The glorious (non-linear) essence of brands
As brand builders, we’re sometimes tempted to believe that our brands are linear, that they’re straight-line beams of context and meaning that we project upon the world, with the power to bind customers to them. In this view, customers themselves become a linear function of the brand, perfectly aligned and predictable. They’re a blank slate that we illuminate, and guide.
A dialectic of meaning that’s gloriously non-linear
Of course, that’s not the real world at all. In the real world brands are a dialectic of meaning that’s gloriously non-linear. They derive much of their energy, imagination and innovation from customers, in ways that are perfectly unpredictable. You may plot your brand roadmap as a row of brightly colored cones, but non-linear customers will carve their own routes over, around and through them, creating new brand realities (and value) as they go.
Non-linear brands stay fresh
This non-linear essence of brands is a good thing, too. It adds a vital, open edge to brands and brand programs. It keeps markets fresh, brands fresh, and companies fresh because it forces brands to stay on their toes, to interact with customers as equals, to listen and learn, and to grow as customers grow.
Customers carve brand meanings as they go
Take a close look at those shoes in the pic above. That’s a customer navigating your brand, about as non-linear as you can get. Customers take your brand where they’re going, not where you’re going. They carve new meanings as they go, wondering only if you have the drive to keep up.
A few non-linear notes on brands
- A brand is not a message—it’s a means. It’s how the customer escapes the mundane, the mediocre and the monotony of the straight and narrow. Brands confer the right to play.
- Your brand is not what you project, but what the customer does with it. In other words, you provide the wheels, but the customer does the wheelies.
- Great brands don’t hog the show. They leave plenty of headroom for the customer. Over-scripted brands can slow things down to an omnipresent, oppressive you—who just gets in the way.
- Think of your brand as a way to recruit customers to add value back to the brand. Give customers the tools to innovate, and to speed your brand forward. Their wheelies may become new markets.
Design your brand as a creative engagement
In short, design your brand as a creative engagement with customers. It’s a free-form riff, not a ball and chain with your name attached. Your brand is a way for customers to invent themselves, and through the brand dialectic, to re-invent you.
Photo: rollerfr.net — (via Wikimedia)
April 11th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I love this post, I’ve read it twice or so to get it all in.
You’re definitely right on on the benefits of having a dynamic (non-linear) brand. Long ago, when the whole marketplace and business making were just babies in the world, brands could manage to stay somewhat linear and put, mainly because of the lack of true competition in individual industries.
Usually there was one or two (or very very few, nothing compared to now) brands in the main industries, so they could take the luxury of not really adapting their brand with time to what consumers needed; neither following consumer, lifestyle, production, etc., trends.
It’s a good thing to see many (if not most) brands have gotten this principle right for some time now, allowing change in their brands.
Great Post,
Ron E.
http://brandcurve.com
April 13th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Glad you liked the post. For me, one of the best aspects of the “non-linear” concept is that brands are always in a state of creation, from the company side and from the customer side. Thus, brands aren’t “fixed;” they’re ongoing, “live” creations. This means that brand builders become more critical to the company. They will need the imagination to bridge the two sides, and to keep brands focused on growing the customer *and* growing the business.
April 30th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Donors can reinvent your brand…
Where is your brand? In a document you created, or in your donors’ lives? The Brands Create Customers blogs takes a look at this issue in The glorious (non-linear) essence of brands. According to the post, some brand-owners see their…
May 1st, 2007 at 5:13 am
[…] Via the Donor Power Blog I came across this entry on the Brands Create Customers blog. Point four advises: […]
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:56 am
As a non-profit exec. who is currently in the midst of conversations and planning on this very issue, I found the article refreshing and exciting. The challenge remains however on the “how” to facilitate this process with limited staff capacity and when trying to spend as many of our charitable resources on direct programs as possible. Ideas, thoughts, directions?
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
Sometime in the near future I’ll write a specific post on why nonprofit brands require a new brand approach, and what that might be. For now, here are some quick thoughts:
For a nonprofit, I would not focus on creating a high-profile “brand message” intended for a media campaign. Doing so commits you to high levels of spending to advertise it, and a kind of vicious spiral. Instead, I’d recommend a brand approach that works through—and leverages—a nonprofit’s “direct programs” themselves. These are what make the nonprofit unique and relevant in the first place.
In this approach I would focus on building a *brand community* that could grow the brand from the bottom up. This is a slower, organic way to grow the brand, but it is affordable, and has many possibilities for cost-effective leveraging, especially in this digital age. One advantage of a brand community is that it can grow by network economies.
The future of nonprofit brands may be as social networks and ecosystems, instead of individual “brands” competing for funding dollars. (The latter is a game only ad agencies can win.) There are now digital tools that enable creation of social networks with limited resources.
A nonprofit can base its brand identity on its innovation and imaginative problem solving. These can be critical differentiating factors, and that field is wide open.
Nonprofit brands do much more than “help the disadvantaged.” They unlock value, and enrich society. This is a different way of “framing” their mission, and a better measure of the value they actually provide. Innovative nonprofits will unlock more value, elevating program participants at the top end and at the lower ends, and creating brand differentiation in the process.
Many nonprofits are highly innovative social entrepreneurs. Their brands should reflect this. A nonprofit that thinks of itself as a “charity” may in reality be an innovative brand community, with many layers of social and program value. As a community its chances for brand growth are much better.
Nonprofits that embrace “cause marketing” must be careful not to fall into the trap of becoming “a brand of fundraising.” That can ultimately lead to less emphasis on direct programs themselves, and erosion of the core brand.
My impression: nonprofits that embrace “cause marketing” tend to look alike. They are different versions of the same marketing engine.
Anyway, that’s my random barrage of thoughts, or maybe semi-thoughts and impressions is more like it. Feedback from those in nonprofit sectors would be much appreciated. In my future post I’ll enlarge on the concepts I mentioned, and probably change more than a few in the process.