There is an old joke: what weighs more, ten tons of feathers or a ten-ton elephant? The question is a tricky one! It is worded so we are drawn to the two extreme subjects of the question: the light, fluffy feather compared to an enormous elephant. If you think about only about the subjects, you might find yourself answering that the elephant is obviously heavier. But the answer lies not with the subjects, but with the qualifiers: the ten tons. The real answer is that neither ten tons of feathers nor the ten-ton elephant weighs more than the other: they are equal (10 tons of anything = 10 tons of something else). This is the correct answer unless you are talking about marketing.

You see, there is marketing that is meaty and carries a lot of weight. It gets the word out about your brand. It helps customers identify with you. It is the ten-ton elephant in the room… you cannot miss it. Then there is lightweight marketing fluff. It kind of promotes your brand, but on a softer side, so no one really notices it. It never really convinces anyone to engage with your brand outside of collecting a few likes on social media. The world is full of ten tons of marketing feathers right now.

So what makes one piece of marketing an elephant and another a big pile of feathers? Let’s start with the goal you are trying to achieve with your brand marketing. You should have one general goal with your marketing: to promote your products and services so you increase sales. But before you can get to the sale, you will need to promote your brand. People need to know what your brand stands for before they will consider making a purchase. A typical goal for brand awareness marketing is to reach a level of cognizance with your target market whereby they know your brand by name and associate with your product. The ultimate in brand awareness is when a potential customer begins to refer to your product by its brand name rather than its function (think about calling a facial tissue a Kleenex or a tablet computer an iPad.)

Within that brand awareness is also the position your product or service has in its marketplace. Weighty marketing makes a marketing positioning statement with their brand awareness marketing. It tells you boldly where its edge is in the marketplace. For instance, let’s take two retail store brands: Target and Crate & Barrel. Target is a discount retailer, a place you would go to get a low price on a great number of products. Crate & Barrel is a trendy housewares and furniture retailer. Target sells furniture and home accessories, but they also sell clothing, groceries, toys, etc. Crate & Barrel specializes and Target generalizes. All of that is part of their brand positioning. If I were to purchase a chair from Crate & Barrel, I would expect it would be more expensive than a chair purchased at Target. If I wanted to buy socks, I would not consider Crate & Barrel, but I would think about Target. It is all summed up in the brand’s positioning.