February 19, 2015

Brand Bullshit Never Sleeps


Just when you think that if the brand babblers were to generate one more ounce of bullshit the entire fucking solar system would explode, what do they do? Exceed expectations.

Today we have a lovely clip sent to us by a dear reader which I have culled from a video called "Why Your Brand Is More Important Than Your Product."

I would have posted the entire video but my attorneys inform me that if any reader were to commit an atrocity while reading my blog I might have legal culpability.

Please watch as one of the world's most formidable brand babblers explains Steve Jobs to us:



The wonderful thing about these guys is how, though they never worked with Steve and never spent a minute discussing their birdbrain theories with him, they're all so very certain they are now his representatives here on earth.

Sadly, Steve isn't here to defend himself, but we have the next best thing. Here is Allison Johnson, VP of Worldwide Marketing at Apple from 2005 to 2011...
..the two most 'dreaded, hated' words at Apple under Steve Jobs were "branding" and "marketing.
...we understood deeply what was important about the product, what the team’s motivations were in the product, what they hoped that product would achieve, what role they wanted it to have in people’s lives
...The most important thing was people's relationship to the product. So any time we said 'brand' it was a dirty word.
In other words, she totally, utterly and directly contradicts every fucking word this doofus has to say.

My guess is that if this guy spent 30 seconds with Steve he'd find himself flying head-first through a refrigerator door.

The frightening thing is that this isn't just some run-of-the-mill meatball spouting this dreadful, cliche-ridden nonsense. This guy is global ceo of one of the world's largest ad agencies. He's a worldwide, artisanally curated meatball.

Is it any wonder the advertising industry is such a fucking disaster?

13 comments:

  1. Parvez Sheik FareedFebruary 19, 2015 at 12:58 AM

    The biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson would help Mr Roberts to think different.

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  2. Frank GrassoFebruary 19, 2015 at 1:08 AM

    Bob, you have nailed it again - the best marketers i know are sales people and accountants.

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  3. KramFebruary 19, 2015 at 1:32 AM

    While I agree with much of what you're saying, whatever Steve Jobs said about branding of course he cared about it. It's all part of the product people interact with and everything from the logo (look at the various designs) to the startup sound has been meticulously designed.

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  4. GarethFebruary 19, 2015 at 2:15 AM

    I worked for Apple in marketing, in London and California. The entire ethos of Apple marcoms is "the product is the hero". Everything is about the product. Lots of people say a lot of things about Apple, virtually all of which does not stand up to any scrutiny at all. It's just a fantasy reworking.

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  5. Sell! Sell!February 19, 2015 at 2:50 AM

    This kind of brand babble is just utter snake oil. The saddest part about it is that some marketers and business owners fall for it.

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  6. Sell! Sell!February 19, 2015 at 2:52 AM

    Let's not confuse the actual skills of product design, user interface design and graphic design with the brand nonsense though.

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  7. Jamie ChambersFebruary 19, 2015 at 3:30 AM

    Those who work and live in marketing sometime get lost in the woods and misunderstand the symbiotic relationship between making stuff and selling stuff. Obviously you need to sell stuff for making stuff to be a worthwhile venture, but if you have nothing to sell your "brand" is worth precisely dick. It's cart-before-horse thinking. Vision and ideas are great for building products and entire companies, and can be utilized powerfully in marketing, but in the end you have to have a product to sell that's worth a damn.

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  8. thegreatonymarianiFebruary 19, 2015 at 4:44 AM

    Bob, please for the love of brand and engagement, put a disclaimer on your posts to not be eating or drinking. I choked on my breakfast listening to this drivel!

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  9. Cecil B. DeMilleFebruary 19, 2015 at 5:20 AM

    Maybe we have to fix this from the outside. Maybe we have to start making smarter clients. The ones who will answer this kind of shit with gunfire.

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  10. Marco PoloFebruary 19, 2015 at 12:30 PM

    You guys are far too harsh...he does that thing with his hand at :10 like he's squeezing someone's nut sack while searching for an idea. That gesture was Steve Jobs' secret method he used to develop Apple's finest products. Cut the guy some slack....he knows things you don't!

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  11. Mark@QuirkFebruary 19, 2015 at 5:04 PM

    And it's not just Steve Jobs that suffers from this bloke's retrospective deification. He waxes lyrical about Richard Branson who 'I don't think [he] ever started with a product when he started Virgin.' He started with a record shop, for God's sake! The mistake people like this make is that they retrospectively endow the founders of these companies with mystical and visionary powers, when what they did (and don't get me wrong, they did it exceptionally well) was first and foremost focus on developing and delivering PRODUCTS that people wanted to buy.

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  12. JeffersFebruary 20, 2015 at 9:22 AM

    "What people want is.....bespoke, to be free". So the fact that once you have an Apple product, you are locked into having the who Apple universe doesn't compute with this guy?

    It's ridiculous, and this article hits the nail on the head. As a young marketer I get this shit thrown at me every week, but thanks to this blog I can stay in the land of logic, the real world!

    Should I learn this language of BS to get paid more?

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  13. J ValentineFebruary 20, 2015 at 11:24 AM

    As equally a valid theory about Steve Jobs as that Saatchi asshat: http://youtu.be/FmbwR9J6-Yw

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