Who is heading your brand? Does he or she have an understanding for all, and I mean all, steps in the consumer interaction with your brand.
The new generation of consumers crave 4 things from their favorite brands. These 4 things was something we found in a global focus group study we did for one of the global brands I’ve worked with. Teens and youngsters between 15 and 25 years old were interviewed in leading style cities like New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Stockholm, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, Amsterdam, Berlin and even more cities that I cannot remember.
The 4 things were:
- Innovation
- Creative excellence
- Entertainment
- Interaction.
They crave it everywhere in every step of their contact with you brand.
Total integration equals success.
Hyper jump the process back and fourth
Most brands tend to start a brand platform project that ultimately leads to developing your brand first, then collateral’s, brand guidelines and finally they look at the products and services. New brands and super brands – they look at the brand heritage, what’s your story, where do you come from etc, but more important, where are they heading. Based on this knowledge they move over to the products and services and design these. The it’s time to move back to the rest.
You shouldn’t let a brand or brand guidebook lead your product development cause it’s usually stiff books filled with rules what NOT to do. When the first rule you have to learn about communication is WHAT rules can we brake!
Total integration demands total creativity
In order for your brand to achieve this level of integration that your target are asking for, you have to get a partner on board that can act as your creative style police through your entire process. The challenge for all modern brands is to stay in control or at least have someone from A to Z that make sure you do.
Let’s look at Apple.
Steve Jobs and his way of totally controlling Apple is probably the best example there is. What’s stunning with Apple is exactly the way they tend to value ever single step of consumer contacts as the most important part in the company. Nothing, and I mean nothing is left behind. Of course I don’t know their entire chain of customer contacts. But let’s look [click to continue…]
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