In my previous post on brands, I had briefly touched upon the brand’s integrity of intent as an imperative to its success. I brought up two approaches to it – one based on self image and the other based on self actualisation. The first is a target, the second is exploration. While I was agnostic to the approach earlier, the book I am reading now – Matt Ridley’s The Evolution of Everything – has given me a bias for the latter.
This is why – evolution has been the longest running phenomenon ever, beating anything made by man quite easily. Because before there was mind, there was matter, whether it was perceived or not. That includes even the idea of God, which is probably the best brand ever built. Arguably, evolution’s success can be attributed to its having no end goal in mind. Can that work for a brand?
I have to admit, that can be difficult. It’s also easy to think of the brand as a shared idea of a self image. But even in the best of companies, this idea is usually top driven. There is a “creator”. A creator or a set of them who, over a period of time, become less objective, and develop biases and imperfections. Moving further on, this becomes what I call a brand ego. That usually leads to the brand moving away from its intended consumers, and eventually becoming irrelevant. It is possible that the current “creationist” tenets of brand building are a result of the media vehicles of the past. It allowed brand managers to dictate a certain narrative. But that era has long passed.
On the other hand, it isn’t really possible to build a brand with no outcome in mind. There needs to be a middle path. It definitely has to start with some outcome defined by a timeframe. The best years of the brand are when it learns to channel the zeitgeist to meet its own ends. But in the long run, how can this be sustained? How objective can a brand be about its self image, and how can it be objective?
Maybe start with focusing on the brand’s purpose in the life of the consumer as opposed to drumming up a purpose-driven brand. Use research for understanding and insights, rather than validations. And in addition to measuring the efficiency of ad serving, maybe spare some time to understanding the effectiveness of communication. Not an exhaustive list, but thought starters.
In essence, be driven by evolution not the ego. Be attached to the customer need, and not the solution you made. Having said all of that, evolution can afford to be “mindless” because it has no time constraints. Brands, on the other hand have short term business responsibilities. I also realise that objectivity is difficult. After all, the question of “whose interests should a brand serve” has multi-dimensional answers. And irrespective of what stakeholder combination one chooses, their perspective is only an abstraction of what the brand purpose really is!
