Brand Promises Versus Brand Bluff
Beware of Artificial Sweeteners
Marketers are messaging magicians, but what happens when they lie? What if they don’t know they’re lying? Every day, marketers are asked to craft stories about products and services, and sometimes those stories slip from aspirational nonfiction into fantasy.
Why does it happen, to what extent does it matter, and how do you fix it? Let’s dive in.
The Build-up to Bluff
Whether the temptation is self-inflicted or imposed by executives eyeing a target, marketers want to generate interest. They need compelling stories to tell if they are going to pique the interest of their audience. Unfortunately, many product updates are not inherently interesting.
Yes, skilled marketers can find the audience benefit buried amid the seemingly boring bullet points and patch notes. They find the good, assess it relative to the industry, and make it relatable to a target persona or ICP (ideal customer profile). Many of these story-finding detectives have “product marketing” somewhere in their job title or description, though others may find that nomenclature too limiting.
However, what happens when the features of a product are lackluster? What happens when the user benefit remains less than audience expectations? Cue the artificial sweeteners.
When you’re cooking and the food tastes bland, you can only add more flavor at the moment you realize it, not before. You cannot change how the protein & produce were grown or how long things had to marinate before heat was applied, but you can toss in more ingredients. Similarly, marketers cannot change what was built or how many features actually made it into the sprint cycle, but they can change how it’s seasoned. In bland & bitter situations, cue the artificial sweeteners of spin & optimism.
It’s still an improvement over previous versions! This is just the alpha; it’ll be better by launch! We’re promoting the vision, not the product! If I slice the results to only look at these scenarios, the customer impact is better! If I add these descriptors to narrow our category, we truly are the best or first!
Whatever makes the white lie palatable and the headline enticing.
When marketing doesn’t have a seat at the table in shaping the product, their fate is much like an episode of Chopped: either they can make something enticing with the basket they are given, or they are eliminated.
To make the task at hand more fraught than a cooking show, however, is how often marketers are blindsided by deception within the ingredients they are given. Were the patch notes that were shared accurate? Will that feature truly provide a 30% improvement for all customers, or just a select few?
In the same way marketers spin the facts they’re given externally, those “facts” can be spun internally first. An engineer assures it works, a product manager assures its benefits, a product marketer assures it’s the best, and so on. How many rosy filters are applied before the person preparing the go-to-market messaging steps in? How many more filters will be applied to the press release or landing page?
Too many beauty filters & artificial sweeteners later, and your messaging may be more brand bluff than brand promise.
The Bitter Aftertaste
Artificial sweetener becomes bitter when too much heat is applied, and the same is true of GTMs placed under the pressure cooker of rushed timelines and unrealistic expectations.
Some of your audience may smell the bluff from a mile away. While you may fool a few, all customers remember when you don’t live up to expectations. Bold brand promises may garner press attention and landing page engagement, but they can do irreparable harm to your business in the long term.
The bitter aftertaste will be felt within your org, as well. If product and sales are smiling at launch but customer success and marketing look increasingly strained with time, you have a problem that sugar coating can’t fix.
Your reputation will suffer, client retention will drop, and word will spread. Your company lies. It’s not that great. It’s not worth the hassle. You can’t be trusted.
Booting the Bluff
Before you bark at marketing to stop making false promises externally — which they may not realize they are doing — look internally. Where and why are rose colored glasses being applied? Which teams are under such pressure to survive that they are serving their own artificial sweeteners? Are people celebrating mediocrity just to have something to celebrate? How did you arrive at this disconnect between what is acceptable and compelling internally versus what your clients want and need?
Before you can boot the bluff externally, you must accept reality within your org. If your progress is humble but steady, embrace it. Set realistic growth expectations and let your commercial teams do the same externally. There is space for honest and humble brands to grow because their audiences trust them.
Be patient with the process, pursue the best you can, and keep your promises.