Posted on Aug 13, 2012

When audacity can build your brand

Ten brands almost everyone should recognize: Apple, Coke, Disney, Ford, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Nike, UPS, Wal-Mart.

Marketers at these companies spend millions of dollars every year on advertising and marketing initiatives so that their brands stand out from the crowd. The battle to be remembered is a never-ending fight.

If marketers stop investing in their brands, it doesn’t take long to be forgotten. While some brands may simply die, others are absorbed into different companies.

In the technology field alone there are hundreds of brands now forgotten. How many of these do you remember: Atari, Commodore, Compaq, CompuServe, Lotus, Netscape, Prodigy, Tandy, Wang, WordPerfect?

To prevent such fate, brands must remain relevant and remarkable. This was Seth Godin’s thesis in his best selling book Purple Cow.

To avoid extinction, marketers must find ways to stand out and be remembered. One way to do that is by embracing the value of audacity.

The Value of Audacity

As a differentiating value, Audacity means fearless daring; aggressive boldness or unmitigated effrontery.

While large companies have the resources to invest in audacious initiatives, surprisingly few do. Most marketers are not willing to risk their jobs by being fearless and daring. Instead, they just pour more money into advertising and branding initiatives.

It’s often entrepreneurs and small businesses that tend to be aggressive and make bold moves. Some do it because they don’t have the resources. Others do it because they want to prove they are different. And yet, once they are successfully standing out from the crowd, it is the big companies that then swoop in and buy them up.

Will any form of audacity work? No. Some antics can be very damaging. A few might cost you your job, your company, or worse, put you in jail.

Unmitigated effrontery – behavior that might be considered insolent, cheeky, or brash – is rarely welcomed. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules on how to be audacious in a positive way.

However, one key aspect to consider is the industry of your brand.

Audacity across Industries

Some industries are well positioned for audacious marketers, such as software and technology. Efforts to be different can bring huge rewards. Or it can kill your business.

YouTube, for example, was extremely successful in its audacious approach to building its brand. They boldly provided everyone with the opportunity to be audacious by sharing with the world whatever crazy video you wanted. When Google bought YouTube for $1.65 Billion in 2006 it was clear the founders of YouTube had made the right moves – all in less than a year.

Napster, on the other hand, was just as audacious as YouTube, if not more, but was not successful. Their fearless daring initiatives took them across the legal lines of copyright infringement that ultimately caused their demise.

In other industries, audacity is counter-intuitive. Healthcare is one such field where tight government regulations have created an environment of fear. Marketers in this industry generally play it very safe. And yet, in this time of turmoil and significant change, this is one industry where bold marketers have an opportunity to be remarkable – as long as they don’t cross the line.

Then there is the industry of advertising and branding agencies where you would expect its members to be daring and bold. However, if you study the websites of various agencies you might be surprised at how little difference exists between their approaches to branding. It all looks and sounds the same.

Amusingly, there is a branding agency called Audacity. It claims to focus on creating brand supremacy for their clients. I’m happy to see they highlight three key values: Performance, Efficiency, and Experience. But I find it strange that they don’t list Audacity as a differentiating value. Maybe the shoemaker needs some new shoes – or maybe they just need to embrace the true meaning of their name.

If you are in a crowded market, or looking at a wall of sameness in your industry, or want to quickly grow your brand to get noticed, maybe it’s time you consider embracing the value of audacity.

The question is: do you have the courage?