branding now, 10 dos, 10 don'ts

Branding Now10 dos

10 don’tsGrant McCracken

grant27@gmail.comBBR 2014

Boston University, May 21, 2014

note to slide share viewers

This deck was written for Susan Fournier’s conference on branding at Boston University late May 2014

It’s a little “shouty,” expressing my frustration with the way branding how happens in practice.

I sum up the argument in the next four slides.

One brand, many meaningswe continue to act as if every brand is one thing. A very clear, simple, exact thing

Doesn’t it have to be many things? One brand, many meanings. Multiple, inconsistent, and sometimes messy meanings.

1

One brand, meanings both broad and obscurewe’re caught between two impulses: work designed to speak to the largest possible audience AND branding that makes tiny, precious, local meanings.

Don’t we have to do both? One brand with meanings both big and small, both broad and obscure.

2

The brander is the prime mover

We have worked to make the consumer a collaborator in and cocreator of the brand.

I wonder if we haven’t gone too far.

The brander is the prime mover, creating the world within which consumers, fans and content recreators work with brand meanings.

This is not a symmetrical relationship. The brand begins and ends with the brander.

3

Old media matters sometimes more than new media

We have concentrated too much on new media (mea culpa here too).

We need both old media and new media to build the brand.

Old media has a special role to play, creating the foundational meanings of the brand. (There are certain meanings we can’t make with new media.)

4

Ok, here’s the deck as I gave it yesterday

a transitional moment

• that guy at the party

• brand as bore• brand as bully

Oops, TV got better

bastard child catches up

good and bad for branding

http://www.wired.com/partners/netflix/

1. The banded brand

a brand with many layers or bands

Brand

outer-mostband, perfect

simplicity

2nd story wrapped in &

concealed by the 1st

next band, a finer signal

still

for the brand’s

deepest fans

if we build it, they will find

it

24 million viewers - 4 shows

http://cultureby.com/2014/05/big-bang-theory-theory-you-should-have-one.html

2. the “broad band” brand

the broadest meanings dearest to

the biggest segments

3. secret messages

the brand as a place the consumer can wander,

inhabit. Medieval Paris.

(The upper image is a secret image send by

Fringe show-runners to their fans.)

4. provocative

brands

annoying, actually

to win some, we gotta lose some

http://cultureby.com/2014/03/provocative-cadillac-rescuing-the-brand-from-bland-my-latest-at-hbr.html

5. brands that go into the worldwe are too mediated

brands should show up in the world

not to bang the drum but to play

http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/08/cessna-marketing-what-we-can-l/

6. brands that go into

the showthe perfect opposite of product placement

this Subaru ad incomprehensible unless you know the show

http://cultureby.com/2014/03/brands-being-human.html

7. brands that know where they

arebrands used to act like they existed unto themselves.

“context, who cares about context?”

http://cultureby.com/2004/07/site_specificit.html

8. the brand with a sense

of self mockery

RadioShack: The 80s called and they want

their store back

9. brands as creative platform

the brand as a starter-kitbrand as a platformbrand as a place to play

http://cultureby.com/2014/03/head-starts-creative-platforms-for-culture-makers.html

10. test for oxygen

Clive Sirkin, Kimberly-Clark, we give our

marketers “freedom and license”

like Ian Tait and the W+K lab after the Superbowl

Don’ts

bound to be more controversial

sorry

1. branding is not a

conversationThe brander is the

meaning maker, the arena within which the

brand lives.

Conversations are symmetrical. Brands are

asymmetrical.

2. branding is not a

collaborationthe brander is the prime mover, alpha & omega.consumers participate,

but they participate within the brand, once

the brander has put that brand in place

3. branding is not crowd sourcing

the Pharrell Williams“Happy” video feels

spontaneous and street sourced but it is in fact

carefully casted & crafted.

4. branding should not be

purpose driven

Our job is to be responsive to consumers, and to change with them

in real time.

It’s not about us. It’s about them.

5. branding is not about

storiesIt’s about meanings

“Stories” constrain us.

Meanings must be modular. Stories have narrative arcs,

characters and climaxes. Branders need to be

modular to build a banded brand

6. don’t inflict ourselves on

cultureMinnie Driver on The Riches

our most disgraceful moment ever

http://cultureby.com/2008/05/marketing-out-o.html

just say “no”to product placement

7. don’t act like it’s all about you

we are not welcome unless we have

something to contribute to culture

practice cultural arbitrage

hack culturehttp://cultureby.com/2014/04/cultural-arbitrage.html

http://cultureby.com/2014/04/hacking-culture-an-april-fools-edition.html

8. branding is not “all about new media”

old media is the major meaning maker Vince Gilligan, BB. no new media project can make meanings like these

new media essential for mediation

but the prime mover remains for most purposes old media

http://cultureby.com/2014/05/new-media-fundamentalists-how-will-they-react-to-the-revolution-in-tv.html

9. don’t do publicity stunts

Earn your media by contributing to culture. No

cheating, no stunts.

inhale culture,exhaling culture

and otherwise make the brand charming & useful

don’t be this guy

10. don’t make the

brand live in the moment

We need earliest warning possible

Reacting is not a strategy.

http://cultureby.com/2009/09/culture-in-real-time-data-visualization-and-the-cco.html

thank youthis presentation

will be up at www.cultureby.com

by end of tomorrow

Image by Alaine Delorme

Thanks again to Susan Fournier for including me in the conference