The Product and the Brand: The Yin and Yang of Sales

One of the world’s most exclusive fashion brands has been burning its own products for years. Unsold coats, handbags, dresses, scarves – anything that didn’t find a buyer went into the furnace instead of being put on sale. From a common-sense perspective, this is pure madness: getting rid of merchandise that someone might pay at least half the price for. However, from the perspective of a prestigious brand’s strategy, it was a rational decision, because a price reduction would have destroyed something more valuable than a container of clothes. It would have undermined the perception of the company’s exclusivity.

This story tells us more about the power of a brand than any marketing textbook.

A great product that no one has heard of

I wish I could say that all you need is a great product and the market will find you on its own. I really wish I could. However, experience suggests otherwise. The stronger the brand and the greater its recognition, the easier it is to sell. It sounds like a cheap slogan, but this mechanism actually exists, which I’ve observed as a salesperson for years while talking to business owners.

Let’s take a couple of steps back: a strong brand isn’t just a lifeline for the marketing department – it’s, above all, an easier life for salespeople. Because when your brand is well-known, the salesperson doesn’t have to explain who you are – and that makes the job incredibly easier. They can get straight to the point: explain exactly what you offer and convince the customer why your product is worth choosing.

If you decided today to create a completely new brand, unknown to anyone, it would be difficult for you to convince a customer to even talk to you. Not to buy – just to have a conversation. These days, brands are built from what we might call the “personal” side. You go to events, meet people, build meaningful relationships – and only then do you get the chance for someone to listen to what you have to say about your product. Think about trade shows: on one side stands the marketing director of Philips, on the other – the marketing director of a small, unknown company from Tczew. It’s clear who you want to be associated with. One of them represents greater opportunities. On the other hand, that small company, which is completely invisible today, might offer an incredibly innovative or high-quality product. It’s just that no one knows about it yet.

„If you decided today to create a completely new brand, it would be difficult for you to convince a customer to even talk to you. Not to buy – just to have a conversation.”.

Herein lies the paradox: until a brand is strong and rooted in the consumer’s mind, it will lose out to those that already hold that position. Even if its product is objectively better. Recognition is a kind of currency of trust. Without it, every transaction begins with the tedious task of convincing the customer that you’re even worth listening to.

Packaging Stronger Than the Contents

The problem runs even deeper. Can a strong brand sell an average – or even a weak – product? Absolutely.

We all know plenty of examples of junk that almost everyone recognizes and buys – from socks to cars. A strong brand therefore acts as a shield: even if the product doesn’t hold up in terms of quality, at least consumers buy it, simply because they trust the logo on the packaging more than what they’ll find inside. We can grumble about this state of affairs, but objectively, this is the reality we operate in.

Generally speaking, people today shop in two categories.

• First: they want high-quality items that will last them a long time.
• Second: they’re inundated with Chinese brands that are cheap, tacky, and which – through sales platforms like Temu – are doing surprisingly well.

By the way, Shein is an interesting case. The Singaporean clothing giant flopped on the Polish market because its brand promotion turned out to be exceptionally ill-conceived. Temu took a different path – there were no annoying TV commercials; everything spread online – and that translated into mass acceptance. It’s hard for me to find anyone today who hasn’t shopped on an Asian platform. I’m not saying such people don’t exist, but the Chinese have done a tremendous job of saturating the market.

The formula was as follows: first scale, then price, and finally quality. Although it now turns out that the quality doesn’t lag dramatically behind European competitors. This means you don’t need an old, iconic brand – provided you enter with the right strategy for building from scratch. Asians started from the back: first presence, then awareness. Time will tell whether a customer caught in the net this way will turn out to be a loyal customer in the long run.

And you, how much extra would you pay for a logo?

Following this line of thought further, one must ask: does a strong brand allow you to sell the same or a comparable product at a higher price than the competition? The answer is both yes and no. It depends on who you’re targeting.

Premium-segment brands – the truly strong ones – maintain high prices and have the mandate to do so. Ferrari doesn’t have to explain why the 12Cilindri costs half a million euros. In contrast, the British luxury fashion house Burberry – maker of handbags and scarves with its signature check pattern – preferred to burn unsold collections rather than lower prices (Reuters reported on the matter in 2018). They disposed of the merchandise, knowing that a discount would destroy something more important than the merchandise itself: the brand’s image as an exclusive, coveted label. This is an extreme example, but it clearly illustrates the mechanism at play.

In the mass-market segment, the situation is different. You have one consumer who reads the product ingredients, searches for reviews online, and tries to make every decision consciously. They see two similar items and choose the one that suits them better, not necessarily the one with the recognizable logo. The second customer just wants to get their shopping done. They reach for a specific brand out of habit or under the influence (usually unconscious) of advertising.

You could say we’re running into a wall with our target audience – and with consumers’ growing product awareness. Because that awareness is slowly but steadily increasing. When we go to the store, we read the ingredients. We look at how the brand performs in terms of sustainability. We check whether it has a meaningful CSR program or if it’s just a facade. Purchasing decisions are no longer automatic reflexes; they are becoming increasingly focused on what the brand truly stands for and what values it represents.

Ethics on the Label

This is a topic that, just a dozen or so years ago, appeared at most on the margins of conversations about branding, and today is at their center. I’m referring to brand ethics. A notorious example is companies that, in the early stages of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, decided to remain in the Russian market. Polish consumers quickly concluded that they wanted nothing to do with such brands – and those that were able to take a clear stance and withdraw gained an advantage. Those that hesitated lost something that no rebranding will be able to rebuild for a long time.

This works both ways and on many levels. Let’s take two companies. One is involved in social welfare, operates transparently, its owner makes public appearances at events, and has nothing to hide. The other you hear about in the context of scams, violations of workers’ rights, and media scandals.

It’s easier for us – mentally and morally – to engage with a company that ethically stands on the same side as we do. The more negative stories come to light, the more brand loyalty either grows or declines. It never stays the same.

Consumers today look at the bigger picture more than ever. Growing consumer awareness makes it harder to impress us with flashy ads or colorful packaging – and easier to turn us off by something the brand does wrong. You can spend years building a brand, but a single serious misstep in the realm of values can undermine that entire structure at its very foundation.

Which is more important: the product or the brand?

It would be unwise to make a sweeping statement that the product is always more important than the brand, or vice versa. Ultimately, both are essential – the product and the brand must be compatible and consistent with each other. A brand that does good things naturally attracts people – and even when the product is slightly inferior in quality, sentiment toward the brand can sustain loyalty. But when a brand falls into crisis and the product fails to compensate for the damage to its image, loyalty wanes.

„Affection for the brand can sustain loyalty”.

Let’s take the fashion industry players as an example again: Zara and LPP. Zara used to be a brand associated with a higher price point. You had to have a certain budget to shop there. Today, LPP is starting to be more expensive than Zara, even though it once had image problems due to poor treatment of employees.

An interesting tension arises: on the one hand, we’d like to vote with our wallets for Polish businesses, fulfilling our “patriotic” duties. On the other hand, however, when a Spanish brand – once out of reach – becomes more accessible and produces high-quality, stylish items, why not take advantage of it? We go through various stages of consumer life. Once upon a time, people wanted to shop at stores like Diverse because it seemed cool and trendy. As they matured a bit, they wanted to move up to brands two or three tiers higher.

A good analogy for this idea is the restaurant business. When a restaurant serves good food, there will always be people to feed. You might have mediocre decor, no marketing, or even a hard-to-reach location, but if the food is good, customers will come back. Conversely: you can have a great brand, Magda Gessler on the sign, and someone just as famous in the kitchen, but if you come in and don’t like the food… You might reluctantly give it a second chance, but you won’t come back a third time. Even if you’re an optimist and want to give someone a chance, the consumer’s patience has strictly defined limits.

So the formula is this: the brand must be strong and must offer a good product. If neither of those is in place, you’ll buy it once, you won’t be satisfied, and you’ll walk away. If the brand is weak but the product is good – you need to work on the brand. And if the brand is strong but the product is weak? Well, the product will likely sell, but keeping such a colossus standing on feet of clay will become increasingly difficult over time.

Is your brand already strong?

All right, I’ve listed a few examples of strong brands. But how do you actually know they’re strong? How can you tell that your brand has reached the point where it’s actually making sales easier – and is more than just a logo on a business card?

There are several factors, but let’s start with the most important one: what the market says about you. Does it say anything at all? Do customers praise your brand, do you feel they recommend it, or do they remain silent? When someone smiles and tells a friend, “I’ll give it a try – it’s a good company,” that’s the most valuable form of advertising you can receive.

The second indicator is the experience you build at every stage of the partnership. The moment we sign a contract with a client, the risk of losing them begins. The question is: when will that happen, and will we be able to retain them long enough that they not only continue working with us but also recommend us to others?

The third, somewhat smaller element – partners. Do you have business partners who want to recommend you? Does your logo on their materials add credibility to them, or are they indifferent to it?

There’s also the issue of differentiation. If you remain just one of many players in the market and don’t stand out in any way, even intensive marketing won’t help much. It’s great to have a strong brand that actually drives sales, but you have to work for it. It won’t happen overnight. Let’s look at how InPost, for example, operates as a Polish brand. Rafał Brzoska does a lot as the face of the brand; he practically carries it on his back. He’s visible, gets involved in all kinds of campaigns, and even in politics.

This kind of activity comes more easily than it used to, because we have the internet. We don’t need media attention; all it takes is recording a video or writing a useful article. Information spreads quickly. But to stand out, you need something concrete: a well-designed brand, a consistent strategy, and – above all – an idea of who you want to be. Then you can start the painstaking work.

In essence, that’s what all this talk about brand strength boils down to.

A strong brand isn’t something you build every day, with every customer interaction, with every social media post, with every branding decision. It’s a living organism that reacts to what you do, but also to what you don’t do. To your silence when you need to speak up. To your lack of response when the market is waiting for your move.

A brand either grows or slowly shrinks. Even if changes are slow, reality never stands still.

I know that after reading this article, it’s easy to nod your head and go back to putting out daily fires. But if you’d like to check whether your brand is actually working for you – reach out, let’s talk.