Let’s say that your brand is the forest.
The trees represent everything that communicates and interacts with your brand. Your company’s brochure, its receptionist, its points-of-purchase, its President, its website, its custodian, the local news, a bumper sticker, its coworkers, their families, and its customers and competitors. Every touch point of your brand.
During the nineties, we referenced it as the gestalt. During the eighties, I found myself endlessly reciting the mantra, “Branding is inherent with doing business.” Once accepted, it becomes only a matter of direction.
Today, all I seem to hear is how “social media” is changing the landscape, rewriting the rules, etc. But that sort of thinking troubles me. Because, in actuality, these “new rules” are not really new at all; they’re really the same old rules we’ve had all along. The only thing new about them is that, now, they’re being repackaged from within the “social media” space.
Any marketing professional who believes that “transparency,” “genuine,” “ethical,” and “trustworthy” - to name just a few - are somehow the shiny new symbols of a company’s brand is, in my opinion, just being foolish. And showing their naiveté.
“Social media” is the forest roots system. It’s not replacing the forest; instead, it’s connecting the sum of its parts. Every single tree has an effect on the forest. And this is something for which most of us have been waiting for a long time.
So again, people, let’s stop this madness. Quit running around the forest yelling “fire!” Some brands may embrace these newfound root-systems sooner than others. But all, eventually, will need to develop these roots to survive.
Right now, though, some are finding it difficult to see the forest through the trees.
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