Does your brand meet up to your brand promise?

How close is your brand to your brand promise? When creating a brand, many companies brag all they can, talking up their product or service, telling us how amazing it is. It seems to the unsuspecting customer that the brand can do no wrong, and how did I ever survive without it? Although this may attract new customers initially who can’t believe their luck in finding such an amazing product, if you don’t meet your brand promises, they will soon move on to the next big thing, in search of a company that doesn’t lie to them. With this in mind an essential question to ask at the brink of any new marketing campaign, before you take the plunge and go public is, how truthful are you actually being?

I’m not saying be completely factual throughout, adding no detail or complements, nowadays we all expect a bit of exaggeration, a bit of pazaz added to the facts. It’s the extent of this however, that you need to take into account. The further your brand is away from your brand promise, the less trust your audience will place with you. This is true of every product or service in every shop or industry, if your promises aren’t true, then you will eventually phase out of existence, through a multitude of irritated and let-down customers.

This is why it is important to consider what information you want to include within your campaigns, if you use images within your advertisements, you are making an implicit promise about the appearance or effects of your product. When your product doesn’t meet the image displayed or the expectations you have instilled in your audience then your customers will be disappointed.

Although when questioned, people tend to claim an indifference to advertisements, you need to weigh up whether or not you want to take the risk and potentially irritate your customers to breaking point with promises you don’t meet.

L’Oreal were recently caught in a false advertising scandal, following the release of their advertisement campaigns featuring two actresses, Julia Roberts and Christina Turlington. These adverts, for make-up products were pulled following complaints that they were an unrealistic and a false representation of the features of the product. The non-air brushed images were leaked to the press, and when compared with the finished artwork for the campaign, the change was so dramatic that complaints ensued and the adverts were eventually pulled.

Although this didn’t cause excessive damage to the L’Oreal brand, minus wasted time photographing stars and producing posters, it did see them take a different technique when launching a new men’s line. Veering away from air-brushed celebrities with perfect skin and smiles, L’Oreal used a non-celeb, an every-man, down to earth, and completely different to the perfection represented by Julia Roberts and other supermodels.

Considering the negative impact of false advertising, it might be a good time to consider whether any elements of your marketing campaigns under-deliver on grand promises. Could this kind of false advertising or misleading imagery used in your campaigns, deam your brand unreliable or dishonest?

Here are some particularly amusing examples of misleading brand promises thanks to Aphalia.