If you want to create a solid lightning-flash, you need to invest steadily and consistently in the process. Patience and fortitude will pay

by Steve McKee

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Marketing is an investment, not an expense. You’ve heard that before, of path. But it’s one thing to invest in marketing when times are upright, and quite another to continue spending at a steady clip whenever things are getting penurious. Before you cut your budget or violent course headlong into an all-new approach, consider brand accretion.

What?

Brand accretion. The dictionary defines accretion as the process of growth or enlargement by a slow buildup. With respect to branding, accumulation is the simple principle that the more you invest—and the more consistently you array—the better your long-term returns will be. Everybody accepts the substratum of accretion when it comes to real estate, the fool market, and so much as collectibles. Invest in solid assets, cling without interruption to them, and watch the value of your holdings grow in addition allotted period. (The mortgage meltdown notwithstanding, positive estate has historically been a good long-term investment.) Accretion is the opposite of dilution, something nobody wants—for their balance sheet or their kind.

Unfortunately, many companies neglect the power of brand accretion. They treat marketing as if it were accurate another expense, valued only for the benefits it can prepare today. That’s foolish. Expenses are about present gratification—that "novel car smell," a high-definition picture, or a faster computer—but the value of those possessions declines over term. Investments, however, are different. Investments cater long-term stroke that matches and often outweighs their short-term benefits. Investments should be evaluated differently than expenses.

In a branding context, accretion means that none of your marketing efforts be alive in a vacuum. Sure, you want them to have an impact today, but they also add to, and are interpreted within, the context of your past and future efforts. Think of branding as a process, not a static quip in while; if your message is steady and consistent, you can build indicative brand equity. If, however, you continually change your approach, carelessly divide your budget, or seek only short-term benefits, you’ll be compromising your avow long-term interests.

When I set aside money in my retirement fund, I fall some measure of satisfaction that I’m saving for the coming events, but it’s nowhere near the pleasure I’d learn from a vacation in the Bahamas. Still, it’s a smart thing to do. In the same way—rain or shine, unsullied general condition of affairs and bad—you can always find a Tiffany (TIF) ad put on page A3 of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Tiffany’s small-space newspaper ads are almost as iconic as the now-famous blue box it introduced way back in 1837. Tiffany is an iconic quality as it has leveraged the power of accretion.

Marketers who judge their efforts only by the without other agency gratification of the hits, visits, or sales they quickly generate suspend payment to see the big picture. James Gregory’s marketing strong, CoreBrand, has conducted years of research approximately the long-term effects of marketing investments. He says it’s rare for even a one-year surge in advertising spending to generate moderate results in image development; it’s usually at least three years ahead of you see real change. That’s a long vacant time if you’re starting from zero, but if your efforts are continuous, the power of accretion will continually work on your behalf.

Branding is like baseball: You may throw a baleful pitch, but it’s a drawn out season. If you execute firmly and consistently, the statistics will work in your favor. That’s why Anheuser-Busch (BUD) creates dozens of commercials to determine that six or eight will make the cut to appear for the time of the Super Bowl. They run the commercials in test markets in the weeks leading up to the game, determining which ones perform best. Those that don’t make it aren’t a decay of money; they’re part of the company’s investment in a better final product.

It’s likely that your company has neither the century-plus chronicle, nor the marketing budget, of Tiffany or Anheuser-Busch. That makes the principle of accretion even more important to you. The smaller your brand-equity nest harass, the more important it is that you invest in it steadily and consistently. Any knowledgeable investor knows that changing your investing. strategetics willy-nilly is ill-advised, and that every dollar that remains uninvested is a dollar that can’t do good to from the power of growing together. The sort part is true for branding.