New Book, "Trade Off" Makes Branding Seem All Too Simple

There is a new book out called "Trade Off" by Kevin Maney, that tries to explain why some things catch on and others do not. It is an easy read, but also a very simplistic view of the world of brand management. Maney, a journalist, chalks it all up to what he calls "fidelity and convenience". He explains all brand successes through this lens.

Convenience we can understand. Regis McKenna had many years ago identified "access" as a critical component of successful marketing. Access, convenience, ease are things that are important to customers as they balance the trade off between benefits and costs of a product or service.

Fidelity, according to Maney is all of the things that make the brand delight the customer. Now, isn't that helpful to brand managers everywhere? Just make the brand high on fidelity, or make it what the customer wants and needs and you'll succeed. If that were that easy, we'd have a lot more highly successful products. The key is to find all of the attributes and associations that comprise "fidelity". As the saying goes, "the devil is in the details" (the Germans say "Gott steckt im Detail" or God is in the details). I guess it depends on whether you look at details as God's work or that of the devil, but it must be done.

I can just imagine the CEOs and others who read the Maney book and call on their marketing, branding or communications group and tell them that they need to find their brand's "fidelity", thinking that this must be fairly simple since there are so many examples in the book. One could only dream that it would be so simple.fidelity means.

Fidelity consists of the symbols, attributes and associations that brands work diligently to determine and instill in their brands. It means all of the actions that companies take to live their brand and build their reputations with their various stakeholders. It means connecting all of the touch points at which customers and others meet the brand or company. To call this simply "fidelity" is to take a news writer's approach to a very complex process.