The Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick debunked the belief that heavy marketing investment alone could override resistance from consumers. Speaking at the inaugural Global Brand Forum last month, Roddick said consumers had replaced governments as a vigilante of corporate behaviour and that companies which ignored the power of consumers to punish them did so at their own peril.
Marketers must realise that their message was becoming increasingly ineffective because consumers "are fed- up with the sense that they are constantly being manipulated", she said.
Scott Bredbury, former chief marketing strategist for Nike and Starbucks, echoed the sentiment, urging companies to prepare for the "triple bottomline" - focusing not just on financial performance but their impact on the environment and the community. Bredbury said most brands lacked substance these days.
"If a brand doesn't stand for something, it stands for nothing."
The forum's organisers - Ogilvy & Mather Singapore and International Enterprise Singapore have signed up former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, film director Francis Ford Coppola, and Warren Bennis, chairman of the Leadership Institute, as speakers for the next forum, scheduled for August 16 and 17.