Brand...new space

As we move forward, with 2010 in our rearview mirror, we prepare for new possibilities in the upcoming year and beyond. What these opportunities are, we don’t know just yet. Nevertheless 2011 lays before us: unexplored and undetermined.

So for creative thinkers in the marketplace, and particularly for us here at Cnvrgnc, the question is: how do we maintain focus and continuously create new spaces for brands and their communities to engage them?

Well, when we talk about ‘innovation’, what are we really discussing? Let’s toss out all the buzzwords. Let’s strip away the jargon. Let’s put aside all the complex concepts that often determine the frameworks in which conversations about ‘breakthroughs’ typically happen.

Let’s boil down this typically complicated space into one simple word: Language.

More often than not when we have packed our bags, oriented our compasses and planned our itineraries for traversing the world of innovation, this word and the value around it, often never makes it into our luggage.

Language is the collection of words that structure the ideas we communicate with, the concepts we interpret and the understanding that shapes how we negotiate the world around us. We often take for granted language and how we use, manipulate, and structure it. Often though, it is in many ways one of the single most influential ways in which actions, reactions or inactions plays a part in our everyday decisions. 

The ability to fashion language in a way that re-positions meaning, comprehension and perception is a talent that cannot be understated. Whether it’s advertising, marketing, communications, narratives, or storytelling the power of language is undeniable.

Now not being in step (or ahead of the curve) with new language doesn’t mean all is lost. But it does pose a potential problem. A quick hypothetical situation:

There's an opportunity with a new client to explore  new entertainment markets by looking at how to utilize transmedia narratives for deeper audience engagement. There's one problem, though, the expanse of your vocabulary is dvd videos...

What this equates to...flat-footedness. In an everchanging marketplace agility, fluidity and awareness are essential for being amongst those who lead the packs.

Part of your innovation potential is about being fully aware and even entrenched in the emerging spaces (often determined by new language) and embracing the need to transition from what’s staid to the new value paradigm. This means that constructing 21^st century thinking requires letting go of 20^th century logic.

It is vitally important to understand this: the unconventional use of language (i.e. brand ethos, new country as a startup, magical art) creates new possibilities, new ways of thinking and new spaces for brands to relate to people and for people to relate to brands.

Is language the only material in the innovation shed? No, of course not. But when used effectively, it can truly create new places for our minds to go and new spaces for us to engage in.

Comments

[Omar Henderson]

Timely article, bro. Language creates our internal realities.

[Rasul Sha'ir]

Thanks Omar. I appreciate you stopping by. I've been a loong time fan of language. And you are so right. It does determine our internal reality, which then manifests the outward experience.