Everything is different now.
I don’t have to tell you.
Within the course of a few short years the entire goal of marketing has moved from projecting a message about something to eliciting a conversation around it.
And as if that wasn’t enough, consumers have never been so attuned, nor had so much access to the kinds of information that reveal a brand’s true intentions. To the point where considering a company’s motives and morals has become an important part of the purchase process.
Still. In the midst of all this truly revolutionary change, the core definition of a brand has remained relatively constant. Which would be fine and well and really not that big of a deal except for something that I, for one, happen to think is incredibly important. If advertising is ever to find its role as a force for positive change in the world, we have to look a little closer at the most pervasive manifestation of marketing – the brand.
Do a Google search. Read any marketing book. Ask a brand manager. Wiki it. You’ll likely get the same definition. A brand is a company or product’s image in the marketplace. It occupies a space in the minds of consumers. In other words, brands, by the default definition I grew up on, are reflections of a target consumer’s rational needs and emotional wants.
But lately I’ve been wondering.
What if having their own thoughts and ideas confirmed isn’t what truly engages and inspires people? What if simply telling them what they want to hear isn’t branding at all, but pandering. Disingenuous, if not outright deceptive. At a time when we’re asking people to interact with brands as if they were people, we’re still creating them as masks and foils and ways of filtering information.
So. Not to get all philosophical on you, but I’d argue that we’ve been looking at brands completely backwards. It’s time to recognize that the keys to honest customer relationships are found in the values and aspirations of the organization itself – not the preferences and opinions formed in focus groups. The most effective and responsible brands, those that are truly durable, profitable and sustainable are not concoctions of copywriters or brand strategists. They are simply honest reflections of forward thinking companies.
So how do we, as marketers, get our clients to recognize that they can no longer afford to have a brand, they have to be one?
First and foremost, brand development has to move beyond the exclusive domain of the marketing department. Great brands are born in the boardroom. The lunchroom. Conceived in R&D, they roll through assembly lines and embody the aspirations and higher ideals of the sales team, the CEO and the receptionist. In nearly every case, they reflect a culture of innovation and a commitment to a purpose – a cause that goes beyond just making money to making people’s lives, and perhaps the world at large, at least a little bit better.
Article 1: Brand Existentialism
Everything is different now.
I don’t have to tell you.
Within the course of a few short years the entire goal of marketing has moved from projecting a message about something to eliciting a conversation around it.
And as if that wasn’t enough, consumers have never been so attuned, nor had so much access to the kinds of information that reveal a brand’s true intentions. To the point where considering a company’s motives and morals has become an important part of the purchase process.
Still. In the midst of all this truly revolutionary change, the core definition of a brand has remained relatively constant. Which would be fine and well and really not that big of a deal except for something that I, for one, happen to think is incredibly important. If advertising is ever to find its role as a force for positive change in the world, we have to look a little closer at the most pervasive manifestation of marketing – the brand.
Do a Google search. Read any marketing book. Ask a brand manager. Wiki it. You’ll likely get the same definition. A brand is a company or product’s image in the marketplace. It occupies a space in the minds of consumers. In other words, brands, by the default definition I grew up on, are reflections of a target consumer’s rational needs and emotional wants.
But lately I’ve been wondering.
What if having their own thoughts and ideas confirmed isn’t what truly engages and inspires people? What if simply telling them what they want to hear isn’t branding at all, but pandering. Disingenuous, if not outright deceptive. At a time when we’re asking people to interact with brands as if they were people, we’re still creating them as masks and foils and ways of filtering information.
So. Not to get all philosophical on you, but I’d argue that we’ve been looking at brands completely backwards. It’s time to recognize that the keys to honest customer relationships are found in the values and aspirations of the organization itself – not the preferences and opinions formed in focus groups. The most effective and responsible brands, those that are truly durable, profitable and sustainable are not concoctions of copywriters or brand strategists. They are simply honest reflections of forward thinking companies.
So how do we, as marketers, get our clients to recognize that they can no longer afford to have a brand, they have to be one?
First and foremost, brand development has to move beyond the exclusive domain of the marketing department. Great brands are born in the boardroom. The lunchroom. Conceived in R&D, they roll through assembly lines and embody the aspirations and higher ideals of the sales team, the CEO and the receptionist. In nearly every case, they reflect a culture of innovation and a commitment to a purpose – a cause that goes beyond just making money to making people’s lives, and perhaps the world at large, at least a little bit better.