In the search for more income, many brands seem keen to broaden their mandate or redefine the sector they see themselves as now being part of. But the hunt for diversified income streams comes with its own list of dangers and the most obvious caution is this: don’t lose the plot. Don’t spread your brand so wide, generalise your position so much or shift your emphasis so far from where you’ve been that you lose credibility, authority or distinction in the minds of your customers. Read More
In this presentation from last year I talk about how great stories are structured and about the power of the nutshell of truth that lives at the centre of a great story. I show how changing just one word of that kernel can have dramatic effects.
Towards the end of the excerpt I touch on something that will become increasingly important I believe as brands gravitate to longer ideas: the stories must continue to evolve if they are to avoid commoditising into the stories of industries. What’s your sequel?
Acknowledgements
Di Fuller once again worked her magic with the design.
Isn’t this such a great thought? “Don’t build a product, then try to market it. Instead, build a customer attitude, then build a product to match that attitude.” It’s part of an absorbing and insightful article by Graeme Newell on why you shouldn’t focus your advertising around your product. Read More
Tactics are like torchlight. You switch them on, they show you a way forward, you act on them there and then. They’re logical, reactive, contemporary. Your customers and your competitors probably see and react to them in exactly the same light.
Great strategy is like starlight. What you’re seeing coming out of a company now was established and agreed upon a long way back. It started its journey many many years ago, has been influencing the way the company thinks and competes for ages, and has taken all this time to become visible. Read More
Having clearly outlined why change is needed and the opportunity that change could generate, too many culture change programmes then leave people to make the changes themselves without very much more explanation. So often, staff are handed new values and a new purpose, there’s some motivational meetings and perhaps a video and gift, and then the business just expects them to get on with it. The thinking seems to be that this gives people personal empowerment; that it brings the change alive for them. Read More
It’s hard to develop a brand. It takes enormous effort, huge willpower, confidence, resources, patience and a thick skin. You’ll face doubt, distractions and problems. It’s gruelling …. But none of that is the toughest bit. Far from it. The most intimidating aspect is actually building a brand that consciously and clearly stands apart from everything else that is being built – everything else that is competing for the same audience you want to reach. Read More
So many companies build their brand around their business. They establish the tangible assets and processes and look to extrapolate the intangible value of that as brands for their buyers. They transit in other words from the physical to the emotive. Read More
Enron is a huge reminder of how easy it is to assume; of how the massive confidence of some readily inspires the trust of many. A reminder too of the power of the inconvenient question – just like the one that the reporter from Fortune posed when she asked the CEO how exactly did they make money?
Inconvenient questions are a bit like those sewer tests where they send smoke into the pipes – they’re how you spot where the gaps are and where they aren’t. Read More
Thomson Dawson wrote a provocative and challenging article about “devastating innovation”. Brands that weren’t prepared to innovate far beyond their comfort zone, he suggested, would be devastated in the blink of an eye. What’s more, the fallout from such innovation would reach far beyond immediate competitors to wither those who never would have imagined they were at risk. Read More
It’s tempting to believe that our brand story is ours. It’s not of course. Today, it’s owned by everyone – in the sense that virtually anyone, anywhere can input. And that means you’re not the only one telling that story anymore.
Once customers simply provided validation that your story was true. Now they are part of the narrative, because their experience of your brand can so quickly become everyone else’s opinion of your brand, or at least part of it. Read More
