Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The the brand construction business

A bit of arm chair keynotes work and I think I have accurately managed to recreate one of the key ideas in the Cluetrain Manifesto.  It was a book recommendation that I got from Neil indirectly through his presentation on brand generosity which i think is really good.  

Well done to us in the brand building industry who have managed to build a big wall between the 'us' that sit inside companies and the 'us' that sits outside.  There's nothing wrong with walls - I have even helped build a real one once and it can be pretty satisfying.  Having said this some walls are an unnecessary division with some famous examples.  This type falls into the latter category. 

We also by default created the general rule book that goes with the notion in order to keep it safe and secure...

RULES FOR THE PEOPLE ON THE INSIDE

-Feel free to talk to the ones on the outside but stay to the pre-approved script 

-Its probably best if only one person speaks on behalf of the rest for all important conversations

-Better still and if they can afford it they should appoint another group of people who are excellently qualified to understand exactly what the ones on the outside want to hear and a great at coming up with one liners that sum this up

RULES FOR PEOPLE ON THE OUTSIDE

-Try not to speak to those on the inside as this is an expensive nuissance

-This applies for companies that you are on the outside of, for your own company see above

...The new type of brand services as ever will be in complete opposition to those of the present. Making connections between people inside and outside of companies - lets call it brand networking, in order to cut through the casted, constructed, homogenised and contrived face that the 'company' has been paying us for years to build.

(Before I forget, this is the perfect example of blurred line thinking.  To imagine what the world would be like if you removed the line between two worlds - Like how Einstein did with time and space.   Move the line between the two and you are left with spacetime.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link David. Interesting thought. I definitely think a lot of it is about visibility. Take corporate blogging - it's often forgotten that it is not the company people want to connect with but the interesting people inside those organisations

david Hawksworth said...

No worries (+ I owe you for all leads I took from your ‘brand generosity’ pres ☺)

I think the brand in the future will be about driving transparency rather than masking the inner workings of the company so like you said – more visibility rather than less.

And while we are on the subject this must link back to 'brand generosity.' People have a conscience and generally want to do good. Companies are just a legal construct and don’t in themselves have this capacity. Or to put it into a more real context how many times do you find good people working for a company that is collectively awful in any number of ways