It made me reflect on the larger idea of brand. Specifically, if brand is a perception in the mind of a consumer, what are the factors that are influencing the perception? Three broad areas immediately came to mind

1. Experience: Voice-enabled interactions bring out new possibilities of brand engagement. The same goes for Augmented and Virtual Reality. In the latter, there is tremendous potential for tactile marketing. Brands such as Merrell are already playing with this. The touch-points of brands are exploding beyond traditional and even standard digital into whole new territories.
2. Expectations: The demands from brands are no longer limited to a good product and experience. It goes way beyond the rational and emotional need states. The brand’s stance on issues that affect society in general is now a key factor in managing perceptions. From sustainability to LGBTQ rights, everything is a factor. And if consumer activism weren’t enough, there’s employee activism as well. Ask Google!
3. Example – Xennials:  I confess that I really wanted something that started with “ex”, but I didn’t make it up! Xennials are my tribe – between Gen X and millennials (born in the late 70’s and early 80s) – and probably the first example of the point I wanted to make – micro-generations. Thanks to rapid advances in technology and changes in behaviour and society, the gap between generations is ever-shortening. The taste graphs are evolving rapidly and what works one micro-generation need not work for the next. What happens to product lifecycles and S-curves?

In an era of limited touch-points, standard expectations and fairly stable consumer cohorts, the idea of brand could be built on consistency. But with brand new variables, is that even possible? For a while now, I have advocated cohesion – in narratives and experiences. The fundamental reason for that is the exploding number of contexts – imagine the combinations of scenarios made possible by mixing the three different factors above.

To give a more simplistic explanation, think of the FB-Insta-LI-Tinder meme – the same individual in different contexts tweaks his/her looks, behaviour, language and so on. When media and experiences were one-way communications – as with traditional media, it was simpler. When it’s a conversation, the brand has to work harder to be true to itself and yet be relevant to consumers in that context. To package its DNA in vastly different settings. In such a scenario, cohesion based on values might be a better solution than consistency because of the contextual flexibility it offers. More on that later.

Meanwhile, I am particularly interested in identifying more broad factors. If you thoughts, do share in comments.

Thanks to an ever changing social landscape, the questions and the answers are extremely dynamic. Different brands face different challenges as per their category, (pricing, demographic, ‘conscious’ly purchased or not) how long they have been around, their internal processes, structures and culture, and so on. But the earlier eras also had challenges and yet, we managed to define certain basic frameworks of brand building, which could be adapted across product categories, geographic locations and so on.

Social has indeed disrupted everything because unlike say, television, which probably took over from print, it fundamentally changed the linear narrative by making ‘media’ a two way street, with side lanes opened up by consumers. It is probably because of this, that (for example) a Leo Burnett’s Human Brands concept (this post, for context) goes beyond adapting current frameworks and into the purpose of the brand itself.

Brands that have built themselves in the ‘traditional media’ era are trying to adapt themselves, and that brings its own set of challenges. But what about brands being built now? Ignore the tech brands for now please – Facebook, Google, Twitter etc, what would your framework be if you had to build a brand starting now, in this age of massively fragmented media and user presence? Would you design the brand identity and adapt it to different media platforms or would you go with a bare minimum checklist and allow it to evolve with consumers adding context across various touch points – real and virtual? I’d really love to hear some perspectives!

until next time, frames per second…