When your product works and your brand matters.

Every product or service must work. People must find it useful. And beneficial. Otherwise it will enter that brutal phase in the business cycle: creative destruction.

But the contribution a product or service makes to society is not limited to its features and intrinsics. Its brand – the stuff “outside of the product” – can contribute too.

This is where it gets interesting.

A brand should not simply ‘add value’ by dramatising some feature of the product, thereby hoping to wring people like wet rags of their monthly salaries. It should seek to enrich people – it should challenge or inspire or affirm them in some way. Not because that is a noble and lofty thing to do, but because it is good business.

Well, that’s our view.

When your product works and your brand matters to people, they are more likely to engage with you. The likelihood of them becoming loyal customers increases. They may even become advocates.

Developing a brand which matters, then, should be part of your manufacturing process. The returns on your investment are healthy margins, loyal customers and the revenue to invest in growth.