A couple months ago John over at Brand Autopsy posted a series of simple images from Zag Book that brilliantly illustrates the differences between advertising, marketing, pr and branding.
Your brand is your story, your myth. At its best your brand captivates and fires the imagination, it inspires and seduces people, it marshals markets and makes them hunger for you. A great brand, like a great story, is frighteningly powerful; and maddeningly volatile. Indeed, just like the author of a story, you don’t control your brand–we do.
Sure the post-structuralists and deconstructionists and guys with super cool Serge Gainesbourg accents may have gone a little far with many ideas, but I think they were mostly right with the idea of the author’s death; the idea that after writing a story, the author is no longer relevant and all of the power to make meaning of the text now resides with the reader.
Indeed this is what made the medieval church authorities so terrified to have the bible written in the vernacular: it would allow people to read the text free them from an orthodox intermediary interpreter and construct their own meanings. In this case, the death of the author meant the death of the church, of faith, of God. That is the power of the reader, a power that has terrified thinkers from Aquinas to Darrida, and a power that you need to learn to manage and embrace if you want yours to be a great brand.
So while the reader may have no control over the artifacts of your brand, they have complete control over their interpretation of these artifacts’ meanings—and it is the meanings not the artifacts that captivate, fire, inspire and seduce.
Treat your brand as an author does a story, not as an ad-man flogs a soundbite.
Related posts
- Design Must Relinguish Control (10/16/06)
- Metaphors for Design part I(02/27/06)
You say “Treat your brand as an author does a story, not as an ad-man flogs a soundbite.” What do you actually mean by that? that once you create a brand story, leave it be for the readers/audience to interpret? an example of what you’re trying to say here would help.
I have thought about this question a lot recently, heck I even wrote a 15,000 word white paper on it. As a lifelong marketeeer for most my life, I’m tempted to debate it, but that wouldn’t be right. Asa new media/marketing rainmaker that convinces my cleints to open up their brand to the possibility of user generated content, social media, crowdsourcing…I’m tempted to agree fully with your post. The reality truth exists in shades of grey. If your blog was fully right, Apple wouldn’t exist (a strong independent minded brand, if one ever existed). If your blog was fully wrong, My Space, Ebay and Wikipedia would be fringe web properties..
A brand is at best a shared conversation – I disagree that a brand is lost once their story is told, I’d rather say that good brands are always in beta, there story is never fully told and they’re always engaged in the conversation and the unfolding of their story. Although it would be popular to agree with John moore’s and your suppositions, I think it represents something that is at leats not yet reality.
cheers..