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“Light Force.” It’s a strange combination of ideas, isn’t it? How can a force be soft? And yet, soft power can be associated with the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Arab Spring, and the appeal that the United States has for many people around the world. For a company, soft power lies in its brand. That illusory, intangible something that leads people to buy a product or service more than the alternatives.

In the late 1980s, Joseph S. Nye Jr. developed the concept of “soft power” in international relations to explain how the United States can still dominate the world despite the apparent decline in military power. Nye contrasted soft power and hard power, defining soft power as “the ability to influence others through attraction and conviction rather than just coercion and payment.” As described by Nye, soft power stems from a country’s culture and values ​​rather than from its political system, although the term was indistinguishable from the promotion of democracy by the United States and Western European countries. In the face of global challenges to democracy, soft power is no longer in the limelight, and today most of the world has turned its attention again to the exercise of the hard power of economic and military power.

For anyone in marketing, the similarity to brand strength should be obvious. Brands use both hard and soft force to build market share. Hard power comes in the form of significant innovation in products and customer service, in control of the distribution system, and in the leverage the company has on retailers and resellers. A patent is a form of hard power because it is a means of preventing other companies from copying an asset. This is why tech companies often acquire a company just to get access to its patent portfolio. In contrast, soft power is the ability of a company to generate demand, make people want to use the product or service, seek it and, most importantly, be willing to pay the asking price. An online video has little compulsion, although many advertisers are mistaken, but it has the power to generate, influence, and attract ideas.

What fascinates me about the concept of soft power in international relations is that the idea has been misunderstood and misinterpreted just as people misunderstand and misinterpret how brands contribute to generating sales. An article by Eric Li in Foreign Policy summarizes the rise and fall of soft power, and it struck me that there are clear parallels with shifting budgets from branding to innovation and sales activation.

Firstand the most important parallel is that soft power cannot exist in isolation from hard power. As Li notes in his article on foreign policy,

“In reality, soft power is and will remain an extension of hard power. Imagine if the United States had become poor, destitute, and weak like many of the new democracies around the world, but had retained its liberal values ​​and institutions. Few other countries would want to continue to be like that. “

The same goes for brands. There cannot be a strong brand without a strong business model and a good product. It’s not for nothing that Apple is one of the most valuable brands in the world. The iPhone set the standard for a smartphone from the start, and while we can argue about whether the actual product is worth a third more than the technically equivalent OnePlus phone today, there is no doubt that the iPhone remains the standout choice Smartphone in the minds of many. However, that strength wouldn’t last long if the iPhone 12 had flaws that couldn’t be fixed, if Apple’s supply chain repeatedly collapsed, or if an upstart really caused an iPhone killer and Apple didn’t respond. A strong brand will buy some forgiveness from customers, but only so much.

One consequence of the fact that soft power comes from hard power is that it doesn’t provide enough power to accomplish a goal of its own. For two decades, the idea of ​​democracy – perhaps in the context of the American Dream – led people around the world to overthrow authoritarian governments to seek freedom and the right to decide their own futures. However, as Li notes, soft power has not stopped North Korea from developing its nuclear missiles or Iran to stand up to US pressure, and China has proven that trade embargoes are a one-way street that only brings chaos to affected individuals and companies. When a leader chooses hard power and has the strength to do so, he trumps soft power, just as the iPhone trumps Nokia and Blackberry.

SecondSoft power does not come from governments, although their actions can add to or detract from it. Nye goes to some lengths to claim that soft power is driven less by government than by a country’s cultures and values. And in an abstract nye it says: “Propaganda is not credible and therefore does not attract.” Soft power requires talking, but it depends not only on the actions of a government, but also on those of the people, institutions and culture. The same goes for brands. Everything a company does builds its brand, good or bad. A company’s actions shape what potential customers experience and how they interpret that experience (and in this context I am using experience in its broadest sense). Just as a carefully crafted ad says something about a brand, so does the stultified, voice-activated customer calling system say, “Your call is a burden on us, so we will minimize the time and expense involved in solving your problem.”

thirdIn his book Soft Power: The Means of Success in World Politics, Nye admits that soft power is not simply aimed at achieving certain goals, but rather creates the conditions for certain political goals to be achieved more easily. From a brand perspective, this is the eternal battle between investing in branding and activating sales. A strong brand creates the conditions where sales activation works harder than usual as people tend to choose the brand which makes them more likely to click a link, visit a store, or abandon their search. The brand can be said to be more attractive than others, but it is impossible to ensure that any particular person will buy the brand. There are just too many variables in the buying process that can lead someone to choose a brand they have never heard of before. A strong brand increases the likelihood of purchase, but does not guarantee it.

What do you think of this comparison? Let me know what you think.

Contribution to Branding Strategy Insider by: Nigel Hollis, author of The Global Brand

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