10 questions you should ask about your brand (pt. 2)

And we continue. . .

• Is my brand an improvisation? In my good friend Mike Bonifer's book Gamechangers, he talks about the networked world. A world with new rules, new players, new ideas and new strategies. His bottom line question is how do you effectively navigate the 21st century marketplace? Be a top level improviser. This means knowing and understanding that you do not know: who your next email will be from, who will be on the other line when you get that next phone call, or how will your next sales meeting go. Mike says in the opening paragraph of his book - "The future is unscripted". This means your brand cannot be rigid. It has to be fluid and agile. To be relevant and provide value in the networked world one of your top level skill sets needs to be dexterity. 

• Is design thinking a part of my brands vocabulary? In this conversation it would be valuable to focus from on an architectural perspective – which at the core, is systems design and integration. If you look at any house or building, that’s exactly what it is. The plumbing system, the air conditioning system, the electrical system and the structural system are all integrated to form a home, an office, or a place. How one entity integrates with another is at the core.  Take a look at the marketplace. The private sector is integrating with the non-profit world (CSR - corporate social responsibility).  Entrepreneurship is integrating with altruism (social entrepreneurs). T-shirt design is integrating with crowdsourcing (Threadless t-shirt company). Businesses are trying to integrate marketing and social media.  And this is just scratching the surface. The sooner you are able to leverage design thinking for your business the quicker you can get to creative ideas for who and what your brand is. 

• Is my brand leveraging social objects? According to Hugh McCleod the social object is the future of marketing. Very succinctly Hugh says this: The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the rea­son two peo­ple are tal­king to each other, as oppo­sed to tal­king to some­body else. Human beings are social ani­mals. We like to socia­lize. But if you think about it, there needs to be a rea­son for it to hap­pen in the first place. That rea­son, that “node” in the social net­work, is what we call the Social Object.

I totally agree with him (with a few thoughts of my own on the future of marketing) and advise you think about how your brand uses this idea.

• Can my brand answer this question?

Our brand is the only _______________ that  _________________. 

In the first blank put the name of your area, category, specialization (pizza shop, marketing consultancy, computer repair shop). In the second blank put what it is that only your company does. Now if you can't do this, hmmmmm. . .

If someone else or another company does what your company is doing and you can't say why you're different, then why should we hire you instead of them?

• Does my brand have a story? A brand or a business should be memorable. Now how does that happen? By telling a story that makes people smile, cry, laugh or identify with you. When you do any of these you connect with people. And connection is absolutely vital.  If you are talking about your business and you say "we sell baked goods that taste good" - what's memorable about that?!  You have to tell a story. . . "Well it all started on my 30th birthday. Looking at that "3" and that "0" on the cake that my friends and family had made for me, and then. . .thinking to myself. . . I am n-o l-o-n-g-e-r in my 20's and then it hit me!"  This will make people smile, or maybe even laugh (depending on how good a story teller you are) and definitely identify with you because who didn't have that brief or long moment of silence with themselves when their 30th birthday hit?

Now ladies and gents these aren't the only ten questions you should be asking but they're not a bad place to start. 

Now I'm wondering do you have any questions that we should be asking about our brands?

Comments

[Alison Claire]

Fantastic points, Rasul. Don't know that I can come up with any that wouldn't be in some form "sub-categories" of these 10, but I'll givbe it a shot .....

Is your brand GLOBAL/INTERANTIONAL??- Definitely, more and more, I'm thinking about how to become more "GLOBAL" these days, trying to network with contacts in Africa, England...thinking about how I "fit in" in Asia. Of course, brands are not always going to translate everywhere, but as different economies struggle, while others flourish, it seems SMART to find friends in other markets to sell your wares. In particular, I've been thinking about how much African-American/hip hop culture is being consumed internationally (a good friend of mine peeped me to this Japanese hip hop dancers recently), without very much fiscal benefit to the culture itself....I’m not just talking about music or even clothing - I saw a “State Farm” commercial the other day (great ad, btw) that was very much associating itself with black and brown culture, so that it could just be cool. Hip hop culture to sell insurance? Yep. Hey, if it worked for SPRITE....

Anyway, I'm not resentful of that at all - In many ways hip-hop culture and Black culture has now become “Pop Culture”, but I'm like, if "Blackness" is being consumed so much, why not find more ways for Black folk (including moi) to actually make some money on it TOO? I don't mean in an exploitative sense, but in a "let's not be naive" sense. Let’s figure out how NOT to replicate the whole Black Hair Industry mess...an unbelievable phenomenon, generates mind-boggling amounts of money(i forget the figure, either 50 or 500 million or something nonsensical), but very little of that money (relative to the fact that AA are consuming 100% of the product) is actually going into the pockets/bank accounts of African/Caribbean Americans.

Ooops, went off down a rabbit hole. What was my point again? Something about understanding the global marketplace and making sure you don't confine your brand to America or wherever just because that is your comfort zone? Think it ties into the ideas of being improvisational,unscripted and curious/asking good questions, etc. Could be missing out on some BIG opportunities, if you don’t stray a little off the beaten path sometimes. Thanks for getting me thinking/ really helps me to work out some creative/professional avenues for my own professional wants:)