Sam, the brand coefficient framing is spot on. Brand is not a line item next to demand. It is the multiplier that makes demand work. What resonated most: “They’re looking to confirm their decision, not be persuaded.” That one sentence explains why strong brands convert better at every stage. The funnel does not get wider because you push harder. It gets wider because people already trust you before they enter it. Great piece. 🦊🎓
Every single thing a company does is branding. What you are getting at is active branding as in campaigns to say "My brand is X" and passive branding which is everything else. But every communication and action a company and its employees take is a reflection on the brand.
Organizations are a collection of brands: company, personal , product/service. Demand amplification comes from brands working in concert but each brand has a different function in the market:
Company - who we are and what we do
Product Service - what it is and what it delivers for you
Personal - trust and authority in a vertical space that we can deliver what we say we can
Podcasts are personal branding exercises developing your authority that then translates into trust - "Sam knows what he is doing, he would not endorse a product if it was bad."
Advertising - we just saw the mother of all advertising twice in a few weeks - the Superbowl and the Olympics - two places where broadcast branding establishes the persona of your brand - who you are and what you do and what you believe
And then the vast majority of the GTM motion is centered around product/service and aligning the features and benefits of a product/service to the pain points and needs of an ICP
So branding is a force multiplier. Powerful brands are a component of a gravity well that attract customers to you when they become aware of a problem and you might be the solution.
At Bill Me Later, we talked about brand equity and how to measure it. Inevitably, we came down to this: the multiple. The company did $56 MM in revenues and had an offer to be purchased for $1.7 billion. That means the brand is worth over a billion. Turned out the business sold for $965 MM but is a $15 billion components of the PayPal portfolio. Not too bad.
Sam, the brand coefficient framing is spot on. Brand is not a line item next to demand. It is the multiplier that makes demand work. What resonated most: “They’re looking to confirm their decision, not be persuaded.” That one sentence explains why strong brands convert better at every stage. The funnel does not get wider because you push harder. It gets wider because people already trust you before they enter it. Great piece. 🦊🎓
Appreciate it! This was a really fun one to right + as you could probably tell, the wheels were TURNING as I worked through this one in real-time.
Every single thing a company does is branding. What you are getting at is active branding as in campaigns to say "My brand is X" and passive branding which is everything else. But every communication and action a company and its employees take is a reflection on the brand.
Organizations are a collection of brands: company, personal , product/service. Demand amplification comes from brands working in concert but each brand has a different function in the market:
Company - who we are and what we do
Product Service - what it is and what it delivers for you
Personal - trust and authority in a vertical space that we can deliver what we say we can
Podcasts are personal branding exercises developing your authority that then translates into trust - "Sam knows what he is doing, he would not endorse a product if it was bad."
Advertising - we just saw the mother of all advertising twice in a few weeks - the Superbowl and the Olympics - two places where broadcast branding establishes the persona of your brand - who you are and what you do and what you believe
And then the vast majority of the GTM motion is centered around product/service and aligning the features and benefits of a product/service to the pain points and needs of an ICP
So branding is a force multiplier. Powerful brands are a component of a gravity well that attract customers to you when they become aware of a problem and you might be the solution.
At Bill Me Later, we talked about brand equity and how to measure it. Inevitably, we came down to this: the multiple. The company did $56 MM in revenues and had an offer to be purchased for $1.7 billion. That means the brand is worth over a billion. Turned out the business sold for $965 MM but is a $15 billion components of the PayPal portfolio. Not too bad.