What happens when broad reach brands don't like their consumer much?

The recent dust-up over Bud Light reflects an age old marketing misstep -- the brand failed to respect their loyal fans and failed to put product at the forefront of their communications.

The job of a marketing leader is to sell product. If you don’t sell product with advertising and PR and all the other stuff that goes in the marketing bucket, you don’t get to keep the job. Usually.

While a marketing leader’s primary remit is to sell stuff (sometimes called “creating demand” in the “biz”), she is also charged with doing so in such a way that elevates, rather than denigrates the brand, in order to create greater consumer loyalty. Once a buyer becomes a fan, they are more reliable purchasers and their “lifetime value” increases. This requires always putting the consumer first, at the center of every program. It can cost quite a bit to acquire a customer, so if a brand can keep them in the fold, driving up their purchases over time, that initial investment has a much higher return (ROI).

So basically the job is: grow brand “equity” and loyalty, while generating profitable sales. That’s it.

Sounds easy. But it’s kind of not. The average tenure for a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is a little over 2 years. Most don’t do a great job. They either leave around the 2 year mark — having seen the writing on the wall that a heave-ho is on the horizon — or they get laid off with a nice fat severance package, then go on to “fail up” in another CMO job elsewhere.

Traditionally, successful marketing efforts have focused on touting unique product benefits.

• Swiffer — Stop cleaning. Get Swiffer. (Easier mopping.)

• Bounty — The quicker picker-upper. (More absorbent paper towels.)

• Goldfish crackers — The snack that smiles back! (The fun snack for kids.)

• Bud Light (yup I’m going there) — Easy to drink. (You can drink a lot of them.)

Some image-oriented brands focus more on the brand than the product in their overall marketing. Nike being the prime example here — Just Do It! Or Coke — Real Magic. (They’ve had a million taglines. This one is the latest and seems like it maybe won’t last long. What does it even mean?)

At any rate, generally speaking, product should be at the center of the marketing. And always always — the consumer comes first. Who is the ad addressing? Is it a commercially viable target consumer — a big enough base to drive meaningful sales? Are these current and future consumers open to the brand’s message? Are they likely to “convert” (buy)?

Some brands have broad reach — Bud Light (the number one share brand in the beer category capturing 10.6% of beer sales in the United States). Some brands are tailored to a more narrow audience — craft IPAs like Racer 5 (one of my favorites). It can be easier speaking to a narrow audience. Marketing can be more specific, and doesn’t need to concern itself with who it alienates. With smaller brands divisive might work just fine.

It’s difficult to navigate this process with big, large scale brands. Lots of people buy them, with lots of different beliefs and preferences. How do you find the highest common denominator in appealing to them? How do you bring people together to agree on a beer or a jean or a burger — people who might disagree on a lot of other stuff? Not an easy task to thread that needle. Especially in an increasingly divided world.