Shape your brands as distributed portals
One of the reasons this is a great time for brands is that digital technology makes possible the fruition of new brand models. These can offer a multitude of customer benefits far beyond what might be achieved using traditional brand structures and approaches.
One new model we like is the brand as a distributed portal. The portal model works for brands because it enables brands to be a new lens on life for customers, and to deliver multiple streams of value. If your brand is an informed gateway to the world, your customers can embrace you as they journey along side.
Of course, this is not an old-fashioned portal built like a corral. It’s a distributed portal, modular and incremental, open on all sides, one designed to move with the customer. It’s aligned along the degrees of freedom that customers need to grow.
Google and Yahoo give some indication of how such a distributed portal brand might be fashioned. Increasingly, their portal functionality is dispersed along customer vectors, where they’re happy to be your sidekick/enabler in life. Examples here, here, here and here.
What’s needed in this brand approach is both context, content and structure. Just providing another pipe or a search box won’t cut it. People will want the brightest sidekick they can find, one that’s actively engaged with their lives.
