Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
Bez frendova nema brendova (No Friends, No Brands) is the title of a new book on brands written by Mitja Tuškej, Director of Direct Media Communications Slovenia. A fantastic book. I can say this because I’m one of the few who has read it almost to the end. Those who bought it a few days ago when it came out can’t be further than one third into it no matter how fast they read. I am translating it from the Slovenian language and I still have a few pages left before completing this demanding task. The fact that I’m translating it also means that I am reading it more thoroughly and carefully than the ‘ordinary’ reader. I don’t know who will benefit more from this translation – Mitja, because I did it as a friend, without a fee, or I, because I had the privilege of Mitja entrusting me with the translation, so I could read it slowly, carefully and with focus. Anyhow, if all goes well, you’ll be able to read the regional edition of the book in early February.
When I asked Mitja for an interview, he answered that he’d definitely find the time even though in the next seven days he had five important pitches (including one in Belgrade) and was preparing a wedding. On the penultimate day of this year his son is getting married, and moving to the USA immediately after. That’s Mitja Tuškej – my friend.
MEDIA MARKETING: They say a person feels best when they publish a book. Is it the same for you?
MITJA TUŠKEJ: There’s a saying in our parts that a person has to do three things in life: raise a child, plant a tree and write a book. I have finally achieved all three! (Laughs). I really feel very good. I have a phenomenal daughter who did the editing for my book and who has already surpassed me with her work on her doctoral dissertation, opening up the next step in branding with a discourse about the identification of consumers with brands. I have a phenomenal son, who is leaving for the USA in a couple of days, where he was offered a very responsible job – and he is only 24. In Istria there is a single avocado tree, which I ‘dressed’ in its winter suit a couple of days ago, so it could survive its fifth winter. And now my book has come out, which I believe opens up new horizons of branding and introduces new standards in our practice. I laughed the other day, when a colleague tweeted “Put Kotler on the top shelf, and keep Tuškej at hand” (laughs).
MEDIA MARKETING: In the book you summarized your vast experience, and people who are well acquainted with the topic of brands consider you the foremost branding expert in the region. Could you describe the book in a couple of sentences?
MITJA TUŠKEJ: I think that what I wrote about in the book can be best explained with the short story it starts with:
“A brand is like a child. Like a planned child, which we create when we judge that we have the appropriate conditions for it. When it’s born, we are seized with profound elation. With it we go through its uncertain first steps, wanting it to succeed in life. All the time we learn and adapt to the countless situations which in one way or another affect it. We observe its qualities, we teach it values and help it shape its personality. If we do well, in most cases it has great opportunities to succeed. Because of our actions, and because of the influence of the environment, the education of a child is one of the most difficult ‘projects’ in our lives.
The same goes for a brand. We plan it, we are happy when we create it and engage it in the market. We shape its features, build its values and personality, so it can find the right friends and its place in the world. And – after many years of experience I am convinced of this – brand management is one of the most difficult business projects of any enterprise.”
In the book, I write about how to lead a brand through its life and how to make it successful. All the time my focus is on searching, checking and maintaining a real relationship between a brand and consumers. Hence the title of the book: “No Friends, No Brands”. Namely, I am deeply convinced that this is one of our most important tasks: to know who our ‘friends’ are, to realize how they see and understand their / our brand, and through deep knowledge of their lifestyle, behavior, media consumption and all the other elements of ‘insight’, to work, build and maintain the brand’s story with their help.
In this book I don’t write about creativity or how to physically build the story of a brand. I write about the methodologies that allow us to manage a brand with focus. My focus is on all the things that we should know about the brand, about how to get to it and how to cleverly tie all that we know and learn into a single entity that will lead us to the success of the brand.
MEDIA MARKETING: What’s the most important experience that you’ve published in this book?
MITJA TUŠKEJ: Certainly the most important and most useful experience is coupled with the fact that there is a very strong correlation between the perception of the brand and its market share. The field of perception is where the biggest mistakes are made in the management of different brands. A hundred times I have met with different management structures that placed their brands by their intuition, by their own vision of the brand, or more precisely by their own perception. We all have to turn towards the outside and realize that there is someone else who knows what our brand is, and who at the end of the day decides where the brand will go and how it will turn out. And that most certainly isn’t the company director or a marketing director, or the entire marketing team, but Mr. Consumer. If we were somehow able before to avoid, or even to direct his behavior towards our brand, today, in the age of full democratization of communication through digital channels, things have turned completely around. Consumers are the ones who create brands! And, of course, they are also the ones who destroy them. In the book I talk about this through positive and negative examples.
MEDIA MARKETING: From your experience: what should be the main concern for those who manage brands today?
MITJA TUŠKEJ: Focus is the most important word. Without absolute focus there is no success today. We must know and understand that we live in a world in which every day each of us experiences information overload. A mass of information comes into our brains at any moment. We’re no longer able to follow everything. Our capacities are simply limited. We have placed a virtual brain into our biological one, which simply rejects the redundant information. What changes too fast has no chance of entering us. What we don’t care about will never enter. Therefore it’s very important what (our) brands are telling us – it has to be clear, brief and for us. The focus is on what a brand is – in our minds, in our perceptual image. And the brand has to repeat it over and over again, so that even those who think more slowly or are not particularly interested in a certain brand, can realize what it is that’s good in us, what it is that connects the brand with consumers.
The biggest problem is that you need a strong matrix focus in the vast metrics in which a brand stands with its values, its personality, its attributes, with all the communication channels, with all the people who work with the brand directly and indirectly, with all the target groups and their personal values, attitudes and other characteristics of lifestyle, and with all the trends that influence the behavior of consumers and change their attitudes, values and, ultimately, their lifestyle, constantly. In this mega metrics, everything is changing and everything is very, very alive. Those who manage brands must find a way to freeze a certain moment in the metrics and to isolate from everything else those essential, tiny, little and hidden things that connect consumers with the brand, and which will continue to connect them to the brand.
MEDIA MARKETING: What are the first reactions of readers who have begun reading your book (or have already read it)?
MITJA TUŠKEJ: The first reactions are excellent. Almost everyone who sent me a comment on the book says they are thrilled with the style and ease of reading. It’s not really a crime novel, but they say that it reads like a novel (laughs). They also say that the design is good, that the typography is excellent and that they like that it was printed in full color :) I’m joking a bit, but the fact is that you can feel the pleasure of those who are reading it and I’ve already received a couple of sincere congratulations.
MEDIA MARKETING: How can we get the Slovenian edition of the book?
MITJA TUŠKEJ:
The book was published by Marketing Magazine, and queries for the book can be sent to their email info@marketingmagazin.si. Another option is to go to the order form via this link.
