MPlanet 2006 on Branding and Marketing

No great copy or strategic planning can change a brand image when the customer's experience doesn't match the hype. There is NO SUBSTITUTE for having a great product or service to being with.

Thanks to Robert Kingston from Small Business Marketing for his post describing highlights from one of the final MPlanet 2006 branding sessions with Co Founder and Chief Strategist of GEN3 Partner Michael Treacy :

Basically, Michael described how customer experience can: Destabilize a brand: by generating negative publicity. Enhance a brand: by having an experience which compensates for other lacking features of a brand (ie. High price). Define a brand: by becoming renowned for a certain aspect of the customer experience.

You can read the full post at the Small Business Marketing Blog.

MPlanet 2006 was sponsored by the American Marketing Association. I have to be honest, when I visited their web site to sign up for the event and search for some real content, I was so turned off by all the fancy flash, gismos and programming tricks that I figured the whole event was going to be a lot of sizzle but not much steak. I don't know about you but I was surprised to find the AMA would have a website so difficult to navigate and chock full of useless, time wasting sections.

Glad to hear the steak was better than the sizzle and the actual conference was a winner.

Tags: Marketing Branding American Marketing Association MPlanet 2006