new brand rules

HOW BRANDS RELATE

NEW BRA

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Branding has jumped the shark. The meme is stale. Worn out. Post-peak. If branding were a show on Fox, it would be cancelled next week.

Doc Searls, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto

A good brand changes the world.

Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Brand Evangelist at Apple

THE PSYCHO BRANDS

The dominating school in branding today looks at the brand's reflection inside the individual and tries to understand its deeper psychological structure: associations, motivations, attitudes. It's based on the belief that brands must push a hot button in the consumer's mind to be successful.

➜ PSYCHO BRANDING

This school of thinking believes in the magic message. Once delivered into the subject's mind, it will trigger unconscious desires and trick a rational censor on the way, if necessary.

➜ THE SILVER BULLET JOB

There's a whole industry around the casting, loading, aiming, and firing of silver bullets. It's called advertising.There are planners who design the magic messages, creatives who craft it, researchers who test it, media planners who target it, and media channels that deliver it.

➜ SNIPERS

➜ CORTEX THE GREAT

New approaches, like the current "Neuromarketing" buzz, follow the same road, driven by advances in brain scanning technology.They help us better understand the functional topography of the most highly engineered buying-decision-making organ in the known universe.

Neuroscience has refreshed an old myth: That man is just a puppet of his inner devils. The scientist Benjamin Libet showed that our hand knows we will move it before we know it ourselves. Our brain's limbic system has been triangulated as our little devil's hide-away.

➜ THE LIMBIC CAVEMAN

"Washing powder's out"

"GOOOOORGEOUS RACER"

➜

And yet ... In spite of the hard science, the psycho school is notoriously weak in foresight.In reality, some brands just get a much bigger slice of peoples' attention, desires, thoughts, dreams (or curses) than others.We may find ourselves daydreaming about a Porsche. Or swearing about Micosoft's latest idea of how we should work. But nobody daydreams about Persil or Coke.

... and that's OK!

THE MIND CAKE

THE WIRED BRANDS

Many brands only have meaning and value in a social context.

We ask a friend. We look at what the Joneses do. We negotiate with the family. We brag in the office.

➜ HOMO CHATTENSIS

Most of the buying decisions we make, we don't make as an island.

➜ SOCIAL CAPITAL

Brands are a part of our social life. They are social currency, social signals, social glue, and meeting points. Social capital is a significant part of a brand's equity. Can we afford the simplicity of one-dimensional brand theories?

Some of our relationships are actually centered around brands. Both Tupperware and Harley-Davidson bring people together who would never have met otherwise.

➜ BRANDS IN OUR SOCIAL GRAPH

Some brands have strong impact on how we relate to people. Think how Microsoft shapes our office life.

➜ BRANDS IN OUR SOCIAL GRAPH

➜ BRANDS IN OUR SOCIAL GRAPH

Some people are influential experts in certain categories. Mac users, Playstation gamers or Sodastreamers all can't resist to evangelize.

➜ BRANDS IN OUR SOCIAL GRAPH

In some of our social groups, we have rituals and membership badges that may involve specific brands. Parachuters après-jump on Red Bull. Girls' night-outs start with a rallying cry for "Bailey's, on ice."

Because brands need social capital, there's a new mantra for marketing these days: Brands should live in social networks and attract and nurture communities of "subscribers", "fans" and "followers".

➜ ALL WIRED UP

®

The social life of a brand is not just a nice cream topping on a psychologically sound brand strategy. Customers, consumers and consumerists have lifted their expectations to the standards set by themost conversationalbrands.

➜ YOU TALKIN AT ME?

They don't want to be talked at, but listened to!

The web has changed how people relate to brands and companies in a fundamental way:

And yet, many brands return disappointed from their first ventures into social networking.Amateur video steals the show from your expensive "cheap" viral campaign on YouTube? 1.5m loyal buyers in the panel but only 223 friends on Facebook?

➜CAPRICIOUS EYEBALLS

The uncaring masses,from a painting by the late Sigmar Polke

Not all brands have an appropriate idea of the conversation they should have with their customers. With whom? About what? How much can I reveal? What will the SEC say?

➜ NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT?

The uncaring masses,from a painting by the late Sigmar Polke

NEW BRAND RULES

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People have always trusted certain brands as reference points in their area of expertise. But the new generation of prosumers* expects them to open and share that expertise.* producing and/or professional consumers

➜ BRANDS AS TRUSTED EXPERTS

The strategy, not just for master brands, is to share rather than jealously corrall their knowledge. Transparency is the new foundation of (brand) trust and feeds and inspires word-of-mouth among customers.

➜ FOOD FOR THE NETWORKS

1.Transparency builds

trust(not mystery)

NEW BRAND RULES

Some brands run into walls of indifference most of the time. There seems to be no other way for them than to buy attention space and shoot silver bullets ...

➜ LOW INVOLVEMENT BRANDS

Consumers hire brands to do a job for them. Brands have to become radically supportive of what people really want to achieve when using them. Think of your brand as a verb, not a noun. What action does it perform?

➜ BRAND AS APP

1.Transparency builds

trust

2. Brands are Apps

NEW BRAND RULES

Some brands are in the entertainment business. Not just since YouTube but since the beginning of advertising. They invented the soap opera and created the most memorable and entertaining ads of all times.

➜BRANDS AS FRIENDS

➜CAN YOUR BRAND DANCE?

Many brands are petrified in the name of consistency; strangled bloodless by codebooks that leave no room for authentic interaction.

DON'T

MOVE

DON'T

MOVE

➜CAN YOUR BRAND DANCE?

((tap))1.

2. + 4.

3.

5.

6. + 7.

((tap))2x

2x

Many brands are petrified in the name of consistency; strangled bloodless by codebooks that leave no room for authentic interaction.

Brands must learn to dance; to relate to flirt to surprise -- but always with one foot on the solid ground of a robust proposition.

1.Transparency builds

trust

2. Brands are Apps

3.Brands must learn to dance

NEW BRAND RULES

Some brands' fans and lovers want to be part of a movement. They want to feel recognized and valued.

➜BRAND AS MOVEMENT

➜MEDIA DON'T TOUCH

Traditional one-way media cannot touch them and get filtered out.

WATCH

ME!

WA

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ME!

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ME!

WATCHME!

LOOK

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ME!

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WATCH

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WATCHME!

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➜MEDIA DON'T TOUCH

Traditional one-way media cannot touch them and get filtered out.Traditional direct marketing is nothing more personal -- plus a scandalous waste of ressources.

Brands have to proceed from media thinking to touchpoint scope: where and when are people receptive to my touch; and how do I get and stay in touch with them?

➜TOUCHED BY THE BRAND

1.Transparency builds

trust

2. Brands are Apps

3.Brands must learn to dance

4.Brands touch people ... or else

NEW BRAND RULES

MY THANKS GO TO THE ARTISTS OR THEIR RIGHTSHOLDERSWHO I HAVE BORROWED ART FROM:

Banksy, Damien Hirst, Sigmar Polke, Michelangelo

bit.ly/uwelucas