All the world’s a brand. Recruiters and HR people will tell you you are a brand. The town you live in is a brand, the car you drive is two: master and model. A company is a brand and its products are too.
Probably the most capable brand ministers are B school grads very young in their tenure at packaged goods companies. But then they go to war, fighting market share battles and become soiled by their many agents and agencies. They move off the brand plan and pursue tactic with the highest return. If the tactics do well by them, they may specialize; often at the expense of the brand.
Technology advances have done more to simultaneously help and hurt marketing than at any other time in history. The web has collapsed the 4Ps (product, price, promotion and place.) Technology has taken our focus off the brand and put it squarely on a shiny new toolkit. But even as geolocation marries search which will marry worldwide pricing and real-time auctions – brand remain a vital part of the marketing picture. So I ask you, do you know your brand? Can you articulate your brand in a few seconds? Is it a person place or thing? Or a service company or solution provider? And what does the brand do for customers? Can you articulate what it does in a quick, meaningful and distinguishing way? If you can’t do you think your customers can? Your agents?
In the movie and TV production business there is a person responsible for something called continuity. That person makes it so that an actor doesn’t go into the kitchen in a red shirt and come out in an orange shirt. Continuity is what many brands lack today. A brand plan, a boiled down artictulation of what a brand is and what a brand does, secures continuity. Peace.
