What do you know?

Contrasting two types of brand meaning

In his book The Brand Flip, Marty Neumeier points out that people are not focused on products (or brands) per se, but rather on the meaning of products and brands. Consumers don’t only think of a brand in terms of tangible physical characteristics and functionality, but instead are much more interested in the psychological and emotional meanings associated with the brand. How do I feel when using the brand? Is this brand consistent with my values? Does this brand help me become the person I want to be? Brands that provide the most desirable psychological, emotional, and identity meanings will enjoy the strongest relationships with consumers and likely marketplace success.

Understanding meaning should be critically important to marketing managers since a main responsibility is managing the meaning of their brand. How should we think about brand meaning? What sorts of brand knowledge do people have? While avoiding a philosophical treatise on the meaning of meaning, I would like to offer a few basic ideas about brand meaning.

Certainly, understanding meaning is challenging. Consumers (and managers) possess multiple meanings for brands, which are variously relevant in different contexts. The table identifies three aspects of meaning complexity illustrated with the simple example of “taking a shower.”

Two types of brand meaning

Let’s begin with a simple distinction. Consumers (and managers) can know two things about a brand — “What is it?” and “What of it?”

What-is-it brand knowledge includes descriptive meanings about the more tangible features or attributes of a brand. The simple act of labeling a brand or a naming a brand attribute expresses what-is-it meaning. For example, categorizing a new car as an SUV or a crossover, or labeling a brand of eggs as “organic,” produces what-is-it meaning.

In contrast, what-of-it brand meaning is the consumer’s interpretation of the actual or imagined consequences of their brand experience. What did this brand, or this feature of the brand, do for or to me? What benefits and risks did I (or might I) experience? What emotional reactions did I have? How does this brand help me achieve my goals and values? Did my brand experience enhance or diminish my sense of identity? Because what-of-it meanings are about one’s personal experience, they involve more intense emotion than what-is-it knowledge. In sum, what-of-it meanings are how consumers understand the personal relevance of a brand.

Modeling brand meaning

The familiar brand ladder models both types of brand meaning. A well-constructed ladder reveals the most relevant what-of-it and what-is-it brand meanings, as seen by consumers, and importantly reveals how those meanings are related.

For example, at the what-is-it level, Coca-Cola is sweetened, caramel-flavored, carbonated water with an iconic logo. In more personally relevant, what-of-it terms, Coca-Cola is seen as refreshing (functional), an American icon yet worldly (psychological), appropriate for having fun with friends or for relaxing by myself (social), stimulating yet also calming (emotional), and a brand that fits with my identity as a caring person.

What to do?

Obviously, marketing managers need to understand both types of brand meaning. However, what-of-it knowledge has a much greater influence on consumers’ purchase decisions and resulting brand satisfaction and thus is more important for developing effective marketing strategy.

Firms should refocus their insight function on what-of-it meaning. Direct questioning in focus groups, surveys, and traditional IDIs are able to capture the mostly surface aspects of what-is-it knowledge. However, special qualitative methods such as ZMET are needed to uncover the deeper and often unconscious elements of what-of-it meaning.

Certain products or brands might seem to lack deep what-of-it meaning, but usually that is shown to be incorrect. You are forgiven for thinking that the core meanings of motor oil are mostly what-is-it knowledge about such attributes as viscosity, brand name, price, and the vehicle manufacturer’s recommendation. But in a ZMET project, we identified many personally relevant what-of-it meanings associated with motor oil, including identity meanings (I care for my vehicle’s health — as I do my own children — by feeding it good motor oil, because doing so reinforces my self-concept as a responsible, caring parent to my vehicle). Most of those what-of-it meanings were unconscious and probably would not be found by focus groups or a survey. The client continues to leverage these insights in advertising and point-of-sale materials.

In another ZMET study, we explored the meaning of crop seed as seen by farmers who bought seed to plant on their family farms. The descriptive, what-is-it meanings of crop seed such as germination rate, resistance to disease, and price were pertinent, of course, but they not prominent in farmers’ thinking. Instead these farmers were more focused on the psychological, emotional and identity consequences of crop seed, including feeling proud of producing healthy and beautiful fields of corn or soybeans and having that recognized by their peers. These hard-bitten farmers became quite emotional, including occasional tears, when reflecting on their identities as a resilient farmers who have struggled through difficult times to maintain their family farms. At an even more personally relevant level, these farmers expressed deep meanings about the family farming tradition and the importance of being able to pass along their farm and the farming lifestyle to their children and grandchildren. So, yes, even mundane crop seed links to some very deep personally relevant levels of meaning. The client leveraged these insights in an emotional advertising campaign called “Born to Farm,” which dramatically increased sales and also won an award.

How is brand meaning acquired?

A greater focus on what-of-it brand meaning raises the question of how consumers (and marketing managers) acquire what-of-it knowledge?

What is the role of marketing communications in creating what-of-it knowledge about a brand versus consumers’ direct usage experience. And, how does the broader culture influence peoples’ brand meaning? I intend to address the creation of brand meaning in a separate article.

In sum

My point, which has been made by others, is that marketing managers need to better understand what-of-it brand meaning. What-of-it insights can help managers (a) focus on consumers as people — people with human needs and goals — people who want to feel authentic, unique, valued, and self-actualized, and (b) find a way for their brand to become personally relevant to those people.

Jerry Olson is cofounder and Managing Partner of Olson Zaltman.