The document discusses how brands and branding have changed over time. In the past, brands sold consumers on dreams and focused on visual differentiation, but today consumers pursue their own dreams, ideas, and lifestyles. Brands are now degraded to fulfilling consumers' own dreams. The document suggests that the role of salespeople and brands is dying unless brands provide truly relevant and convenient products/services, focus on the customer experience and relationship, and have bold character and a flexible culture. Brands will die like all things die, but can survive by adapting to these new realities.
17. 17
Brand Brand
Brand
mainly focused on
VISUAL DIFFERENTIATION
from other brands
PAST:
BRANDS SOLD US
THEIR DREAMS.
TODAY:
BRANDS ARE DEGRADED
TO FULFILL OUR OWN
DREAMS.
BRANDS
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAN
D
BRAN
D
BRAN
D
focused on
RELEVANT CONTENT and
FUNCTIONALITIES
18. 18
Brand Brand
Brand
mainly focused on
VISUAL DIFFERENTIATION
from other brands
PAST:
BRANDS SOLD US
THEIR DREAMS.
TODAY:
BRANDS ARE DEGRADED
TO FULFILL OUR OWN
DREAMS.
BRANDS
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAND
BRAN
D
BRAN
D
BRAN
D
focused on
RELEVANT CONTENT and
FUNCTIONALITIES
customer
ecosystem
33. 33
I.
Provide (really!) relevant products
&services that are as convenient
as possible for the customer.
II.
Focus on the experience and
build a relationship with your
customer.
III.
Be bold and have some
(real!) character – and have an
open-minded & flexible company
culture.
Our lifestyle was characterised by local/national influences.
Many brands and products were available only in specific countries.
Global information, trends or stories were limited.
WE AS CUSTOMERS WORSHIPPED GLOBAL BRANDS AND BOUGHT THEIR DREAMS.
We are living a global lifestyle.
Mostly all brands and products are the same and available all over the world.
Information, trends or stories are distributed instantly and globally.
WE AS CUSTOMERS BECOME INDEPENDENT AND SELF-DETERMINED AND LIVE OUR OWNS DREAMS.
What do all of these technologies discussed today mean for the future? How does it impact my human existence? What does this mean for many companies who are selling products?
I will present to you 10 statements explaining how technology and society is killing brands (the salesman), and what can be done to try keep the salesman alive. – or at least successfully harvest organs from their rotting corpse.
We suffer from the information overload, we’re overwhelmed, we would rather not engage with any of them!
Due to environmental, economical and sociological factors, we are increasingly less interested in buying stuff. We are much more interested in experiences – something we can share, remember, and repeat.
Most brands are still measuring their success through sales, but this metric is increasingly irrelevant. We want access over ownership: e.g. car sharing. When we don’t own the product, we are actually engaging with the service model. We will choose the company that has the best service, not necessarily the best products.
Voice assistants will save us from all that choice – they will choose a brand for us. We trust them with (almost) everything: she knows my needs and desires and she talks to me like a human being. So, why should I take the trouble to interact with other brands?
Wearing a logo or the latest must-have sneakers used to be something that made us proud. Now, its an embarrassment. The power dynamic has shifted: we expect brands to have personal relevance to us, rather than us making ourselves fit for the brand.
When everyone is following the wims of popular culture, we end up with a whole bunch of brands that look the same. Brands are so desperate to give the people what they think they want, we can barely tell the difference between them anymore.
Paid influencer on social media delude us with their recommendations. We felt a personal connection and identify with them, but in reality we were identifying with a lie – with content paid by companies. This is why we don’t believe in that shit anymore!e.g.: FYRE FESTIVAL
EVEN WORD OF MOUTH IS LOSING ITS VALUE
Change processes: Companies are slow to adapt to technology that customers already see as essential. Big brands are held back by slow internal change processes, which can leave them left behind.
A big reason we pay more for a brand is because we trust that name. Blockchain technology enables independent, transparent, secure and efficient transactions without need for a trusted middleman. This means we will be able to trust strangers and unknown parties – reducing our need for brands.
Big player are buying start ups with innovative ideas to remove them as potential competitors. e.g. Facebook owns Whatsapp, Instagram… we end up with just a few companies occupying the majority of our ecosystems (e.g. WeChat in China). But what happens when we are completely dependent on one company? E.g. current Facebook scandal – they have lost our trust but we are too dependent on them to stop being their customers.