This is the deck I gave May 21, 2014 at Susan Fournier's

1. Branding Now
10 dos
10 don’ts
Grant McCracken
grant27@gmail.com
BBR 2014
Boston University, May 21, 2014

2. note to slide share viewers
This deck was written for Susan Fournier’s conference
on branding at Boston University late May 2014
It’s a little “shouty,” expressing my frustration with the
way branding how happens in practice.
I sum up the argument in the next four slides.

3. One brand, many meanings
we continue to act as if
every brand is one thing.
A very clear, simple, exact
thing
Doesn’t it have to be
many things? One
brand, many meanings.
Multiple, inconsistent, and
sometimes messy
meanings.

4. One brand, meanings both broad and obscure
we’re caught between two
impulses: work designed
to speak to the largest
possible audience AND
branding that makes tiny,
precious, local meanings.
Don’t we have to do both?
One brand with meanings
both big and small, both
broad and obscure.

5. The brander is the prime mover
We have worked to make the
consumer a collaborator in and
cocreator of the brand.
I wonder if we haven’t gone too far.
The brander is the prime mover,
creating the world within which
consumers, fans and content
recreators work with brand
meanings.
This is not a symmetrical
relationship. The brand begins and
ends with the brander.

6. Old media matters sometimes more than new media
We have concentrated too
much on new media (mea
culpa here too).
We need both old media and
new media to build the brand.
Old media has a special role to
play, creating the foundational
meanings of the brand. (There
are certain meanings we can’t
make with new media.)

7. Ok, here’s the deck as
I gave it yesterday

8. a transitional moment
• that guy at the party
• brand as bore
• brand as bully

9. Oops, TV got
better
bastard child catches up
good and bad for branding
http://www.wired.com/partner
s/netflix/

10. 1. The banded
brand
a brand with many
layers or bands
Brand

11. outer-most
band, perfect
simplicity

12. 2nd story
wrapped in &
concealed
by the 1st

13. next band,
a finer signal still

14. for the brand’s
deepest fans

15. if we build it,
they will find it

16. 24 million viewers - 4 shows
http://cultureby.com/2014/05/big-bang-theory-theory-you-should-have-one.html

17. 2. the “broad
band” brand
the broadest meanings
dearest to the biggest
segments

18. 3. secret
messages
the brand as a place the
consumer can wander,
inhabit. Medieval Paris.
(The upper image is a secret
image send by Fringe show-
runners to their fans.)

19. 4. provocative
brands
annoying, actually
to win some,
we gotta lose some
http://cultureby.com/2014/03/provocative-
cadillac-rescuing-the-brand-from-bland-my-
latest-at-hbr.html

20. 5. brands that
go into the
world
we are too mediated
brands should show up
in the world
not to bang the drum
but to play
http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/08/cessna-marketing-
what-we-can-l/

21. 6. brands that
go into the
show
the perfect opposite of product
placement
this Subaru ad incomprehensible
unless you know the show
http://cultureby.com/2014/03/bran
ds-being-human.html

22. 7. brands that
know where
they are
brands used to act
like they existed unto
themselves.
“context, who cares
about context?”
http://cultureby.com/2004/07/site_sp
ecificit.html

23. 8. the brand
with a sense of
self mockery
RadioShack: The 80s
called and they want
their store back

24. 9. brands as
creative
platform
the brand as a starter-kit
brand as a platform
brand as a place to play
http://cultureby.com/2014/03/head-
starts-creative-platforms-for-culture-
makers.html

25. 10. test for
oxygen
Clive Sirkin, Kimberly-Clark,
we give our marketers
“freedom and license”
like Ian Tait and the W+K lab
after the Superbowl

27. Don’ts

28. bound to be more
controversial

29. sorry

30. 1. branding is
not a
conversation
The brander is the meaning
maker, the arena within
which the brand lives.
Conversations are
symmetrical. Brands are
asymmetrical.

31. 2. branding is
not a
collaboration
the brander is the prime
mover, alpha & omega.
consumers participate, but
they participate within the
brand, once the brander has
put that brand in place

32. 3. branding is
not crowd
sourcing
the Pharrell Williams
“Happy” video feels
spontaneous and street
sourced but it is in fact
carefully casted & crafted.

33. 4. branding
should not be
purpose driven
Our job is to be responsive to
consumers, and to change
with them in real time.
It’s not about us.
It’s about them.

34. 5. branding is
not about
stories
It’s about meanings
“Stories” constrain us.
Meanings must be modular.
Stories have narrative arcs,
characters and climaxes.
Branders need to be
modular to build a banded
brand

35. 6. don’t inflict
ourselves on
culture
Minnie Driver on The Riches
our most disgraceful moment ever
http://cultureby.com/2008/05/marke
ting-out-o.html
just say “no”
to product placement

36. 7. don’t act like
it’s all about you
we are not welcome
unless we have something to
contribute to culture
practice cultural arbitrage
hack culture
http://cultureby.com/2014/04/cultural-arbitrage.html
http://cultureby.com/2014/04/hacking-culture-an-april-fools-
edition.html

37. 8. branding is
not “all about
new media”
old media is the major meaning maker
Vince Gilligan, BB. no new media project
can make meanings like these
new media essential for mediation
but the prime mover remains for most
purposes old media
http://cultureby.com/2014/05/new-media-fundamentalists-
how-will-they-react-to-the-revolution-in-tv.html

38. 9. don’t do
publicity stunts
Earn your media by contributing to
culture. No cheating, no stunts.
inhale culture,
exhaling culture
and otherwise make the brand
charming & useful
don’t be this guy

39. 10. don’t make
the brand live
in the moment
We need earliest warning
possible
Reacting is not a strategy.
http://cultureby.com/2009/09/culture-
in-real-time-data-visualization-and-
the-cco.html

40. thank you
this presentation will
be up at
www.cultureby.com
by end of tomorrow
Image by Alaine Delorme

41. Thanks again to Susan
Fournier for including me
in the conference