The focus in marketing is often on promoting strengths, but as much attention should be paid to what would otherwise be perceived as negatives. Among their ‘22 Immutable Laws of Marketing’, revered marketeers Al Ries and Jack Trout included ‘The Law of Candor’. This highlighted that when brand messages start by admitting a problem, ‘people tend to, almost instinctively, open their minds’. In an age when consumers with communications on every front, they quite reasonably feel cynical about brands that push apparent perfection. It’s much more believable if the first thing they hear is an acknowledgement of a flaw – it immediately builds a degree of trust. The key to ‘The Law of Candor’ is then reframing that negative as a positive.

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Hidden virtues made plain

For example, companies with a limited product range compared to their competitors might frame their position as being specialists, whose focus on a narrow range means they can provide specialist support and greater consistency of supply. Others, whose prices are higher than their competitors might frame their products as being well worth the premium paid. The pricing of long-established luxury products is based on people expecting to pay a lot for them, but it’s possible to emulate these on a similar premise that a high price is not only justified but desirable. For example, Stella Artois beer was for some while promoted as being ‘reassuringly expensive’, framing its relatively high price point as a positive.

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One of our clients, Millboard, makes composite decking moulded from real wood, which vastly outperforms natural timber. The unique properties enable creation of distinctly premium outdoor environments, and the decking requires nothing like the upkeep that conventional decking or paving requires. There’s no doubt that it costs more than most alternatives, but the potential negative of a higher price translates directly to a positive – the reassurance of making a wise long-term purchase decision and the indulgence of a product that is clearly a cut above the rest.

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Rebuilding a broken brand

One of the most effective campaigns built around an apparent negative was the one that transformed the Skoda brand. Up until WWII, Skoda was actually a respected maker of luxury cars, but after the war its factories fell within the Communist bloc and it turned to producing much cheaper models. Sadly for Skoda’s export efforts, rather than being seen as cheap and cheerful, most Westerners regarded their products as cheap and nasty. The perception of the brand as a whole was extremely negative, with the brand being the basis for a whole genre of jokes.

A couple of classics from the era of Skoda jokes:

Q. How do you double a Skoda’s value? A. Fill the tank.

Q. What do you call a Skoda with a sunroof? A. A skip.)

Turning this level of brand negativity around presented a massive challenge to VW, who bought Skoda after the fall of Communism. First up, they obviously had to improve the actual quality of the product, but on its own this would never have been enough to overcome the stigma attached to the Skoda badge. What they did was acknowledge how people regarded the Skoda brand, but then challenged that perception. Their clever TV ads depicted a group of Brits being shown around a factory and being impressed by what they saw. One of the Brits then says, ‘And I hear you make those funny little Skoda cars here, as well.’ The final, unspoken, tagline, is: ‘It’s a Skoda. Honest.’

Another TV ad from the same campaign that helped to subvert Skoda’s previous bad image:

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Subsequent ads built on this to the point that there is nowadays no need for Skoda to apologise for their cars. For those too young to remember these adverts, it’s probably puzzling why a brand like Skoda, with its perfectly reasonable (current) brand image, should have needed such adverts, but the rest of us can appreciate just how effective they were in turning around the brand’s image!

The ‘negatives’ need to be recognised

Obviously, focusing on a negative aspect of your brand needs to be handled thoughtfully. The negative needs to be one that is obvious to consumers and actually perceived as a negative by them. Coming up with a negative nobody was already aware of would be distinctly counter-productive! By acknowledging a weakness – as with the Skoda adverts – that you know is perceived, you can then build on the trust and interest generated to reframe that negative as a corresponding strength.

Consequently, it’s well worth considering the apparent negative points your product or service has, to see if they can be reframed as positive points in your customers’ minds. If you don’t, your customers will maintain their own perceptions anyway, and your competitors will no doubt ensure that any customers in the dark are made aware of them!

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Here at Zing we often help clients with this reframing of brands to strengthen them.

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We look for what differentiates them from their competitors, not only in terms of their USPs, but also in how we can transform what at first seem like weaknesses into strengths using ‘The Law of Candor’.