Can a Brand Survive on Marketing Alone?

No marketing can make customers care about a brand that stands for nothing.

Did you know Mercury automobiles were supposed to offer “entry-level luxury”? Did you even know Mercury is out of business. Parent company Ford canceled it due to lack of interest. One could say that Mercury was a victim of the great recession. But that goes too easy on a brand that stopped being relevant decades ago. As a marketer and a car guy, I have long been fascinated with the very existence of Mercury. It seemed to be a company that lived on pure marketing will—a sales organization unladen with the cares of actually developing interesting products.

Mercuries were Fords in different clothing (or no clothes, take your pick). Every Mercury had a Ford counterpart that was mechanically identical. “Badge Engineering” is common. Almost every automaker does it. But none did it more flagrantly, and without clear purpose, as Ford/Mercury. One had to look hard to spot the differences—mostly in sheet metal adornments and surface materials.

The only real difference between the lines (that I could see) was marketing. Ford never broadcast to the public that they were identical cars. Rather, it sold Mercury as, well, I don’t know. That’s the problem. Mercury rolled out lots of well produced campaigns. They usually reflected a good understanding of some target customer and the tactics always seemed spot on. The only problem was they never had anything to say and they cast about for the right person that cared. The products themselves had no clear reason to be—no origin story or mission. The Mercury that existed during the 2008 economic meltdown was a vestige of time when American automakers cynically tried to capture more customers by spreading the same vehicles across multiple dealer lots. So maybe it’s no tragedy to see it go since it was never meant to stand on its own to begin with.

Can a product sell without differentiation? Can a brand be differentiated on marketing alone? I think the answer to both is “no,” as Mercury demonstrates. The best marketing tactics in the world can’t replace a good story about a purpose-built product. Without that story, we’re just shouting; an exhausting and unsustainable way to gain customers. You can almost perceive that tone of exhaustion if you try to shop the Mercury Mariner at Mercury.com. It reads, “Although the Mercury Mariner has been phased out, have you considered a Ford Escape?.” There. At long last they can say it. It’s the same car. Doesn’t it feel good to get it out? Good for Ford. Now they can focus more energy on, first, filling a need, and second, sharing the good news with focused marketing.

P.S. I know. Ford is not alone. GM is probably the the worst of them all. They hung on to Pontiac and Oldsmobile too long. GMC and Chevy are still hard to tell apart. Badge brands are part of the business. They come and go.