The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

UBR stands for Universal Buying Reason and there’s a lot of people seemingly wetting their pants over it. In essence, UBR is when a brand owns a position within a category that arguably, anyone within that category could have had, but they were first or the most consistent or invested in making it their or were simply, the biggest spenders behind it.

If you’re thinking this is not exactly new, you’d be right … but many people seem to be more obsessed with being associated with new terminologies or methodologies than actually making stuff that pushes brands and business to new places.

That’s why UBR feels like the next terminology trope in a long line of terminology tropes …

Brand Assets.
Brand Eco-Systems.
Global Human Truths.

Overly simplicitic labels that promote conformity under the guise of effectiveness or efficiency.

[And yes, I know Dan Wieden used to talk about Global Human Truths … and as I told him, he was wrong. Because while all Mum’s may love their kids, a Mum in Wuhan shows it in very different ways than a Mum in Washington, and to ignore that nuance is to ignore truth for convenience and complicity. And as anyone worth their salt will tell you, often it’s the nuance that is the difference between doing things for people or about them]

Of course, like all trope trends, there’s some value in what is being said about UBR – after all, its hardly a new concept given countless brands and categories have used this approach for literally decades, from alcohol to jewellery.

But what some of the people pushing UBR are seemingly forgetting – or not understanding – is that even at the most functional level of category marketing, it requires depth and consideration to fully release its potential … and frankly the lack of discussion about that highlights the industries obsession with providing clients with easy answers/solutions rather than encouraging/pushing/provoking them to appreciate the rewards [and shareholder benefit, let alone expectation] of putting in the hard work to identify how they can consistently build their value, role and position.

What scares me most is that some of the people ‘fluffing UBR’ – but thankfully not all – are in jobs where they’re paid to help clients with their business … and yet they talk in incredibly generalistic and simplistic terms about something that has context and complexity.

Where the hell is their objectivity?
Where is the understanding?
Where is the nuance?

It all feels like a desperate play to be seen as an industry thought leader, where the goal is to highjack whatever seems to be getting industry traction and then aligning themselves to it.

What’s worse is we’ve seen how this approach works as more and more people value and aspire speed and status over substance and experience … and I don’t really care that makes me sound old, because it actually has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with valuing what our industry can do when we do it with craft, understanding and ambition.

What sums it all up [for me] is how one of the brands the UBR advocates bang on about is Tesco’s.

I get why, because on face value, Tesco’s is a supermarket like every other supermarket.

But …

All it takes is a quick look at Tesco’s history – from their foundation in 1919 through to the many acts and actions they’ve embraced and led over 100 years, from the ‘computers for schools’ program to challenging EU law to give their customers access to products at the same price as their European cousins and a million things in-between – and they’d see the ‘Every Little Helps’ position is not something ‘anyone’ could say, but something far more specific to them specifically … something they’ve continually reinforced and invested in through retail, customer and cultural innovation as opposed to just the repetition of a category trope.

It’s yet another example of people needing to know their history before they can claim they’re creators of it.

Or – said another way – why clients and the industry at large, need to get back to valuing those who have DONE and DO shit, rather than just talk it … regardless how popular or well-meaning they may be.

[OK, ‘talking shit’ is harsh, but it sounded good in that sentence, so forgive me]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for pushing knowledge and possibilities, I’m just not for people putting lipstick on a dead sheep and calling it Ms World.

And don’t get me started on how many of these people are ultimately downplaying someone else’s creative excellence to make it all about them.