Building People, not Brands.
[I’m reading Adland by James P Othmer on my staycation this week, before starting my new gig. A comment on the impending death of brands and branding by Rick Webb that is quoted in the book got me thinking.]
I’m a very strong believer in badge theory, the idea that people make purchases, intentionally or subconsciously, to help establish cues to their identity. Where I step away from some interpretations is in my assumption that you are seeing indications of, and purchases for, the persona a consumer wants to project, rather than some deeper, truer internal self.
I suppose I didn’t consider, until I read this quote, that looking at building a brand as a set of signifiers that people will want to incorporate into a projected identity might be doing it backwards.
[I’ll be spending the rest of this piece trying to make that last sentence clearer.]
I’m considering that it may be time to stop worrying about building brands, and to start worrying about building people.
Conversations about target markets and what appeals to them are standard. What worries me is the next step is to focus on the people-on-paper in terms of what they will react to, and not who they want to be perceived as being. Focusing on what brand people will react to is to be forever tying your brand to the actual consumer identity, the persona of research and proof, rather than the projected self, the person each of us is building to face the world.
[Despite an ongoing love-affair with authenticity, I’d argue most people just react well to ‘being true to yourself’, which is code for internal consistency and a predictable range of what you will, and will not do. Stepping outside of that range, even if it is ‘authentic’, will be met with hostility.]
Imagine designing your messaging with a different process - your product positioning based on the person your research says is currently making up your customer base, and the person you think they would be willing to pay good money to be perceived as. This isn’t cynical, any more than it was when a friend made a comment to me today about ‘Dressing for the job you want, not the one you have’. People are obsessed with presenting themselves as they want to be, not as they are.
The complex part is, for many brands, this is seemingly interchangeable from what they currently do. A BMW says you are a BMW person, and is most likely purchased because it makes a clear statement about your success, interest in quality, and restrained-but-still-obvious flashiness.
But in the endless world of niches that seems to be making up the future of business, targeting yourself carefully at the type of person a segment of your customers want to become, makes sense.
The problem is, it’s easy to put the cart before the horse, and try to build a brand that people will react to; this is what the vast majority of ‘ethical’ brands to - focus on what they mean, rather than what people will use them to indicate.
You mean precisely what people want you to say about them. You’re building people, not brands. Plan like it.
