Learn from the brands you hate

If you want your brand to be a market leader, you need to learn from the brands you hate. Hate is a powerful word and it is one you need to consider before your brand can be truly successful.

If you hold a position of power within your business or organisation, it is incumbent upon you to to delve into the experiences which make growth possible. For example the first iteration of your product or service is never as good as the second or third because you are learning from what has gone before. Marketing in this respect is no different to anything else. You don’t have to experience it all directly yourself, just remember though to consider the bad as well as the good.

It’s easy to focus on just the positive – what can you learn from the successes of others marketing? There is much you can learn from those who get it really wrong. Yes there are plenty of advertising and marketing campaigns you can google where a brand has put something out and missed a second often embarrassing meaning behind the words or image. However I want you to go deeper. Don’t just look at the easy and obvious brands. Let me explain further…

You know there’s a lot to be said about trying to learn from brands that are out there in the marketplace and the things that they do and get wrong.

So this week, I want you to have a real think about a brand that you hate. When I’m talking brand, I don’t mean just a product or service you find on the supermarket shelf, think of brand in a much broader term, for example, groups of people, a religion, a team, a TV show, all of those things qualify as brands, and the reason why you hate them. If you think about it, it’s usually because you don’t understand them, or they don’t understand you.

Now, think about the implications of what happens when you hate something. You send those messages out invariably to lots of other people, and that breeds further hate of that particular brand. You don’t want that happening to your organization, to your brand. The only way to counter it: good communication, good understanding, and practice it continually, and you will be a market leader.

The interesting thing about brand leaders is they also attract haters. Again this is often because of a lack of understanding. The reason those leaders don’t easily fall is because they have learned, their reaction is critical. Feeding information in a way and on a platform which will resonate remains at the heart of good communication. Explanations, taking responsibility, using facts and being authentic in your responses can all be used to counter hate.

Learn from observing and taking an introspective look at the brands you hate and why and indeed consider those who may hate your brand.