A More Social Definition of Brand

For years I've thought of a brand as the image of a company in its customer's mind. I still like that definition, but today, thinking about the new corporate communications landscape, it struck me that a brand is more like the ongoing contact between company and customer.

The shift in emphasis from the lasting impression to the act of making the impression has everything to do with social media. Now, these customer-company contacts are made daily in multiple active channels, sometimes simultaneously. Each contact fosters a new impression that's part of the customer's evolving understanding of the company.

The new definition also shifts the focus from permanent identity to a kind of perpetual re-creation of identity. This fits the way we all now communicate about ourselves and our institutions: our image, and its expression, is continually re-created in the public communications landscape, often in short bursts. Each burst contributes to the bigger picture of who we are and how we relate to others.

In other words, the brand isn't an outcome of the chatter; the brand is the chatter, more verb than noun. And it's important that corporations get that chatter right.

Comments

[Michael Willett]

I like this concept.

[Meg Houston Maker]

Thanks, Michael. Would love your further thoughts on this idea.

[Michael Stoner]

I really like this concept, Meg, especially the implication that these days, there are so many ways to gain an impression of a brand that it's always evolving in the public's perception. This was probably always true, but we're assaulted with so much information and so many brand messages today, brand managers need to be a lot more active in being aware of and augmenting the perceptions of their brand in the public consciousness.

[Andee Miller]

Well said. I might also observe to "get the chatter right" requires constant vigilance to stay abreast of, and contribute to, the chatter. This adds a strain on resources that demands evaluation and re-evaluation - and more re-evaluation - of priorities. Marketing has always required fluidity. This is truer now more than ever.

[Meg Houston Maker]

Michael and Andee: thanks for your thoughtful comments. I like the idea that marketing requires fluidity. A communications program is a system in motion, requiring calculus, not simple arithmetic, to execute.

[Douglas P. Hill]

This is the kind of concept that I would be inclined to reject. On the rare occasion I consider these things, I'd tend to think (simplistically) of a brand as a pointer to a product and its maker, or a service and its provider. So spend the organization's effort on improving the product and the maker. The reflexive attitude of an engineer.

Oddly though, I agree.

From time to time, as a consumer, I encounter things about a product or service that I'm pretty sure the designers did not intend, but that is pretty obvious from out here in userland. I'd love to be able to take 3 minutes to point it out to the right person -- the person who actually makes decisions about such things. The company would be better off if I could do this. But everything is arrayed against me getting this message to anyone who matters. Their whole feedback system is set up to placate me. Often I'm not angry, nor do I really care much on a personal level; I just see something from a customer's point of view that they should see too.

As Mr. Stoner said, "brand managers need to be a lot more active in being aware of and augmenting the perceptions of their brand in the public consciousness." This includes being an active and company-supported channel from customers back to product decision-makers. Chatter isn't just a happy buzz -- it contains the information needed to shape the product itself, not just the public perception of it.

If the company adopts a "we make it, you sell it" approach to marketing, they not only reject a precious tool, but, over time they force marketing to become more specious and they lose the real contact that comes from reciprocal benefit.

[Jim Jansen]

I like this brand as process view. Captures the on-going branding efforts

[Meg Houston Maker]

Jim, thanks for your comment. It means a lot coming from one who's so deeply immersed in making sense of the digital sphere.