Johnnie Moore’s latest posting, Branding Isn’t reminded me of the weeks I struggled with the same issue when I was writing Beyond the Brand. I ended up writing a chapter on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:
“Branding has been appropriated as a distorted form of communication in which the company always assumes the position of power and is not necessarily required to either listen or respond to feedback. People are expected to sit quietly and listen; many react to this by tuning out much of what is said. They are developing a Brand Immune System: the reality is that people will only pay attention to your brand or your product when they actually need or want your product or service – not before, and usually not after. Most companies have failed to stay engaged in the ever-evolving lives of their customers, making it impossible for them to notice the subtleties of the two-way conversation (if they’re allowing it in the first place). When they stop paying attention, customers will also disconnect from the relationship. But maintaining this relationship can be both profitable and potentially more defensible in today’s competitive marketplace.
This dysfunctional dynamic between companies and their customers often leads to companies that spend much of their time, energy, and money using top-down tools to aggressively promote their existing brands or products, rather than finding out what is relevant to their customers from the bottom-up. Likewise, many companies outsource their most important relationship – the one with their customers – giving outsiders full control to attempt to understand their customers by using traditional top-down tools in their often static and tightly controlled conversations.”
Johnnie, thanks for getting my creativity flowing again. I’ll post another excerpt tomorrow.
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