Tell Customers Who You Are, and Aren't

Great post from Brand Autopsy today on telling customers who you are.  They argue that if you show people the shortcomings of your product or service, that you will reinforce the negative choice. 

I'm not sure that I agree with them.  Yeah, of course your main message should be about who you are as a business.  But, if you aren't honest about your shortcomings, customers will figure it out anyway.  Being honest about your shortcomings, and what you are doing to fix them will buy you a whole lot of goodwill, and tolerance from your customers.  I guess I've been reading too much of The Naked Corporation. 

Comments

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

I am all for transparency in marketing. Companies should acknowledge their shortcomings and work to improve their offerings to overcome their identified shortcomings. And when they go to tell consumers about their ‘improved’ offerings, I believe they should go about it by focusing on ‘who you are’ and not dwell on the potentially more negative angle of ‘who you are not.’

A very generalized marketing rule as there are exceptions.

In the case of the AOL ads, I think they could better tell their story if they focused more on the ‘benefit of the benefit’ and less on the ‘dark side of the deficiency.’ Again … a very general marketing rule to live by and exceptions do exist.

After reading The Naked Corporation ... I suggest you pick up THE PRIVACY PAYOFF (Cavoukian & Hamilton) and THE TRANSPARENCY EDGE (Pagano).

Thanks for the link love to Brand Autopsy.