Liodice and jaffe on Branding

Bob Liodice is at it again (I’m guessing one of his New Year’s resolutions was to blog more) and once again, I couldn’t agree more with him.

A week ago, he introduced his manifesto towards reinventing marketing and in his latest post, he revisits the traditional definition of branding building and posits that essentially we need a new definition of brand building.

          Brands not only need to be built, they must also be continuously reinvented

The first step in this process, he contends, is through innovation, and to this end he offers up 3 living examples: iPod, Motorola and G.E.

I particularly liked the point about the so-called iPod “halo” effect, where analysts are predicting the increase of Mac sales, as a result of the continued sales of iPod to Windows-based PC’s.

As someone who is actually currently considering the purchase of a Mac, I thought I’d offer up a few reasons why this prediction has foundation and legs. It also speaks strong to what I think is Apple’s overarching strategic blueprint moving forward:

1)     iLife: In this day and age of consumer generated content – from movie making, to blogging, to podcasting, the Apple software family has it all. Its seamless interoperability, combined with its ease of use are mirrored in the iPod itself.

2)     “Stereo Computing”: Our iLives are also full of multiple personalities. Our primary computer (which may very well belong to the company) represents control, boundaries, protocols and guidelines. We long to express ourselves in stereo. We long to create and broadcast in full color.

3) Hard drive overload:Hard drives are filling up quicker than ever before. The increase in hard drive capacity is being dwarfed by the rapid growth in both the size of downloaded and created content. Portable external hard drives are one option; another computer entirely for multimedia needs is another...

4)     Declining hardware costs: This one speaks for itself. A second computer doesn’t represent opulence or excess at all.

5)     Community: Even though the world is still predominantly PC-based, the underbelly of creativity is not. In the past, this used to belong exclusively to the agency creative and design communities; today it belongs to tech geeks, parents, budding broadcasters and wannabe directors.

I’ve spent the past 2 years talking to various audiences about “New Branding” courtesy of Advertising.com who sponsored my “Breakfast and Jaffe Juice” series. I also wrote a chapter in my book dedicated to re:thinking branding. One point, which Liodice also touches on, is echoed in the presentation:

No longer are soft measures like ‘brand awareness,’ ‘brand preference’ and ‘intention to buy’ acceptable.

In other (my) words: new branding requires new metrics. This is where engagement and time spent come into play.

Here’s a sampling of some of my primary assertions about branding’s evolutionary and revolutionary road ahead.

Download new_branding_summary.pdf