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“I don’t think brand as “broadcaster” is going away anytime soon, but I do think the exciting challenge which lies ahead of us is to figure out what tactics actually work in the “brand as facilitator” category” -David Armano. WHAT IS A BRAND WORTH? This was a question that was inevitably sparked by my one-on-one chat with my infinitely wise friend Carl Gucciardi about Freemium Marketing. Upon moving the conversation to Twitter this back and forth arose between myself and @AdInfinitum:
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AdInfinitum: @db What stops fans from DLing the concerts illegally, just like the albums? Also, what about livestreaming (video) every concert for a fee?1 day ago ? Reply ? View Tweet
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db: @AdInfinitum There’s no particular 1 answer for all businesses. It’s a combo of free & exclusive. A new way of looking at the issue4 minutes later ? Reply ? View Tweet
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AdInfinitum: @db I know, and I totally agree. Just throwing out some relevant questions that were sparked by your post. Good stuff. ;-)6 minutes later ? Reply ? View Tweet
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db: @AdInfinitum That’s the whole pt- to get the conversation moving forward about how bizs view their product/customers. Its a brand new world3 minutes later ? Reply ? View Tweet
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AdInfinitum: @db …and that’s a pretty decent tagline to encompass the shifting models: ‘It’s a BRAND new world’. =]
That’s exactly it. It’s a BRAND new world. When you take the time to actually look at the word brand it takes on a multitude of meaning:
| brand | |
| noun | |
| 1. | a name given to a product or service?[syn: trade name] |
| 2. | a recognizable kind; “there’s a new brand of hero in the movies now”; “what make of car is that?” |
| 3. | identification mark on skin, made by burning |
Homonyms are meant to disrupt your thought process. There are multiple meanings to certain words for a reason.
WHERE DO WE START?
The meaning of a brand has come to encompass more than just a logo and a tagline, as we are all aware of by now. Yes, a brand has a multiplatformed approach to speaking with customers (notice i say speaking WITH customers and not TO customers). Most poignantly, the definition that most companies would benefit from would be “a recognizable kind” or “a type of” as in “what brand of tissue is that?”. I distinctify this specific example for two reasons.
Protecting your corporate image is all well and good, but in today’s society where “beauty” is in the eye of the beholder all we can do is present ourselves in the greatest possible light according to our own standards. After we put our image out in to the world it is up for the receiver to decipher it. This is why we can not see our own faces. People are a mirror of ourselves. We can only truly define ourselves against their perception of us. This goes back to my point of presenting your brand as a “type”.
When you do not truly hard line define what you are, you leave room for others to help define you. This is the truest meaning of a reciprocal brand. When you define your meaning of brand as being a “type” you give yourself the largest category to fit in and move within. The more room there is to move, the more nimble and adaptable your company can be. This speaks to the saying that when a mighty wind blows the weeping willow sways with the gusts but the mighty oak breaks under pressure. Think of the mighty wind as the groundswell you may receive from your audience at any unpredictable moment. You can not forsee when something will happen. You can only look for general possible indicators that *may* lead you to where you should go. I say *may* because the future is unpredictable. If it wasn’t we would all be rich banking off of the stock markets’ ups and downs.
There also may come a point in the life of your brand where it transcends being just about your company and moves into being about your industry. The audience decides this when and if they find you ubiquitous enough. I specifically used the example of tissue to drive home a point. In the real estate of my mind, Kleenex was the first brand to truly transcend typical brand status, going from being a product or company name to being THE name for the afformentioned product. I wouldnt even be able to tell you how many times the word ‘Kleenex’ has been transposed for the word ’tissue’ in my life. This example can also be seen with such luminaries as Jello, Jeep, Q-tips, and Band-aid amongst others.
WHICH PATH TO TAKE?
At this point of ascension it takes a true visionary to climb out of the fear-box of wanting to define your product by the four walls it’s contained in and embrace what people are telling you. The people WANT your “brand” so much that they have actually given YOU the place in their mind’s real estate as THE product to go to. They have essentially wiped out any other mention of a competitor because your name has become the default. This is the ULTIMATE honor as you have now won their hearts and minds. This is the goal- to “brand” them. Once you have done this their money is as good as yours. And eventually that is the bottom line- to make money.
One caveat: a company shouldn’t be about making money at any cost possible; it should be about making money at your best cost possible. Keeping an open dialogue by giving your audience space to help you define your existence within their lives empowers them to elevate you to greatness. Remember, they WANT to believe in you. People NEED to believe in something. Let them be your evangelist by giving them some breathing room. In Whatever X.0, it’s all about going with the flow. Of course, there should be a set plan with a goal in mind for the life of something, but that plan should look more like a queue and not like a line. That goal should be well defined but not so cut in stone and rigid that when your path takes a different turn you can’t maneuver the vehicle towards the new destination.
WHAT LIES AHEAD?
My good friend- and someone definitely to watch- Danielle (@ecoblips) shared with me the most perfect salient example of a strong brand morphing with their audience. She recounted to me how when ‘The L Word’ started out it had a character arc driven storyline. Eventually down the road they released ‘The Chart’ which is essentially a social-networking platform to connect all of the women in the main characters’ lives who have slept together. Extremely ahead of their time, they released ‘TheChart’ onto the internet, much as Danielle had predicted. To many people’s surprise, the audience caught on to this engagement and ran with it. Upon seeing this ‘The L Word’ communicated back with their audience asking them to create characters, plots, events and so on, to be decided upon to air on their show. This created such a huge response that they started to air the shows that their audience created. Realizing that they still had a product that they had to keep relevent (The Chart) they now had to tie-in each new character to the vast web of the show’s existence. Suffice it to say it became plot-driven and to some it felt forced. Having to now cater to their new enhanced content-creator crowd, the show itself created more content to be sold online, or in Danielle’s words, femmi-lezzie gear.
Where did this leave them in the end? Currently as we speak, they are dynamically engaging their audience in a completely different way. To me, they are the first show to change consciously with their audience based on the action-reaction paradigm. They are now running with an overtly-commercialized, semi-parody version of itself, turning it into something like the voyeuristic reality ‘E True Hollywood Stories’ series, where one of the main characters dies. To pull this off they present the episodes from a flash-back point of view. They even have a Twitter account @whokilledjenny where one can post to specifically from their website and watch the live twitter feed [as of 1/16/9- launch date of new season- The L-Word's Twitter account is only following one person, @SHOchris, who is an infrequent user himself]. With this new final season they have created a? campaign that speaks to their very targeted niche demographic. And the best thing is that they are COMPLETELY in on the “joke”. Just like Paris Hilton is.
WHERE IS THE FINISHLINE?
That’s the true mark of a brilliant brand- to be able to feel out the indicators when they present themselves and turn on a dime to reposition oneself. We as human beings are constantly changing on all levels. We are not the same people we were 3 years ago, 3 days ago, 3 minutes ago, 3 seconds ago. Our skin is constantly shedding. As a brand you must be able to shed your skin in order to acclimatize yourself to your new surroundings. What does this all mean for you? Pay attention to the “road” signs. They’ll tell you where to go. A brand’s life-story is can be equated to a race; navigated properly it will be run like a cross-country marathon, with different paces on different stretches at different times; navigated cavalierly it will be run like a sprint, quickly straight on to the end in the blink of an eye.
Ask the questions along with them. The answers will present themselves when the time is right.
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Great article, Damien. I’m passing this one on to my dad, it speaks directly to the conversations we have been having this week about re branding his ministry. Thank you.
Wow. Just. Wow. I forced myself to read all of that at once instead of giving into my ADHD… and I am glad I read it. So, to get this straight, Branding ends when you are an adequate mix of management on your end and positioning on the end of the consumers?
Damien,
Phil Dusenberry, once chairman of BBDO Worldwide might have defined it best:
“Brand is the relationship between a product and its customer.”
As such you are right in that the best brands are those that are more fluid than rigid.
All my best,
Rich
Richard Beckler’s last blog post..Saying Nothing: Why Leadership Needs To Engage
@warplayer I’m glad I was able to shed more light on such a prevalent subject for you and your father. That’s really the only thing that matters to me- if by what I do I affect change in one’s life. There is no metric to grading value. As far as I’m concerned the only metric to grading value I need is word of mouth feedback directly from my audience, which is where many businesses should strive to improve their performance in.
@Jacobsummers Thanks for taming your desire to not concentrate. ;D
As far as your question “Branding ends when you are an adequate mix of management on your end and positioning on the end of the consumers?” to me, yes, a brand should have a proper management team that dynamically engages in a dialogue with their audience, and YES, positioning engages with the “consumer” but branding doesn’t end anywhere.
Branding is a feedback loop or infinity if you will. The brand does have a definite start as it has to be created out of somewhere- your mind- but even that is deceptive because your creation of the brand and it’s presentation is shaped by a myriad of views imparted on you FROM the rest of society or your audience. Much like life, a brand has always existed in some form or another.
Take it to a different avenue: say for instance you apply this to yourself as being the brand. Well, even before you were born, you were an idea from your parents with their preconceptions about what their child would be like. You can keep going in an endless cycle following that train of thought but I digress.
What my whole point is is that a “brand” is an open dialogue constantly being affected and modified by internal/external factors. Nothing exists in a bubble. It’s not up to us to TELL others what we are but to ASK others what they believe us to be. This empowers them to personalize your “brand” to their individual situation. I hope that helped clarify somewhat Jacob.
@RichBecker Thank you for the Phil Dusenberry quote. There’s a reason why he once ran a global powerhouse and leader in brand dissemination such as BBDO. I must look into him further, as far as his quotes are concerned. He sounds like a very learned man. Thank you.
This is deep then, my friend. Recently read a novel about how humans would, in their ultimate evolution, have hit a stage where their entire form would be decided by the perspectives of those around them. Science Fiction stuff, sure… but it applies here, too. Its interesting to think that no matter what I put out there, it continues to be defined by others. I am a little bit uncomfortable with that, but will continue to work on it.
Great post, really like the way you write. Think branding does have an end; when it fails, when the relationship between the brand and the customers stops, when the brand is neglected, when the story isn’t being told or when the story being told no longer means anything to the audience. But on the other hand even when a brand fails, when it no longer exists, if it was good when it was alive, it will remain in the minds of it’s followers and maybe is reborn, resurrected for another generation to enjoy. Nostalgic, cult brands have this kind of regeneration.
Fluidity, as you say, is important to maintaining the brand. Consistency is also important for gaining trust and for strengthening positioning. Think it takes a balance in the management teams to achieve this.
Thanks for an engaging read
Lindsay Davies’s last blog post..lindsaydavies: Got to love Nando’s Hot Peri Peri Sauce for setting your mouth on fire
I really see what you mean by feedback being the driving force of the brand.
I think one of our road blocks has been figuring out exactly who our content will speak to. You have to be able to recognize who your audience is exactly before you can cater to them.
Random thought: Another thing I’ve noticed about certain brands is that sometimes for seemingly no reason a brand will cease to be relevant. What makes a consumer just wake up one day and forget that they loved xxx brand the day before? I think of this as sort of a brand “fatigue,” almost as if one hears about the brand so much that at one point he/she stops listening.
Also, some brands have life well beyond their product. Take, for example, the Delorean. Whoever decided to include the auto in Back To The Future may have been a fan of the design (which is a hallmark of the brand), and by having it in the movie it survives the actual product which stopped being manufactured years ago. I guarantee you my kids will know who John DeLorean is, because I will have still had the passion to tell them about that car so many years after. This nostalgia lasts in many things – breakfast cereals, clothing, etc.
I find I more often stick with a particular brand not because of what I think that brand says about me, but because I know what I’m getting with that brand. The bigger the investment, the more difficult it is for a competing brand to pull me away from my stable of trusted favorites.
Very interesting and provides me with a lot to think about.
I have been battling with how we brand ourselves in the business we’re in … as it’s something so many companies are doing as well. Trying to create a brand to differentiate ourselves from the pack is a huge challenge.
This all takes time.
Eric Buckley’s last blog post..Help Us Build a Social Network
Beautifully articulated post, as always. It may be semantics, but I would append it by saying that a brand should never “reposition itself on a dime.” Change is brand suicide, and re-positioning leads to dilution and disconnect. Trust and credibility is built through an unwavering consistency/commitment to the brand position/promise.
That said, a brand should absolutely evolve with the market and be able to extend its attributes into other areas, but it should always remain true to its core position and promise.
If Showtime’s brand position is to deliver entertainment, it can merely expand upon that through new media vehicles [as it is doing with its live Twitter feed and other web-enabled features designed to more meaningfully connect viewers with that entertainment]. It is then still delivering entertainment, merely in another format.
But it would be problematic for Showtime to all of a sudden try to brand themselves as a high tech/web 2.0 company in addition to an entertainment provider. Entertainment in and of itself is not limited to any one medium, so Showtime can deliver TV entertainment, web entertainment, mobile entertainment, and so on. That core position remains unchanged regardless of delivery mechanism.
A brand must have a unified, singular voice that carries through all communications and touch points — visually, textually, online, offline, etc. It’s important for brand strategists and marketers to realize that a brand is a living, breathing compilation of traits that connect with users and evoke emotion, so special care must be taken in maintaining the integrity of that union.
If a brand strategy has been well planned and executed, however, growth is built into it. Despite the many shifts in the market, Coca Cola, for example, still stands for the same things today as it did in the early 1900s — the experience of the soft drink vs. the soft drink itself. The only difference is that instead of that experience happening in front of the Ed Sullivan Show on a black & white television set, it now happens in front of a laptop.
Their recent holiday promotion with Walmart illustrates this perfectly where they feature a young man (within their core demographic) getting ready for a holiday party (experience) and singing about all of the modern, relatable entities that touch his life (email, Facebook, MySpace — even Twitter). It was personal, relevant, evocative and emotional, and it didn’t stray from the core brand position at all. It just delivered the message differently.
When all is said and done, it’s not so much brands changing as it is the market and audience behavior/consumption that’s changing, and brands simply need to reach, relate and connect with their audience in new, more meaningful ways and through more compelling vehicles. By doing so, they are able to build relationships as a [welcome,] established brand vs. an unrecognizable one. But whatever the execution, it’s a tactical shift, not a strategic one.
Thanks for sparking an excellent — and much needed — brand discussion.
Gennefer Snowfield’s last blog post..Tenets before Traffic: When it Comes to Digital Branding, Focus on the Basics
Great article about branding. I have to agree with Gennifer on how a brand should never “reposition itself on a dime.”
Loved the Paris Hilton crack! ;)
OneLuvGurl’s last blog post..Report Card Comments
Will people ever become immune to branding? In a society where we are constantly bombarded by brands, at what point do we stop paying attention to any of them? Even if they do change consistently? Is that something to be concerned about? Will we always be concerned with the next new shiny object? Not any time soon I suspect, but I feel it fading slightly. Perhaps it is only within my circle, yet still raging in the gen-pop. Does branding exist in communist societies? I think it does with these same principals. I don’t like thinking of myself as a brand. It feels too artificial, but I am, and it appears to be fundamental to thriving in society in many ways. Thanks.. I’m going to think about this some more….
Damien, I’m going to have to print this out & give it some thought. You present a lot of ideas that I’d like to think about before responding to.
Serves you right for writing such a thoughtful blog entry!
Excellent post…
I think it’s important to note that the ‘brand evolution’ rate is seemingly speeding up in the midst of these forming real-time exchange mediums. As such, a brand’s identity is taking on a level of relative flexibility which mirrors a singular human ‘identity’ more and more. The feedback loop is becoming an almost instantaneous exchange, which offers greater agility and honesty in return…
Hmm. Yet more to think about. ;-)
…D
Dan Dashnaw’s last blog post..Shooting Your Own Video? We Can Help.
There’s a lot here, Damien. You’ve given me and your readers a great deal to think about, which is always the sign of a good post.
Two things you mentioned in your post that caught my attention — control and flexibility. Both are relevant to my experience as an employee at a big brand (Sprint) and also to the majority of corporate America stories and case studies I’ve heard.
It’s a mistake for companies to think they can dictate the brand to employees and customers. Sure, they can start the conversation, but I agree with you that the brand is evolving. IMO, it’s almost egotistical and definitely a control issue to tell someone “This is what our brand stands for.” Shouldn’t we instead be saying “This is what our brand means to me. What does it mean to you?”
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on that. Among other things, giving up control makes people feel like they have some ownership of the brand, which will always make them more loyal.
And flexibility. Love this line from your post: “That’s the true mark of a brilliant brand- to be able to feel out the indicators when they present themselves and turn on a dime to reposition oneself.”
You’re point is right on, and yet very few corporations are able to change as quickly as they need to. In fact, some never change at all. So my question is: What’s the key to being able to “turn your brand on a dime?”
And, can you think of a company that historically had problems with change but has embraced the need to be flexible? I know that’s a goal of ours at Sprint, but we do have cultural obstacles to overcome.
Justin Goldsborough’s last blog post..Product Ambassadors blog helps solve customer issue immediately
@Justin Goldsborough – After reading your comment, I must once again reiterate that ‘repositioning a brand on a dime’ is antithetical to the art of branding and in direct opposition to a brand strategy in which the ‘flexibility’ you speak of should be built in. It is not a brand that needs to re-position itself as it is exemplifying those traits in new and more relevant ways in an ever-changing market. Anyone worth their salt in branding should develop a position that can extend itself in any format. The medium does not dictate the brand; the emotions evoked in its customers do. A brand is a personification of traits and qualities that connect wth the customer, and that connection translates across mediums. And in that respect, it is always growing and evolving, adding depth and character through each touch point and experience. But throughout that process, the brand’s core position, the qualities it represents and emotions it elicits in its users is enhanced, but never changed.
Gennefer Snowfield’s last blog post..Tenets before Traffic: When it Comes to Digital Branding, Focus on the Basics
@Lindsay
I do agree with you that there may be a definite end to the brand as product/company at some point eventually in it’s life cycle it must. In the grander sense of the word brand, the brand continues to live on in one way or another. From existing inside a person to existing outside as cultural influences on other things, a brand, and anything for that matter, has innumerable effects on the beholders once it is put into motion. We can never really tell how minutely and precisely its effect has affected on the aforementioned let alone how far and wide its reach is. All we can truly know that once something comes into contact with another it has an effect that changes the first. This is the action/reaction, cause/effect loop. Once something affects another, the other affects it back and on and on and on like an infinity mirror. My point :A brand’s reach is really immeasurable. Sure, someone can give you charts and graphs and metrics telling me how well X product is doing in Y market, but what it CAN NOT tell me is how that little pebble’s ripples have affected the surface and depth of the lake.
@warplayer
Here’s a random thought for YOU: Reece’s Piece’s were ONLY created when the film ET could not get the rights to use M & M’s in the movie. Now THAT is a palpable effect. It may not be epic to you, but think about how it is possible that Reece’s Piece’s may have changed somebody’s life pivotally somehow. My example speaks to the heart of how other companies/products can be effected to the point of creation. Effect multiplies exponentially.
@g
And the investment generally has very little to do with money at that point. People feel the need to define themselves by things, objects, otherness, so they invest themselves in a vision and an idea, a feeling that resonates with them and how they choose to define themselves. Also realize that over time people change due to the MANY things that affect them exponentially on a moment to moment basis. Last year’s trusted favorite may not be this year’s not only because IT has changed but because YOU have changed. To me it’s a little bit like Daylight Savings Time- all of these little seconds “add up” to give us an extra/one less hour when in all actuality each moment is just going by on its own. There is no saving up. Its all a misperception. Humans like to compartmentalize things into neat little packages that are easily orderable. Point being, you AND the brand are constantly changing on your own BECAUSE and IN SPITE OF surroundings. It’s one endless flow that defies constructs and constraints.
@Gennefer
I have to respectfully disagree with you here. Change is not brand suicide. Staying the same is. Or it isn’t. All of that is not relevant. What is relevant is how a brand is communicating with their audience. If the audience is telling them they want them change on a dime and the brand is actually respecting the open and honest dialogue then it would behoove them to do so. On the other hand, if your audience tells you that it’s not broke don’t fix it, then don’t. Brand “suicide” in this case would be ignoring the communication feedback loop. Taking THAT into consideration, that is also a valid feedback loop- a negative feedback loop, which also serves a purpose. There is an ebb and flow to life. Minutes causal interactions irrevocably change everything’s direction forever. As far as staying true to it’s core position and promise, the ONLY thing it has to stay true to is the communication channel. If your audience changes, you decide to either go with it or stay with the “old” audience, and that is all dependent upon whether or not the original market has dried up or it still thrives. As there are innumerable examples and hypotheses we can not say what is “right” or “wrong” only what is working or not working.
Coca Cola still stands as one of the powerhouses of brands simply because of their simple, all-mankind, universal message of Enjoy, Refreshment or joie de vivre. This resonates with ANYONE because it’s so general. When you speak to everyman it’s kind of like throwing a ball down a hallway, if you get my drift. In the general sense of a brand, Coca Cola as icon and influencer has changed many lives and products/events/things that we can not account for because of it’s outward changes over the years, yet their inward changes have stayed the same by keeping their core values. This keeping of core values only has worked for them because they are keeping an open communication with their audience. Their audience is telling them that they still want the same experience but in a current relevant way, which really, is what ANY audience wants.
@OneLuvGurl
Regardless of how anyone may or may not feel about Paris Hilton, in mine and many others’ eyes, she is a brilliant businesswoman and marketer. I would even venture to say THE best. She is keenly and intensely aware of her effect and affect that she has on her target market. And please don’t get it confused. She does not have one target market but TWO distinctly separate markets, and no they’re not based on demographics. Her audience is divided in to two groups: those who “get it” and those who don’t. Ms. Hilton’s core values are based on consumerism and ephemeral materialistic concerns. There are those who completely buy into the EXTERNAL image she is exuding- they want to be her or be closer to her. Her other more nuanced and less spoken about audience are those who buy into her based on the INTERNAL- meaning they see all of her actions are a wry commentary on her surface appearances. There are many other starlets who have tried to make it with an empire but who’s reach is limited. The reasoning for this is they are trying to sell themselves as the product. Ms. Hilton is selling herself as idea as the product or more pointedly she has transcended the brand as product meaning into more of a general concept. Now I don’t want to get into a “Paris HIlton is good/bad/etc” conversation here. That’s not the point. The point is that she did not get this far by not being acutely aware of her every action. She, is “in on the joke” and she is laughing along with us. In this life there will be those of us who “get it” and those of us who do not get it, as I have proven this weekend. This is all a part of the communication channel and being open to what comes through it. She hears the dichotomous parties involved and she is speaking to both of them, with a nod to one and a handshake to the other. A great business knows how to speak to many different parties involved yet always align their core beliefs to their audience. I feel she has accomplished this feat extremely well.
@Sonia
I am glad you are going to think about this more. People may be upset with the constant overt marketing to them but it does not change the fact that everything is a brand of something no matter what. From the most traditional definition to the largest most amorphous definition there will always be a communication channel between entities, regardless of what they are. The question we have to ask is are they communicating in their best interest and if not then why and how can we modify it. I like how you are beginning to think in the larger sense of the application of brand, as this was one of my underlying goals with this article. A brand isn’t just a physical conecpt; it’s a state of being, which can be applied to so many things in existence- time periods, movements, events, etc. Even Communism was a brand, branded on the hearts and minds of people as well as the effects on everything in it’s reach for time unendless.
@Dan
Exactly Dan. You’ve hit the nail right on the head. It’s all about real-time interaction. I posited the other day that marriages should be more like corporations with articles of incorporation and dissolution. Taking this into light with people’s overall view of what things are and are not as well as accessibility issues, the lines begin to blur. When things start to defy categorization and push the known limits THAT is when all of the facade can be pushed aside in exchange for open and honest communication. What DO I want? What do YOU want? What do WE want? These questions can all be answered when we stop giving definitions and categories to things. They just are. Let them be. Or more importantly, let it be for me what it needs to be as for you as for us. Every interaction is different and whatever value that is derived out of said interaction is not translatable from one to another or from experience to experience. Brands are becoming more nimble because people are. Technology is serving us well to bring us further into the present. Many of us constantly live in the past or future with hopes and dreams. To quote The Flaming Lips “All we have is now. All we’ve ever had is now”. This is an exciting time we live in. I am always interested in what comes next due to cause and effect.
@Justin
Well, as far as “this is what our brand stands for” vs. “what does it mean to us”, I feel I’ve adequately stated my position on that concerning companies. What I’d like to speak more on here is that paradigm shift concerning human beings. Telling someone what you stand for is the old way. Conversing about who you are and who they think you are and who you BOTH feel you are is the new way. Coming to a consensus based on common agreed upon indicators is a sign of an open communication. How is anyone, brand as company or person, supposed to speak with you if you are set in your ways? As far as giving up control that’s not exactly it. What is it: sharing control and that’s not even it. Control is not the proper word here. That is an old way of thinking. The new way of thinking: Sharing responsibility of creation with one another. THAT’S the key to being able to turn your brand on a dime.
All I can say is read the book Good To Great. Nuff said. It will change your way of thinking about how a great company should operate.
All in all, my one biggest piece of advice to anyonething is this: Go with the flow.
damien’s last blog post..Freemium Marketing In Your Mind’s Real Estate
@Damien – I appreciate the response, but maintain my position that brands should never ‘change on a dime’ nor should they scramble to reposition themselves in a continually shifting marketplace. The feedback loop that you speak of is a place for customers to expose their wants and needs, through which the brand experience can be *enhanced* by delivering on those in relevant and meaningful ways but Joe Smith in Idaho should not say, “Hey, Brand X, I think your logo should be blue and that you should now stand for Y.” That’s an absurd way to think of branding, and while cultural influences are important in maximizng the lifetime value of a brand (a la Coca Cola), it’s an evolution where the core values of the brand remain unchanged.
The method you describe is a reactionary response to a fluctuating market, which is no way to run a business, build a brand, or even conduct one’s self. Rather, immersing yourself in the market using the tools and communication channels that are now available to better understand your customers’ desires and key behavior drivers will allow you to target more relevantly, connect more substantively and grow and expand your brand more meaningfully. But throughout that process, you are not changing what the brand represents, merely the delivery mechanism and communication methods for effectively connecting it with customers.
If every brand did a 180 every time there was market uproar, it would be utter chaos. A strong, well strategized brand can weather the storm and remain a beacon of values that stand the test of time. It’s all simply about communicating with the user in mind and crafting relevant, evocative messages accordingly. Remember that you can appeal to different audiences and segments of the population with one unified brand position even if you may reach them through different vehicles and varying messaging.
It’s not the WHO [brand/position/core values] that needs to change; it’s the HOW [communication methods/messaging]. I would advise brands to take the pulse of the market in managing the how without altering the who.
This has been a really great discussion. Thanks so much for facilitating it, and I don’t think our views are all that divergent. I am 100% in favor of brands evolving with market indicators and customer needs, but I believe that can be done effectively without overhauling your values, position and promise. Branding has always been about finding meaningful ways to deliever on that promise from product development through customer experience, and this new landscape merely offers new opportunities to do so.
I comment rarely on blogs but just wanted to stop and say Great Content.