of companies are able to live up to their
brand promise all the time. This is despite
clear evidence that well fulfilled brand
promise ensures the sustainability of the
business into the future. What affects the
delivery of the brand promise? brand promise. Most members of staff may
have good intentions, but their actions can
be totally disconnected from the brand
promise. It is therefore important to ensure
that what they are saying and doing is fully
aligned to the brand promise.
Over-promising: This is where a brand
claims what it cannot deliver in terms of
product attributes, benefits and features.
In this case the brand communicates what
it wishes to represent rather than what it
actually represents. The phrase ‘fake it till
you make it’ best explains this scenario. It
only takes the point of usage which is a
moment of truth, to reveal the bluff and
kill any possibilities of re-purchase. A promise too similar to competition:
The primary role of a brand promise is to
differentiate your product/service from
competition. It should be a driver of
uniqueness in the industry to endear your
brand to its consumers.
Incompatibility with internal structure:
Sometime the marketing team develops
a brand promise that is inconsistent with
what production, supply chain, sales or HR
teams believe in. This causes disconnect in
the delivery of the promise since successful
customer satisfaction is a company-wide
effort. In such cases, it is important that
internal marketing is thoroughly done to
ensure that the culture and greater purpose
of the whole company is aligned to the
A promise that plays ‘me too’ to its
competitors will not deliver on this
uniqueness and will therefore be an effort
in futility. The brand promise must be
clear and the delivery must be in sync
to ensure that the customer experiences
the uniqueness throughout the brand
interaction process.
Failing to develop the brand promise
‘outside-in’: Brand owners must begin by
understanding the customers’ needs and
expectations then crafting their promises
to fit. The result of this is a vigorous internal
effort to provide what the customer is
already expecting. Employees will always
be the driving force behind a brand, so
they must thoroughly understand that
promise and the importance of delivering
on it consistently. The fact is that most
businesses face serious challenges in
delivering on brand promises due to
internal workplace issues as opposed to
external marketplace issues.
It is therefore of paramount importance
that before promises are communicated
to customers, a thorough audit of internal
capability to deliver on them is carried
out and ascertained.
Mr. Joseph Kimotho is a Marketing
Strategy Consultant and Managing
Director of Frontier Marketing Limited.
He is also a PhD (Marketing) candidate
at the University of Nairobi, School
of Business. You can commune with
him via email at: Joseph.Kimotho@
frontiermrkting.com.