Branding Or Selling?

I met with the marketing manager of the largest Verizon Franchise this week and our conversation inspired this chapter.

If your parent company is doing an excellent job of Branding, don't waste your money doing your own branding.

And...

Always include a branding message in your advertising.

Do those statements contradict? No. and here's why.

The storefronts for these Verizon outlets feature the Verizon name and logo above their company name. So the stores are letting Verizon be their brand, along with their own identity.

But if that's all they did, no one would care about the individual store. Here's where this franchise also sells:

Three times a year, during peak buying times they run their own advertising campaigns, which they call promos. These are special offers that are not available at all Verizon stores, just theirs.

Of course, Verizon is mentioned in all of those ads too as a tie-in to the Verizon Brand.

One more way that these stores set themselves apart from other Verizon stores:

They offer their own service plan which is better than what Verizon offers. And you have to go to one of their stores, not just any Verizon store to get this better deal.

One last lesson they shared with me:

Their focus for their promos are adults 35 and older.
However, it was my 18 year old daughter that persuaded me a couple years ago to switch to Verizon.
Yes, the marketing manager said, "your daughter told you which brand she wanted, but you did the buying and picked us because of the deal we offered."

Your comments are always welcome.