[Podcast] Your Brand Lacks Staying Power But Why? (With Stacy Dally)

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Ryan

In this episode, we're going to take a deep dive into the elusive quest for brand staying power many look for.

It's always something we want, but it's often very hard to get our hands around. We're going to draw a parallel into the Verve's iconic single, Bittersweet Symphony, and show it off for a day that didn't have the staying power to be here for the long haul, where it's all about that and more on today's episode of On the Record.

Ryan

All right, we're back it on today's episode. Stacie, you're joining us again. Thank you for your presence. We always do appreciate it. A man Michael here is going to talk about brand today. You're excited as a mom. I'm thrilled. I'm a marketer. Brand marketing is at my core. So let's dive into a bit of what that means for us.

So consistency, building trust. These are the things that are kind of the core underpinnings of a great brand. Michael, show me an example or tell me what it means to you to kind of create trust through great branding.

Michael

Yeah, I think consistency was always the classic, but I do feel like brands are starting to evolve now. And I think what we've discussed on this podcast, whether it's finding that thread and then how do we push it further.

When we look at great long-standing brands, they're not the brand they were when they started. But they are authentic to who they are today. We can feel that from them. And their stories tell the story of their customer. I think that's one of the things that we'll dive into and maybe even ponder why the Verve could not really hit that chord with their own audience.

Ryan

Yeah. The idea of staying power, like that's the thing that will continue to harken back to, is we all want it, but few achieve it again. So Stacie, take us through. I mean, trust building is done through a variety of mediums when it comes to branding. What does it mean for you?

Stacy

Yeah, I think the trust is the big part. But honestly, entertainment. I want to be entertained. I want to feel, I want to have something come out of it. I want to be, you know, I'm not looking for this. All this history and facts and boring. I want to look at it and smile. I mean, look at it and feel something.

Ryan

Yeah. No. That's fantastic. Something that's not often given a lot of credit, right. A brand should have entertainment value, even though as a software company there should be something entertaining about this from the customer's perspective. So I want to just loosely discuss this idea of long-term brand building versus this ever-evolving nature of our brand.

Where's the sweet spot? I mean, we have to live on one end of the spectrum or in the middle. What are your feelings?

Michael

Yeah, I mean, I think if we look at a brand like Spotify, a newer brand, right. They have been able to achieve this personal connection with each of their customers where they're able to deliver personalized content. They're making you playlists, they're building your year in review and all of those things.

We still, to each person, Spotify isn't necessarily a unique entity. We all understand what Spotify is, what it delivers, where it stands in the music industry. But at the same time, they've been able to build personal connections in a way that I don't know if other brands have had the opportunity to, simply because the technology within the space has evolved to where they really can.

And they leaned into it quickly. So we don't have charts anymore. We don't have like, I'm sure they exist somewhere, but we all now have personal charts, personal top favorites, personal playlists. And I think that is an incredible kind of balance between building a brand that we all know. We all understand what Spotify is, we all understand the experience, and yet we're able to customize it and our experience with them to our own liking.

Ryan

The personal experience is such an important thing. I mean, the virality that they achieve when all of a sudden it was like how many hours you've listened to Spotify or your list looks like such? And the shareability was very accessible. They took the power of data and aggregated it into dynamic emails across millions and millions of listeners.

Those listeners take it to social. That brand is now taken on an extension. They may have never dreamed it to. So, I mean, it's a great use case and example. Stacy, how does that hit in your shoes, I guess?

Stacy

Yeah, I was going to say they also were able to not only relate to their customers but then also help the artists, too. In the Year in Review, you are the top 1% listener of so-and-so. I don't know. I lived in North Carolina for a hot second, so I'm going to just say that, but then there’s also hearkening back to the artists, too.

So it's not just the brand. They were like, oh, Spotify is a hero, right? It's like, I'm also looking forward to seeing where I rank in a certain artist. Can you, Pablo? Apparently so. I think it's great that they were able to bring that loyalty to the actual artists or bands themselves, too—not just to the brand.

Ryan

How about this? Let me go a little bit on the opposite end of the spectrum—a brand that's seemingly static over the last 50, 60 years: Coca-Cola. I see it just valued at $106 billion. No big deal, right? It's like a little blip on the radar. But they've stayed very true and dear to what they started as.

I mean, from the formula of the recipe to, I guess, I’m thinking more logo design, their iconic branding of the container—such hasn’t shifted. Now the commercials or adverts have shifted dramatically. But how do we feel about kind of staying with what works? Because clearly, I think they’ve done so.

Michael

Yeah, I think there’s value in it, but I think they’ve been choosy in what they choose to keep. And I think that’s where they’ve gotten it right, in the sense that they’ve put so much equity into their brand mark. They’ve put it everywhere. They’ve associated it with all these emotions. But the emotions and how they’ve told their story over time have certainly evolved.

It always has a nostalgic element to it, but that nostalgia has evolved over time. And I think they have tapped into a very raw emotion, and they’re doing it until it doesn’t work. But I will say they’ve evolved in the sense that they don’t feel old, but they are still pulling on the same heartstrings they pulled on for a century now.

Ryan

I think they always lean into connected experiences. You see these other soft drinks that are very performance-driven, right? Alignment with athletics, alignment with—you’re going to get more out of yourself because of doing this. If you see it as Coca-Cola, where commercials are on the holidays, where it’s like the polar bears, like the Christmas thing together.

Yeah, right? Like, that’s the thing that was probably 50, 60 years old, but yet here it is still prevalent in modern times. So it’s as if they’ve engaged that audience and kind of just grown with them.

Michael

Yeah, I think we can all relate to those small moments in life, and that’s really kind of what they’re trying to pull out. They love Christmas. I mean, they love it, right? And so, they’ve been able to attach themselves to societal nostalgia in a really interesting way. But they’ve also singularly kind of commanded that space.

I don’t know if anyone’s competing for it. And, I don’t think not all brands—how many Coca-Colas do we have, right?

Stacy

Yeah, I mean, they also—going back to the personalization—when they did the “Share a Coke with Ryan” campaign, they, I think, picked 250 of the most popular names in America, and then they just put those on all the labels. Again, staying true. They didn’t change their label; they just added a name or phrase to it and pulled from the evolving trend of personalization becoming more and more of a thing.

Ryan

And I think we challenge ourselves off the top, right? We said brands often lack staying power. So a lot of our smaller businesses and those up-and-comers fight for that kind of brand staying power. And I think they often adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, right? Because they’re limited in resources. They’ve got to kind of go big and wide and fast.

What do we think that a non-Coca-Cola, a non-Apple, a non-Spotify can do to grow that momentum that becomes the staying power they’re seeking?

Michael

Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is having an opinion. Part of it is carving out your space so that people know what to turn to you for. And that’s scary and terrifying. It’s an easy thing to say. And I think it relates to this record that we’re going to discuss.

It’s easy to look around you and kind of mimic a lot of what your direct competitors or, you know, people around you are doing. It’s really hard to take a step back and find a different lane—maybe an unproven lane even. But to break through with limited resources, those are often the types of tactics that work.

They can go wrong. Sure. It’s risky. Everything is. But you do need a reason why someone would pay attention to you. And looking and sounding like everyone else usually isn’t it.

Ryan

No. Staying in the one-size-fits-all box or trying to mimic the competition doesn’t get you anywhere.

Stacy

Yeah, I’ll actually go a step further and say not only having an opinion, but nowadays I feel like it has to be almost teetering on controversial. Like, yes, I need to attribute this to you a little bit—you’re always talking about this—but there’s so much information, so many opinions out there now on so many different mediums, that really, to get that attention, unfortunately, I do think you have to kind of be somewhat contrarian.

Or, like, leaning toward that edge. Otherwise, you’re just like everyone else. So, it’s the opinion, but having a unique or slightly divisive stance. You are going to alienate people. It is going to be really scary. But I mean, how else are you going to find that weird line?

Michael

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan

You’ll create raving fans by being extremely conservative in your approach, right? Think about some of the biggest brands, like even Taylor Swift is a brand right now. Her raving fans are part of her brand. But there’s also the contrarian opinions that actually feed into her success as much as anything else.

Everybody loves her music; she seems like a wonderful person. So, I think there’s something to be said about standing on the edge of controversy at times, right? Like, own your opinion—one that aligns with your brand, your values, your ethics, and your morals, of course—but own that with conviction.

That’s where so many marketers fall down. They say something like, "Oh, we’ll try this," but they don’t say it too loudly. No matter what your position is, you have to own it. It’s that sustained ownership that creates staying power within a brand. So many people struggle to see it through.

Michael

I might say, yeah, it’s hard.

Ryan

It’s hard. It is. Right?

Michael

And I don’t think we give those brands that have been able to break through enough credit for being able to find where that line is and being able to walk it successfully.

Ryan

Yeah. Let’s talk about this word: performance. At Leadpages, there’s a lot of this podcast that talks about performance marketing, of course. How do we manage short-term strategy and long-term strategy? These brand-building initiatives are not always quantifiable in that first quarter. So, if I’m a little soft in Q2, how do you allow your marketers—or people in your past—to champion that brand strategy into the future?

Michael

Yeah, I think we—there has to be consistency. There has to be a reason that we’re saying what we’re saying, but we also have to be okay not getting it right. And we have to take, I believe, that iterative approach to really find that Coca-Cola Christmas ad.

That was 50 years in the company’s development, right? When they finally hit on that Santa Claus drinking Coca-Cola, it became iconic. So, we have to give ourselves time to evolve, to experiment. And when we find those things that are working, we adopt them until they don’t.

We also have to be okay dropping the things that aren’t working. Sometimes society or markets move, and they move on from certain kind of known values and ideas. It’s okay to move on as well. In fact, when we don’t, we are hurt.

But there always has to be that reason that you exist, and that always has to be part of your message. No matter how your message evolves over time—or how your brand evolves and where you show up—that may change. But you do need a root, a core, and a reason that you exist in the first place.

Ryan

Yeah, staying short and long term.

Stacy

Well, Ryan, as a brand marketer yourself, I’d be curious to hear—you are working for a brand-new company. What are you doing in that first quarter or even the first year to establish this opinion, whether it be controversial or what have you?

Ryan

I think you have to start with some of the unsexy stuff, right? You have to identify the competition. You have to understand who they are. Because if you’re going to go somewhere else, you better damn well know what they did so you can stray away from it.

I think often there’s this saying that you stand on the shoulders of giants. You often look at your competitors as those monolithic giants. How dare I dream to be Canva? How dare I dream to be HubSpot? But if you continue to kind of have that intimidation—that level of "I can’t be like them"—that’s your advantage.

Actually, you’re not supposed to be like them. You have to understand the competition so you can develop your own unique voice.

Ryan

I think you have to start with some of the unsexy stuff, right? You have to identify the competition. You have to understand who they are. Because if you’re going to go somewhere else, you better damn well know what they did so you can stray away from it.

I think often there’s this saying that you stand on the shoulders of giants. You often look at your competitors as those monolithic giants. How dare I dream to be Canva? How dare I dream to be HubSpot? But if you continue to kind of have that intimidation—that level of "I can’t be like them"—that’s your advantage.

Actually, you’re not supposed to be like them. You have to understand the competition so you can develop your own unique voice.

Now, how we go about that is probably through a little bit of a long-term SEO play, right? Let’s start developing short- and long-form content on a frequency that shows people who you are so that they start to see that there’s a defining quality in your attributes—attributes about you that they can adhere to and kind of own up to over time.

So, I guess you find the whitespace. I always say zig when they zag. I like to go other places, obviously take a stance. Earlier it was said—speak with conviction. Don’t be shy about turning some people away from your business, right? You’re trying to qualify them as much as they’re trying to qualify you.

So be ready to take a stance. We’ve talked in earlier episodes about the importance of design as well. I think it’s one of the fastest ways to cut through the noise. A message matched with cutting-edge design is your fastest way to penetrate the market or disrupt the category, in my opinion. If you start to sidle up to the old ABC corp because that looks like who you want to be, that’s the fastest way to the bottom.

Michael

So, how do you generally approach a top-down strategy versus a bottom-up? And when I’m talking bottom-up, it’s, you know, your customer base versus delivering the message.

Ryan

Yeah. I mean, I think at a grassroots level, brand evangelism is such an advantage to you, right?

We talked earlier about how word-of-mouth advertising doesn’t find its way to an attribution model, but you’d better damn well believe it’s the greatest asset that you have. Now, whether you’re creating that through social channels, in-person events, newsletters, or a frequency of emails, I prefer creating a voice that the customer sees themselves within.

If they can see themselves in your product, in your brand story, the likelihood to purchase or spread the evangelism grows exponentially. Now, if I try to transactionally convert you through the mechanisms of paid media and performance marketing, I might look like my competition once again. But if I go grassroots, bottom-up, I find something that has staying power—it isn’t just this 1-to-1 transaction.

Michael

Yeah, it is that market research. And there are signs everywhere, right? You can pull from even if you’re a new brand. I think you said, go look at your competition. There are things that they’re doing that work—it’s a reason they exist. But how do you find your voice within that?

Ryan

I think that we’re always moodboarding. When you create a brand, you’re starting to throw things at the wall. What are our colors? What are our type styles?

Go outside of your category. So often it’s like, "I’m a piece of martech. I’m going to go look at all the martech companies and see which one of them…" Why not go to the athletic sector, fashion, food, whatever it might be?

There are little things within each of those different categories that are wildly relevant to the story you’re trying to tell. Too often we just refer to, "Well, this is my little Venn diagram." No—go well outside that to find inspiration.

We ourselves at Leadpages are looking well beyond our category to see what our story could look like tomorrow. What inputs can we pull from more progressive categories, if you will?

Michael

Yeah. Well, let’s get into this album and how it relates to some of this discussion right after a quick break.

Ad Break

Ryan

It’s that fun part of the episode where it becomes much more about music than just the marketing knowledge. Now, Michael, you might have suggested we were going to look at a whole album here.

Michael

That's true, that's true.

Ryan

The Verve Urban Hymns, although a complete record, might be represented by a singular track and might really closely align with our story of staying power versus, you know, just one little blip on the map, Bittersweet Symphony. That's all we know about these people. Does it mean anything to you, or is this something that was easily forgotten, like a bad brand?

Michael

I feel like the song was not forgotten. I think I would say it's akin to...

Stacy

I could...

Ryan...do a karaoke?

Stacy

On the show? I could—I could, but I'm not going to.

Ryan

Prove it. Would you volunteer?

Stacy

I would need some other beverages first, I think.

Ryan

Yeah, you're right.

Michael

But I think the fact that we know that song, but we don’t think we know the group as a whole—exactly, that’s right. They were able to capitalize on kind of a moment in time in a very real way. But I don’t think they were differentiated in any way. Why would you get behind this band or this act versus anyone else from that Britpop era?

I don’t know if they had that voice, and I think they struggled to kind of find their space in the market. I don’t think they ever really commanded the same space that Bittersweet Symphony was able to.

Ryan

Since you’re not going to sing it, I would hope you’d share your opinion of them better.

Stacy

I’ve always got opinions to share. I definitely remember this song. I mean, I—I feel like it was part of my childhood almost. When I heard it, I was just like, yep, it’s probably one of the top ten songs that I think of from my childhood. And not a particular moment or anything like that.

It’s just—it’s always on. Like, I can still, yes, I can still sing it. And so when you’re kind of talking about that, it reminded me, like, yes, it was... I don’t know the story. I don’t know much about them, but like, I don’t really... to me, other songs, like, they’re just straight up, I’m good, you know? Oh, can you guys name another song? I’ll give you ten bucks without looking.

Ryan

If you have ten in your pocket.

Michael

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan

I mean, I think what we’ve talked about is that a brand is comprised of a lot of different attributes. Here, Urban Hymns... When the Verve gives us a singular attribute, we’re finding that in brand development, you better have five, six, seven, eight great identifiable qualities to your brand.

And I think what they were unfortunately unable to do is command an understanding of their great attributes. That’s what happens with any one-hit wonder—or any brand that comes up for a moment and then quickly leaves us. They just had one identifiable attribute.

If you’re trying to build a brand, like you said earlier, I think you have to own these five or six—or however many things they are—to tell your story in a way that stays and lingers.

Michael

Yeah.

Ryan

Yeah.

Michael

What is it about that song, though, that you feel does give it at least that moment in time, if not even relevance today?

Stacy

It’s that part. It’s... I said I wasn’t going to sing, but, bittersweet... you know, how they carry it out. It’s that bittersweet moment. It’s slow and intentional, and it’s building. There’s something about that particular part. I can’t start the song from any other point. It has to start there.

Ryan

Yeah. I mean, it’s the lyric, right? If it’s an H1 on a website, or it’s the opening lyric to a verse, like you’re saying, it has this staying power because it’s identifiable outside the larger set of the music.

Bittersweet Symphony—I think its success is as much hinged on the title as it is the composition.

I mean this composition was birthed, I think, in the late 60s or early 70s by the Rolling Stones and, more importantly, an arranger who pieced the song together. It was an iteration of an original composition.

The Verve did what a great band would do—sampled pretty much just that carbon copy, and then sung along with the melody of it. But they incorporated lyrics that have staying power.

They could have said some other random words that might not have hit and might not have had you, at this very moment, saying, "I don’t know how to sing it, but I remember this long, bittersweet struggle." Bittersweet Symphony’s introduction stands out.

You give them credit for accomplishing some of the things a great brand needs to accomplish, but they fell short in other areas.

Stacy

Okay, I might be lying here—did they sing The Freshman?

Michael

No, that was Verve Pipe.

Stacy

Oh, okay. Love that song. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that. All right.

Ryan

I like that. Yes. So you asked me about branding earlier. Watch out—you need differentiation. Too much crossover obviously creates brand confusion. Don’t confuse your brand with others.

Well, we’ve hit that point. Let’s talk about a couple of key takeaways. Our listeners have been here for the entertainment, the music, but more importantly, what can they do inside of their own business?

Michael

For an upstart brand or a longstanding brand, what should they be doing?

Michael

I think they need a "why." They need a reason to exist, and they need a conversation to be having with their customers—a way to relate to them so that customers can see themselves in the product, in the brand, and in the messaging.

Without that, it’s hard to have that lasting power. So I would say, have a "why."

Ryan

Avalon, I love that. What’s your opinion, Stacy?

Stacy

Have an interesting "why." Double down. Commit to something that’s going to make you memorable, whether it’s controversial or not. Be memorable. Make it entertaining. Make it something I’m going to care about.

Ryan

Yeah, yeah. We’ve had the theme of authenticity, relatability, and originality running through all these episodes, and this is probably the apex of it right here.

If you don’t have those things, your staying power is greatly reduced. So, for those trying to build that staying power, ask yourself the "whys." Why do you matter? Why are you relevant? Why do they care? Answer those hard questions, and I think you’ll start to find those brand attributes through that exercise.

Perhaps that’s it—a short exercise. Absolutely. Answer the tough questions.

Ryan

Well, I’ve got to thank you guys for your time again. This was fun. We had a little more freeform discussion, some less formal moments. We stumbled on a record that I don’t think most people even knew was a record instead of just a single. But we brought it together in an entertaining way—a way that I feel connects branding with stories.

Ryan

Stacy, thank you for your time. Michael, as always, six episodes in, we’ve got this thing off the starter blocks, right?

Michael

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan

All right. Hopefully, the listeners have enjoyed this as much as we have. We spent the better part of a few hours with you guys, introducing some great topics about marketing, music, and all that matters.

Thank you to everybody who tuned in. Find us on your favorite podcasting platforms. And as always, welcome to On the Record, brought to you by Leadpages.