Credibility Is in the Eye of the Beholder

As a sports fan and a student of human behavior, I've always been amused when either watching or discussing football with friends and associates. Typically, the improprieties one will tolerate varies greatly depending on which side he wants to win.

In American football parlance, a fan of one team may view incidental contact as flagrant pass interference on the part of the opposing team, while if his preferred team committed a blatant act of pass interference, he may argue, with vein-popping ferocity, that the foul was incorrectly called, or they may appeal to a higher authority, demanding the refs just "let the players play."

In that case, the credibility of the referees is affected by the fan's affection for the team. Unfortunately, it has nothing at all to do with if the call was right or wrong.

I wasn't the most gifted soccer player in high school. I played somewhat the same way a rhinoceros would play. While playing in the European finals, while tracking the ball (and not looking where I was going), I collided with another player who was already set. He went down hard.

(Happily, he was not injured).

The ref blew the whistle against me, and it being a home game, a lot of the crowed booed the call and yelled out "C'mon, ref!"

Amidst the boos from our side, I heard one guy bravely yell, "Nope. That was right. [laughter]. That was a good call."

And it was. Only by some miracle did I escape a yellow card.

Sometimes I think that companies rely on some similar miracle to be seen as truly great.

Business Credibility

Unless they are what Alan Wolk calls a "prom king brand," companies rely on different mechanisms to build the same sort of penalty-ignoring affection for their brand. Here is an incomplete list:

• Celebrity endorsements
• Humor
• Irrelevant details
• Jargon
• Sponsorships

However, as we gain access to information about just about anything, anywhere, we can afford to be a little more discerning about our purchases.

As consumers, we can be and have become a whole lot more fickle in our loyalties, too. Truthfully, that's how we should have always been.

That means that brands have their work cut out from them. They must not and cannot rely simply on gimmicks and advertising to build their brand. That misses the point entirely.

Gimmicks do not build a brand. Ads do not build a brand. In fact, no amount of marketing is going to build a brand. Character builds brands.

Just as teams should not rely on magnanimous or sight-impaired referees to keep their penalty-count low, nor should companies rely on humorous, celebrity-seeking, slightly ignorant consumers to build theirs brands.

If you want to be seen as great, you first have to be great. In everything that matters.

Before you take out a single ad, you should first deal with that issue, and then ask yourself why consumers would care. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Lewis Green]

Cam, at the very lease if we want to be great, we have to aspire to be great and have a vision to achieve that greatness, not in our eyes, but in our customer's eyes. Great post.