Chevy (not Ford).
Burger King (not McDonalds). Shaken (not stirred).
Catholic (not Protestant). White Sox (not Cubs).

And is there ever any real difference between the
first and second place players in any given
category?

Sure. The one I prefer is like ten times better.

Duh.

About the Author
Linda Cox (J.A.M.G.) was born in a speeding
stagecoach amid the screams of fellow passengers
as insane, wild-eyed horses dragged them all
crashing toward the brink of destruction. That
stagecoach was the planet Earth, those passengers
were the human race, and Linda Cox is Just Another
Marketing Guru. (The horses were just regular
horses.) http://www.LindaCox.com/