• by John Gaffney , June 30, 2002

Off the books: While we are all consumed with accounting and insider trading, a very telling branding report was published by Harris Interactive recently. It shows what we all know and sometimes forget about consumer perception. And that is the inescapable fact that advertising can communicate a great brand, but there’s nothing like product quality to make a brand great. Harris measured consumer quality perceptions of more than 100 brands. You could argue that within the top ten, not one of them has the ad power of a Pepsi, Budweiser or Chevy Truck. You won’t find a soda, car or beer among the top ten. You will find the Discovery Channel at the top spot followed by Craftsman Tools, Hershey’s Kisses, Bose Speakers, WD-40 Oil, Crayola Crayons, Reynolds Wrap and M&Ms. These brands “have endured the challenge of not only making a promise, but fulfilling it,” according to Harris. I’m starting to beat this integrity and trust drum loudly, I know. But this will be the summer and fall of integrity deconstruction among the press and therefore consumers. If I’m a media buyer, and even a brand manager, I need to pay attention to how my brand image and integrity are communicated.

On The Books: Here’s an example of how the process can backfire. I saw a print spread for Xerox this weekend that ended with the tagline “There’s a new way to look at it.” Now when you get nailed for misappropriating a few billion dollars, that tagline begs a reinterpretation, and a rewrite.

Say Amen: You gotta love BET deciding that it will no longer accept infomercials. I know there’s a financial return on investment reason to stop it, but anytime a network of this size decides to bet on its own programming vs. someone else’s paid message, that’s a win for the good guys. BET will heavy up its weekend slots that used to carry infomercials with gospel and music shows.