Becoming Brand Aware

Remember when you were a kid?  Remember how sounds seemed crisper, colors more vibrant, everything seemed new?  We were like a sponge, absorbing everything around us.  We had no missions and visions, goals and objectives, strategies and tactics.  We just were.  We were without “ego”.  So this got me thinking….

At the risk of getting all philosophical I wanted to take crack at why the discussion of social media and it’s adoption within companies is far beyond that of what most think.  I am often asked to speak on aspects of social media that approach social media more from the existing, predominant way of thinking about brand. I believe that social media is as much a new communications technology and two-way medium as it is a lightning rod for a massive shift in corporate culture.

I just finished a fascinating book by Eckhart Tolle that certainly made me stop and think about life.  I think many of the principles he touched on can be adapted to explain the transformative nature that social media possesses in today’s corporate world.  Heck, the line between work and life has been completely erased for many of us so why not apply some life thinking to the corporate world.

• Is how we think of Brand defined properly in context of social media and community?
• Has the definition become clouded, so much so that it has taken the majority of companies off on a path that perhaps no longer makes sense?
• What if we exploded the definition of Brand into multiple pieces and explored the meaning of each in a new context – with social media thrown into the mix?
• We are all certainly familiar with the term Brand Personality so what if we treated Brand as, well, a person and explored its essence as such?

So let me throw down a few definitions I’m playing with.  Will they make sense and can you think of others?  Let’s see.  Ok, here let’s kick it off with the lightning rod itself – social media:

Social Media – A new medium that interconnects the community in a powerful new way.  The interconnection abilities of this medium are so powerful that the strength of the Community has finally become stronger, in many cases, than many Brand Egos.  Corporate Bodies in touch with their Brand Soul are tapping into the Community by embracing Social Media.  By being connected to Community and Listening through the Social Media connection they are rediscovering who they really are – their Brand Soul, not their Brand Ego.  Sometimes this is quite the revelation.

The Brand Soul – This is the true essence of Brand.  Its interconnected through relationships with the Community and thus lives inside the Corporate Body as much as the Community.  Members of the Community are attracted or repelled by what they sense from the Brand Soul.  The Brand Ego thinks it can mask the Brand Soul and control what the Community (or what the Brand Soul prefers to call it – The Target Market) senses.  While this can work for a short time the Community is interconnected and eventually sees through this.

The Brand Ego – This is the mind of the Corporate Body.  In most companies the Brand Ego overshadows and dominates the Brand Soul, cluttering the essence of the Brand with lots of things it thinks up using strategies, plans, campaigns etc…  The Brand Ego thinks it controls the Brand and it can will what it thinks into existence.  The Brand Ego listens predominantly to itself for guidance because, after all, who would know more about the Brand than itself (or so it thinks).

The Corporate Body – often the Brand Ego thinks that the Corporate Body is indeed the brand because it is its physical representation.  Of course the Corporate Body is indeed just the body, not the brand.  The Corporate Body can cease to exist or completely change structurally but the Brand can live on embodied in the Community (this is of course determined by how interconnected the Brand was with the Community while it existed).

The Brand – The Brand is the id.  It is a mixture of the Brand Ego and the Brand Soul. The Brand always starts off as purely Brand Soul and very connected to the Community (even if the number of connections may be small at the time).  But as time goes on the Brand Ego develops inside the Corporate Body the Brand Ego tries to minimize the Brand Soul, often trying to think it right out of existence.  However some Corporate Bodies have come to realize this imbalance, often after connecting to the Community through Social Media, and have made changes to their Corporate Culture to attempt to become Brand Aware.

Corporate Culture – This is the approach to Business Life that all Corporate Bodies possess.  In most mature Corporate Bodies the Brand Ego has an iron grip on Corporate Culture.  The Brand Ego knows that Corporate Culture embodies many of the processes and belief systems of the Corporate Body and if it can maintain control of its destiny.  However, some Corporate Bodies have become Brand Aware and have begun to make changes to their Corporate Culture and to connect with the Community.  The step of becoming Brand Aware is the beginning of the end of Brand Ego.

Brand Aware – The dominance of Brand Ego thinking has shifted the definition of what being Brand Aware is.  Brand Egos talk about Brand Awareness instead and define it as the Target Market being aware that the Brand Ego exists.  Of course this feeds the ego of the Brand Ego especially when it compares itself with other Brand Egos.  However the true meaning of Brand Aware is when the Corporate Body is aware of Brand Soul’s existence and it’s interconnectedness with the Community. Corporate Bodies that are Brand Aware restructure their Corporate Cultures to focus on the Brand Soul and minimize and eventually eliminate the Brand Ego.

Ok, hopefully at this point you are starting to see the context of these definitions.  Anyone want to take a crack that the next definition?

The Community – How would you define Community in this context?

Can you think of any other definitions?

September 19th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 8 Comments