Do you remember the Aesop’s Fables story of the tortoise and the hare? The fleet-footed rabbit was making fun of the slow-plodding turtle. Here is how the famous story reads.

A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.

"Do you ever get anywhere?" he asked with a mocking laugh.

"Yes," replied the Tortoise, "and I get there sooner than you think. I'll run you a race and prove it."

The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing he agreed. So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.

The Hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the Tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.

The Tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping. But the Hare slept on very peacefully; and when at last he did wake up, the Tortoise was near the goal. The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.

The moral of the story is that the race is not always to the swift. There is value in moving along at a steady pace rather than in spurts.

Let me ask you a question: Is there time to wait on the tortoise in today’s marketing environment? Do we still see the value of letting an idea grow with the market at a pace that may not show immediate returns? We live in an addicted society. One of the many addictions is speed – not the drug, but the expectation that everything must happen immediately for us. This impacts everything we do, including marketing. However, the best brand marketing happens over time, not in a flash. We win the hearts and minds of consumers over time, not in mere seconds.

That begs the question: is brand marketing valuable any longer? If all I care about is speed and low prices, why would I care about a brand? The question is rather absurd. Of course brands still matter. We still value diamond and pearls over cubic zirconium and plastic. The same is true of brands. There are Porsches and there are Ford Focuses. We value one over the other. This is where branding becomes very important. Your brand helps define the value of what you are selling. If your brand says your products and services are of the highest quality, or if your brand says that they are inexpensive, or simple to use, or they uncomplicated your life, etc. effective branding fixes the value of your product in the minds of consumers. That sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time for your target market to hear about your brand, to try it, to evaluate it and then decide if they will buy it again.

So here is the bottom line: in a society that can’t get things fast enough, brands are still built the same way they always have: slow and steady. The tortoise still wins the race in branding.