The End of Branding

It’s about time.

Branding has had its day. Its time is up.

The idea that you can actually build a successful business based on this strange concept known as branding is about as quaint as the thin ties and three martini

lunches of Mad Men.

Except that it’s not quaint. It’s Criminal.

Branding is actually HARMFUL to building businesses.

Branding takes needed money away from building delight-inducing experiences. It

takes money away from serving customers. It takes money away from making great products. It perpetuates

outmoded media forms. It makes healthy products sick and sick products die. It kills

true creativity. Dead.

PROVE IT!

1: the history 2: the lie

3: the post-branding world 4: the bank

1: the history

The idea of “Branding” was invented some time in the late 1980’s by a

management consultant type who is now living on a yacht dodging the tax authorities.

In fact, brands existed quite nicely before branding. And they did it the right way.

They won games (NY Yankees), they did great ads (original VW campaign in 1960’s), they provided a place where you could get

a decent cup of coffee and sit down (Starbucks.)

In effect, brands started by slinging delight.

The ‘brand’ was simply a nice by-product of a series of great, delight-inducing

experiences. One after another. Or, to put it another way:

The delight led to the brand, not the other way around.

Brands had to prove themselves time and time again.

They had to earn the right to be brands. They had to be creative – because people

like things that deliver.

But then came the evil management consultant.

2: the lie

Instead of doing the hard work of building the brand from the bottom up,

experience by experience, engagement by engagement, in the age of mega TV

networks and nouvelle cuisine, someone cooked up the idea that you could just,

by the magic of that strange alchemy known as branding, build a business.

They sold the illusion that there was one plan, one size fits all, one answer. One

script.

This made lots of money.

For management consultants and their ilk.

But it sucked for people who buy or use your product. And it sucked for people

with passion who make or sell your product. It was, however, very good for

people who sell nouvelle cuisine.

URGENT: It is time for creative people (in manufacturing, in design, in store

architecture, in writing and art) to take control back from the branding experts

and just start slinging delight. Engaging with the people who have the money we

want, by doing one nice thing after another for them.

It is time to start building brands from the bottom up:

one freaking delightful experience after another.

That experience can be a great ad. (old VW campaign)

That experience can be an unscripted phone call.

(Zappos) That experience can be a

welcoming place with decent coffee.

(What Starbucks was before it met Branding!)

3: the post-branding world

When the focus is put back on making each engagement rich and delightful and

alive and off-script, branding will take care of itself.

When each Coca-Cola engagement (package, drink, website, phone app, text ping, you name it) is as refreshing as the

next sip of Coke on a hot day, the Coke brand will be strong.

Instead of Enron (great logo, great brand standards manual, friend of the devil) we’ll get more Zappos and Seinfelds and “Got Milk’s” and cool, enjoyable stuff that sells

and resells itself.

Because in a post branding world, it’s not about “what are you saying to me?”

It’s about “what are you doing for me?”

It’s not about how cool your logo or positioning or color palette is.

Just like in life, in a post-branding world, it’s all about:

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?

Did you make me smile? Did you give me something to talk about? Did you help get

me laid? Did you make an ad that entertained me as it sold me? Did you let

me talk for a while about dumb stuff without making me feel dumb? Did you break some rules for me to get it right?

Were you a creative, inventive, human being?

And will you be one again?

4: the bank

If you do this, throw out branding and start slinging delight time after time in

everything you do and make and communicate, you’ll enjoy yourself all the

way to the bank.

Unless you run a nouvelle cuisine restaurant.

Sorry.