Is Branding Important in a web 2.0 world - Blog Response

If you haven’t checked out my friend Chris Baggott’s blog I highly encourage you to do so. He recently made a post sharing some thoughts as to what brand is and how it impacts us. To check out his post simply click here.

My response is listed below:

I would argue that branding is more than just the tip of the spear. Late management consultant Peter Drucker referred to business as only two things: Marketing and Innovation. I feel that brand is too closely associated with it’s relationship to the marketing aspect of this statement. It is really a combination of the two with a heavier influence on the later: innovation.

The web in general has completely exposed the innovation side of branding that is only now being completely realized by the modern business. Today with the right tools anyone can create a totally immersive brand through the use of a great idea and technologies to support it. These technologies include tools such as blogging, 1-to-1 messaging techniques, RFID tags, and others such as knowledge management systems, etc.

The effect has been a migration of branding roles from the traditional practitioner functions such as graphic design and copy-writing to high level strategic thinkers. These thinkers use feedback loops from online/offline tools to make strategically sound decisions. They are executed through designing not only experiences, but also process and information to support it. I like to think of it as behavioral branding.

Let’s face it, an abundance of choices has forced us to evolve our definition of what branding is. In the mid 1980’s America had more schools than shopping centers. Today, shopping centers outnumber high schools two to one. Inside those shopping centers, super markets can stock as much as three times the number of products they did in during the Reagan years. With choices growing and the consumers increasing ability to “opt-out” the power in today’s brand is the process to embrace the customer experience on their terms. Processes such as these are what get the supermarkets customers through the line in half the time they did in the 1980’s.

So to me, brand is much more than just the initial perception itself, but rather the innovative measures used to influence those perceptions. The tip of the spear is just getting them in the store. The rest of it is giving them a reason to stay. Both are equally important and very much apart of the same mindset. Used together you can push a perception on to a feeling or a reaction. This can only happen if there is much more than a promise. This can only happen if you provide an experience.

In the spirit of looking at brand under this light I feel that I have somehow contributed to Chris’ brand. Whether you think I am right or you think I am an outright lunatic, combining my rants to all the other contributers here is at the very least a little fun. Thanks Chris for having such a strong brand.

Cheers,
Ryan