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The Brand Rush
A revealing week
in my life:
Monday, a gifted
lawyer calls. He quickly explains his problem. He is among the premier practitioners
in his specialty, but he is losing business to inferior lawyers in two brand-name
law firms. He wants that hole plugged.
Wednesday afternoon,
the president of a contracting company calls. A heavily advertised competitor
is charging far more for comparable jobs and still getting the bids, despite
my caller's roomful of industry trophies.
Thursday morning,
the president of a professional consulting firm calls. Her firm has grown incrementally
by word of mouth, and cannot penetrate the more lucrative, challenging, and
prestigious accounts that would give the firm more stature. The big-name firms
own all those accounts.
This was an actual
week in my life in 1995. By year's end I was ready to dub it The Year of the
Brand Rush--the year when thousands of service companies finally realized the
enormous clout of brands.
Each caller was getting
beaten by a brand. Each caller's company offered demonstrably excellent, even
superior service, yet each was losing business to brands. Each company was growing,
but more sluggishly than it deserved.
But each executive
had finally realized something critical:
In service
marketing, almost nothing beats a brand.

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