Every Marketer wants raving fans. The kind of customers that go out of the way to extol the benefits and values of their product. The ones who actively engage in social media and are driving forces of viral campaigns. When you look at the brands that have such a fanatical base of customers (think Apple, Honda, Nike…) its clear that these brands pay off their marketing message with a product that meets or even surpasses expectations.

Marketing will always fail when that brand promise presented in its marketing is not backed up in the product. Tiger Woods is giving us a real-time example of what happens when the seedy truth beneath a squeaky clean image comes out. The Tiger Woods brand has taken a massive drubbing in the last month. Suddenly what you see in the Nike, Tag Heuer, and GatorAid ads is not what these brands bargained for.

All marketers need to keep this in mind when making promises. The Rogers and Bell in Canada have recently been forced to stop making “most reliable” and ” fastest” network claims. No wonder the population cheered when Wind Mobile was allowed to enter the market. No one believed them anyway! Pharma marketers also need to remember this. Perhaps the worst culprits of the “say anything” approach to marketing has made them one of the least trusted of all industries.

Marketing is about your target – but you can’t forget about the product. You need to know what it is, and really understand how it benefits your target. Otherwise your marketing turns into hollow lip service, and the fact that your customers are all connected through social media means news of overblown, unsubstantiated marketing will spread rapidly. The negative feeling of a purchase decision where the product isn’t what you expected make for great status updates.

Know thy customer. Know thy product. And make sure the product pays off everything you’ve been saying.