Finding the balance between talking about your brand and talking about the needs of your customers is a delicate balance. This simple problem can cause a brand campaign to succeed or fail very easily.

The simplest example is in the business-to-business space, such as printing and packaging. You pay to create a new brand marketing campaign that spells out ALL of your products and services and you make sure they are presented using your most unique selling advantages. You launch the campaign into the selected media mix and sit back to judge the results.

This can become a long wait if all you have done is talked in terms of me, myself, and I.

Here is an example of “me” copy. A plant tour of a swimming pool tile company is sure to draw an underwhelming 10 viewers on YouTube.com. Why? Because it’s boring and filled with unneeded product detail information no one needs or wants. In short, it’s a yawn.

Skip the plant tour. Instead, how about a guy diving into a swimming pool with your tile, colorfully presented throughout the pool, from 500 feet in the air? Suddenly there would be thousands of viewers! This is because many of us can only imagine doing something as daring as jumping from high up in the air into a swimming pool. We would love to try and imagine it more vividly. Same goes with products and how best to market them.

That’s the way smart brands think. They push aside how their stuff is made, how much it weighs, how fast it goes, etc., etc., etc. and instead present what is of real interest to their customers. The mistake that is so easy to make is one of self-indulgence. Innovators don’t make this one often. Rather, they talk about what’s going to create qualified sales leads and then they go about converting them into real sales by pursuing their customer’s most pressing needs. In the end, it’s all about the customer, isn’t it?