I was just trawling the Brother site for a printer driver and idly clicked over to the ‘Corporate Philosophy’
Brother state that their reason for being
is to be a Company whose Products are
Revolutionary-Exciting-Fun so that our Customers say;
“That’s Exactly What I Want!”
Brother make printers. Good, printers actually – mine hasn’t broken down yet. It is, however, beige, squat and significantly lacking in “Revolutionary-Exciting-Fun”. On the other hand, you can’t deny that it’s an aspirational goal for a maker of fax machines.
We’ll be spending a good chunk of time on Monday trying to align the values evident in our actual practice with our ageing brand values. Balancing the aspirational with promises we can credibly keep is something we need to keep in mind. Something Apple seems to be forgetting if Boing Boing’s look at the iPhone’s marketing is anything to go by.
Filed under: branding, corporations, marketing, values
If I were to say about a printer, “That’s exactly what I want!”, it wouldn’t be a revolutionary-exciting-fun printer. It would be a functional, reliable, quiet little machine that does what I tell it to. Maybe the 18-25 market needs fun and excitement in all their electronic apparatus?