Advanced Brand Masterclass Discussion: What Are the Major Challenges with Brand Today?

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by: Idris Mootee

I think you
are now ready for some debates. Let me start by asking you what do you think
are the top challenges that brand marketing faces today?

Let me start
with one, for the last 100 years, marketers had almost perfected the art and
science of mass marketing.  It even got better when agencies such as W+K,
Chiat Day and BBH pushed the creative envelope and did some great work and as a
result build some great brands. Then the internet came along and created a
whole new game. There was a saying back in the 80s
that 50% of advertising is wasted, we just don’t know which 50%.  Today I
think it is reasonable to say that 80% of advertising were ignored, and we know
which 80%.
So the “spray and pray” formula is not working. The
explosion of various form social media is shaping the future of ad industry.
..and forever changes the very idea of “brand”.

Everywhere
in the world Brazil, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, China and Japan, this new
class of net citizens control the means by which to create and publish content,
and to some extend determine what a brand means. Yes, brand marketers are
increasingly concern that they’re losing control of message,
medium and meanings
. Ad agencies lost the exclusive role as
“official storytellers” and they have a hard time coping with the
fact that they are now truly becoming “agencies”, or in another words
“brokers” of messages and meanings. As Mark Ury (our guest blogger)
puts it “… because brands aren’t distinct,
separate “things” that ad agencies create.
They’re the by-product
of relationships. They are behavior.” After all, he’s probably right.

In the
slides that I posted here yesterday, we kinda see the evolution of brand. From
being “identity” or “image” driven to now becoming more
“emotion” or “experience” driven. How
do you think that will evolve next?

If brands are behaviors,
how can brand marketers manage these behaviors?
If not,
what can be done in order to influence it? What can be done to protect your
brand from negative associations? I’d like to hear your views.

Original Post:
http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation playground/2007/09/what-are-the-ma.html