The brand is not merely the image, but emerges from lived identity in the minds (and hearts) of the people who come into contact with it. Unlike in the past, customers and employees today have access to an immense amount of information, opinions, and alternatives. At the same time, companies can find out what moves customers and how they classify and evaluate the brand. Transparency and the number of possible actions have increased significantly compared to the past. Clarity and orientation, on the other hand, seem to be severely limited. This results in challenges through which the importance of brands continues to rise.
Learning and adaptability as a central success factor for the transformation of our time
In many areas it can be observed: society and the economy are in a global upheaval that affects every single person, every organization, and every other organism on this planet to varying degrees—without this extent being clearly defined or foreseeable.
The rapidly growing complexity and dynamism of our time therefore require a high degree of learning and adaptability on both an individual and collective level. Many of the previous coping strategies and recipes for success have, as we can increasingly observe around us, served their time. Crises and conflicts are symptoms that point us toward rethinking previous approaches and questioning fixed assumptions.
Productivity cannot be increased indefinitely through the foundational innovation of “IT” and the networking it has enabled, on which much of the prosperity growth of recent decades has been based. Over the past 80 years, considerable progress has been made and valuable innovations have been brought forth on this basis. At the same time, the side effects of an increasingly globalized and digitalized (= networked) world have become more and more apparent in recent years:
- While the average life expectancy in Germany has more than doubled since 1870, from a holistic perspective it can be said: the health situation in the Western world could be far better. Both the physical as well as the mental and social health of many people suffer from systemic deficiencies and a lack of personal responsibility.
- Because change creates awareness—at the latest when personal health begins to suffer—many people increasingly realize: I lack meaning in the purpose I serve. Without meaning, it becomes difficult in the long term to achieve ambitious goals. At least without losing motivation along the way or sacrificing one’s own health.
- Not only does individual health suffer from a lack of meaning and motivation. Collective health, in terms of lived culture and coexistence, also shows how far we have drifted from fundamental values and what consequences this entails. Pillars of our society—especially family, marriage, religion, and the state—are eroding and transforming under extreme dynamism, networking, and technocratization.
Increasing complexity requires a holistic and integrative perspective that considers the interactions between systems and individuals. Only when we understand how things influence one another can we recognize the real bottlenecks and potentials. There is no blueprint to download for these interrelations—you have to develop them yourself.
The shifting power structures of the global economy, the consequences of the communication revolution and changing consumer needs create a complex-dynamic environment in which brands take on special importance as anchors of trust, providers of meaning, and sources of orientation.
Brands as anchors of trust in dynamic-complex environments
Constructed brands that are concerned only with their external appearance and bombard their target groups with shallow attitudes have long since served their time. A brand is not merely the marking of products and services externally. The brand is also the driving force that holds the organization together at its core and thus connects it with the right people externally.
The almost unlimited access to information and the multitude of comparable alternatives mean that negotiating power has today almost completely shifted from companies to consumers. Customers, employees, and other stakeholders also gain access to the brand and actively shape it.
This means that today nothing prevents customers from choosing an alternative if they either do not know your brand at all, if it is not easily accessible, or if a more promising offer is available. Nowadays we are surrounded by so many brands and their communication attempts that it should be clear: only a few brands make it into our memory in the long termand even fewer make it into our hearts.
The noise is greater than ever. Consumers find it much harder to orient themselves, while companies struggle to differentiate themselves. The signal can often no longer be extracted from the noise. And every day hundreds of personal and corporate brands, social media accounts, and websites are added, all trying to capture the attention of paying customers and productive employees.
Societal change always means that human needs and behaviors change. Companies today struggle greatly with these changing needs of diverse stakeholder groups. Especially if brand has so far only been thought of in terms of image and customers and employees are still seen as a means to an end, it becomes difficult to keep up and establish oneself as the best alternative. Not only do we as consumers or potential employees have the possibility to choose a better alternative—we have also developed better perception filters over time that help us block out what is irrelevant.
Brands help us find our way through the jungle of possibilities. They serve as anchors in our minds to which we attach various associations and evaluations in order to make better decisions more quickly. What is familiar is trusted. Brands are therefore anchors of trust because we link them with certain aspects that are important to us and on which we can (hopefully) rely.
At its core, brand building is therefore about which expectations are created through communication and how reliably these are fulfilled over a longer period of time.
Brands as an answer to the collective crisis of meaning
More is not equal to better, stinginess is not cool, and the end does not justify the means. Because then meaning is slowly but surely lost. At least some people and organizations seem to recognize and question this. Nevertheless, it can be stated: we are in a crisis of meaning that can be observed on an individual, cultural, and economic level—and that is driven not least by too many (false) information and options.
Whether among consumers or employees, the call for more meaning is unmistakable. Not only the acquisition of new customers, but also that of employees and partners therefore stands or falls with looking inward. It is about what is truly important to people. It is about questions such as:
- Which personal identities are involved in the organization and what shared identity results from this?
- Where do we come from and who are we?
- On which strengths and resources can we build?
- Which values are important to us and to our customers?
- How is our identity linked to the needs of our customers, and with which value promise can we create the greatest benefit today and tomorrow?
Only when the answers to these questions are clear to everyone involved can they be consistently lived by all. And only then can genuine resonance arise between human and brand. If resonance is missing internally within the organization, this will be reflected in behavior and communication externally—and resonance externally will consequently fail to materialize. Every communication attempt then disappears silently into the noise.
This often begins with brand being understood as a one-off project or marketing measure that can be purchased and then checked off. Many are still unaware of the importance of seeing brand as an intrinsic process that must be actively led. It is not the new logo, the glossy brochure, the social media campaign, or the new website that determines the success of the brand. Rather, it is the inner attitude that each individual—and consequently the entire organization—lives out every day that determines whether the brand is perceived and valued. Leading the brand therefore means making these values consciously and tangibly experienceable for all senses—with a strategic view toward customers, employees, and partners.
Values cannot be grasped physically and are difficult to quantify. Therefore, many entrepreneurs struggle to recognize the value of brands beyond their image. Nevertheless, the brand is the foundation on which the future success of the business is built. Precisely because not all companies have yet recognized the necessity of making quality visible and awakening demand among their ideal customers, enormous potential for one’s own business success lies here.
If, as a business owner, you recognize the value of lived values and succeed in allowing everyone involved to become part of the identity, consistency and coherence in behavior and communication become visible. Only in this way can the right people be reached and won despite the noise in the digital and analog space. Then there is a chance that the quality of the offerings anchors itself as a brand in the minds and hearts of these people and is seen as the best option at the next opportunity.
Do something worth remembering.
– Elvis Presley
