Blumenthal On BrandingUnconventional insight from Dr. Dannielle Blumenthal

Copyright 2017 by Dannielle Blumenthal, Ph.D. Dedicated to Andy, Minnaand Rebecca Blumenthal. All opinions are the author's own.

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The underlying philosophy of this book runs counter to much conventional wisdomabout branding, as follows:

Most people think that brand name and logo are everything. They're not. Nameand logo can be copied. What matters is the organization's commitment to ashared vision.Most people think that the brand is a part of the business. It's actually the entirething. Your brand is the fulcrum around which all organizational activity occurs.Most people think that the brand should have its own ambassadors and socialmedia channels. It shouldn't. People recognize that the brand is an artificialconstruct. As such, its representatives should at all times be authentic - and bethemselves.Most people think that branding is about creating artificial value. Precisely theopposite. Brand-building must involve real value for real people. False promises,exploitation and abuse of trust will detract from the brand's equity in the longterm.

The reality is that the true building blocks of a brand are difficult: personaldevelopment, organizational development, and a commitment to forward-thinking,holistic strategy. Reading this book will help orient you to the true tasks that need tobe done in order to build a world-class brand.

I have been studying, observing and teaching this subject for many years. I hope thisshort but informative guide will help you to find your own unique path forward.

Dannielle Blumenthal

IntroductionA forward-looking view of branding

Professional journey

In late 1999, fresh out of graduate school, I answered a blind ad for a copywriter. It hadbeen placed by the futurist and trend spotter Marian Salzman, then-head of BrandFutures Group, a think-tank in the worldwide advertising behemoth Young &Rubicam. 

Marian put me to work analyzing consumer trends, and predicting the branding shiftsthat would answer them. I wound up speaking to the media, representing ourfindings. When we moved to Washington, DC, I joined a brand consultancy and led athink-tank of its assembled global experts. 

It's been nearly twenty years now since I started following their work, researching thediscipline, following the evolution of individual brands, and sharing my thoughts invarious publications and on my blog, DannielleBlumenthal.com and laterAllThingsBrand.com.

Personal quest

I have been fascinated with brands ever since I was a child. It had to be designer jeans--and it had to be on the clearance rack--or else I wouldn't go shopping. 

What is it about brands that exerts such a hold over our minds, even after we knowthat we are buying an illusion? It has been a lifelong project to find out.

About The Author

I. Basic ConceptsRead this to get oriented

Brand equity is the reason to engage in branding. 

It is a financial calculation: the difference between a commodity product or service anda branded one. For example if you sell a plain orange for $.50 but a Sunkist orange for$.75 and the Sunkist orange has brand equity you can calculate it at $.25 per orange.

What Is Brand Equity?

Positioning Statement

This is a 1–2 sentence description of what makes the brand different from itscompetitors (or different in its space), and compelling. Typically the positioningcombines elements of the conceptual (e.g., “innovative design,” something that wouldbe in your imagination) with the literal and physical (e.g., “the outside of the car ismade of the thinnest, strongest metal on earth”). The audience for this statement isinternal. It’s intended to get everybody on the same page before going out with anycommunication products.

Tagline

This is the classic phrase intended to make the brand’s positioning memorable to thecustomer. And the classic example is Nike’s “Just do it.” The swoosh representsimmediacy, movement, urgency, determination, and drive. The tagline captures theessence of the brand perfectly.

That tagline is used, very deliberately and repeatedly, in advertisements. And itpositions the product. Even though Nike sneakers, athletic wear, and so on do not inmy view particularly make you more likely to “just do it,” the tagline and brandpositioning are so effective that they do brainwash you into thinking that the act ofbuying makes you a champion. 

Your Positioning Statement vs.Your Tagline

1. Enhanced Recruitment of Top Talent

People want to work for organizations with strong brands, and their employees areproud to be there. 

2. Stronger Reputation

Well-branded organizations have improved credibility among key stakeholders. Theperception is that they're doing a good job at achieving their mission.

3. Confidence in Leadership

A strong brand implies that the chief executive officer knows how to guide and directthe agency based on its mission, core values and culture, and managers know how todirect front-line employees. 

4. Reduced Complaints

People are more likely to comply with rules set forth by a name they know, recognizeand understand than one they are unfamiliar with.

5. Enhanced Customer Service

The strong brand instills in employees core values that lead them to listen better tocustomers.

6. More Consistency in Outreach 

10 Reasons to Build YourOrganizational Brand

Employees have a clearer sense of mission and communicate it consistently inguidelines and educational documents they issue to the public.

7. Better Decision-Making

The vision, mission, values and common culture clarify for employees at all levels howto make decisions about matters large and small.

8. Stronger Customer Awareness

Customers are better able to distinguish a well-branded agency from others that are aformer iteration or sound similar.

9. Healthier Internal Communication

Employees are united by a common vision, values and culture. They communicateopenly about matters of importance.

10. Better Funding Pipeline

Investors are more apt to fund a strong brand which has a clear, compelling mission,value proposition, and revenue model.

II. Brand StrategySmart Branding Thinking In Action

1. Research

The process starts with brand assessment, that is, finding out how your keystakeholders see you versus how you see yourself. 

2. Communicate

Based on research inside and outside the agency, you articulate the vision, core values,common culture, positioning and other key attributes. 

3. Written Guidelines

Third comes brand communication guidelines: How do you want your graphics, Website, press materials, recruitment documents and other materials to look? The goal isto arrive at a consistent identity that allows for some variation to keep thingsinteresting.

4. Change Management

No matter how well you do your research, think through your strategy and sharpenyour presentation, you'll need a change implementation program to prepare yourstakeholders for a shift in the way you communicate.

5. Metrics

Finally, you'll need a brand management system-ongoing measurement and trackingof how the brand is doing. The key is to tie a business outcome metric, not a processmetric, to the actions you are taking to promote the brand.

5 Steps to a Brand That Sticks

1. Reduction of Brand to Logo

Branding is about rallying employees and the public around your clear, compellingmission. Period.

2. Spotlight-Seeking 

Sometimes there is the sense that if the organization overall has a brand, then "myparticular subgroup will not get recognized for its work." Related to this is a lack ofunderstanding or appreciation of brand architecture - that a brand can be (and mustbe) organized to accommodate various sub-brands without compromising the overallidentity. The tendency is to think in extremes - either there is one brand overlord at HQwho won't let anyone else have their own identity, or there is a completelydecentralized system where any logo goes.

3. Hierarchical Thinking 

This is a failure to see that a brand is only as good as the people who support it. Youcan't tell employees what to do and how to feel. You can only educate, motivate, andinspire them to be passionate advocates for your agency and its brand. And that isaccomplished by letting them have a say in things. It's not necessarily that they tellyou what the strategic messages should be, but that they are free to discuss internallyand provide feedback on their experiences with stakeholders and the brand - and thatinforms you about how the brand is shaped. This is an argument for anorganizational development expert on staff who can help to nurture this environment.

5 Typical Factors PreventingBrand Alignment

4. Lack of Coordination 

Building the brand is everybody's "business" and must be a coordinated effort amongall employees, even those who would seem to be the furthest from marketing.

5. Lack of Objectivity

By this I mean the tendency to think impressionistically or anecdotally about it ratherthan taking a fact/research-based approach. How do people perceive theorganization and how should they perceive it? Do customers know where to go to getwhat they need? Are there any kind of numbers to support these conclusions? Theseare the kinds of things that senior leadership needs to see to support a brand initiative.

III. Personal BrandingThe Intersection of Self and Job

There's No Other Way To Be Consistent

One of the most important ingredients a brand can have is consistency.When it comesto personal branding, the trick is to be your complete self, your whole self, all thetime. 

So You Should Take It As Far As You Can

Along these lines I live by the advice of communications guru Shel Holtz, who said thefollowing about social media in a seminar he taught fifteen years ago: "Say as much asyou can, and then say when you can't say any more." 

The same is true for personal branding. You want to go very far--right to the edge ofthe self, if you can--and take the audience there along with you. 

Knowing The Line Takes Judgment

The trick is knowing when you have gone too far. It's a line everybody has to judge forthemselves.

Be Yourself - To A Point

More Terrifying Than Death

They say that public speaking is a fear worse than death for many people. I believethat this is true, because I've certainly felt it quite a bit. And it is why, more often thannot, your presentations are terrible. 

It’s not that you don’t know your subject matter. You probably know it better than theback of your hand. It’s not that you aren’t prepared, either. Most likely you’re not onlystudied-up, but probably spent a little too much time hitting the books before your bigTed Talk or senior briefing. 

Ego Gets In The Way

The problem has nothing to do with you. The truth is that while some of us are clearlymore theatrical than others, presentation skill is a skill that can be learned. 

So why are you so bad at it? Why is your audience changing the channel, at leastmentally, for 99% of your talk? The issue is a basic flaw in your thinking. Please, rinseand repeat the following four words: IT’S NOT ABOUT ME. IT’S NOT ABOUT ME. IT’SNOT ABOUT ME. 

If you get up there thinking about yourself, I can tell you right now: your talk will havezero impact. Or worse. 

The reason great speakers affect us so much is that they are totally swept up in thepower of their message. It is impossible to focus on yourself and also put the spotlighton a topic that matters. 

Handling Presentations

Fear of public speaking is a sign that you’re definitely making this mistake. Yournegative emotional investment is a gigantic red flag, signaling that your talk iswrapped around your ego. 

Change The Script - Record Yourself

The next time you have to give a talk, subtract yourself from the equation. You canprepare to do this in a very simple way — start doing videos. No, you don’t have topublish them on YouTube or Periscope or wherever. You should however practice theart of speaking into the camera, on a regular basis. And then play back the video, tosee what you look like while talking. 

The point is not to evaluate your performance as a speaker. It’s also not to gaugewhether you know what the hell you’re talking about. Rather, it’s about getting usedto the fact that you actually look pretty bad on video. 

Fail First

Once you accept and get over your basic flaws as a speaker, you’ll get past yourpreoccupation with self altogether. 

The truth is that the thing you fear the most is actually very real. You aren’t all thatgood, you have a million flaws, and when you stand up there people know it.  It’sceasing to care that allows you to focus on the topic at hand. 

Knowing What Matters

In the end, people look past your superficial imperfections. What they care about, andrelate to, is your beating heart.

Get over your ego and put your message out front. 

Brand Statement or Job Space?

A LinkedIn profile that reflects as a “personal brand statement” showing “creative andinnovative thinking” will be viewed as an online job resume no matter what, becauseLinkedIn is a place to show off your job skills. 

That said, to highlight creativity, one should attach links to creative work to one’sprofile. 

If you don’t want to include your jobs to those links, it will be difficult to explain howyou did the work, so you might want to create a “job” called “independent creativework” and attach the links there.

But You Love Beer!

Not knowing what you do for a living, let’s assume that your LinkedIn profile is typical,meaning that it reflects the image of a corporate professional.

Would your boss, or a prospective employer, think badly of you for promoting yourpassion for beer?

Traditional product branding says that you should focus on your unique sellingproposition fairly single-mindedly. 

Your goal is to create a space in the customer’s mind dedicated to your brand so thatwhen they want to purchase something like it, they shortcut all alternatives and gostraight to you.

So from a product branding point of view, putting a personal beer account on yourprofessional profile is distracting. It tells an employer that you’re not totally focused on

You On LinkedIn

the encyclopedic and ever-evolving knowledge, skills and abilities

required to do your valuable type of job.

Yet People Are Not Products

On the other hand, applying the product branding model to an actual human being inthe employment marketplace is problematic.

In the real world, people want to work with other people who are “normal,” meaninghuman, relatable, and interesting. And so (presuming that the rest of youremployment profile looks solid) I think an employer would be highly likely to valueyour personal passion on a topic of interest to many.

Frankly it’s also reassuring to know what people are into on their personal time, giventhe number of absolute and total freaks that appear to populate our planet.

Some personal branding advisors might question the fact that your passion involvesalcohol. However, I think beer (and wine) live in that zone we would call “moderate,”and is therefore not a problem.

If you crafted that beer at home, it would be even better, but that kind of wizardry isnot a requirement.

As you said, it goes without saying that drunk vacation photos don’t belong on anInstagram you connect to your LinkedIn account.

Frankly I don’t think it’s a good idea to take drunk vacation photos in the first place.

All that said, I don’t believe most people should connect their Instagram accounts totheir LinkedIn profiles. This is because for the vast majority of people, such accountscontain photos of personal interest. Unless your personal brand hinges on being a“personality,” such photos distract from your professional accomplishments.

Frankly, they also make you seem lacking in judgment. I know this may be acontroversial statement in a world where people where jeans and flip-flops to theoffice. But I am one of those people who believes that there should be a distinctionbetween your professional and personal self, most of the time.

Some people don’t really get that, and they will post links to every single social media

account they have, as though some economy were gained by sharing them.

Don’t.

The bottom line is this: If your Instagram account, or other social media account,reflects something worth sharing professionally — then post it to LinkedIn.

Otherwise, it’s better for your income to keep the two separate. Even the otheraccount is public, and it is possible for any interested party to find out what you do inyour spare time.

IV. Distributed BrandingLooking Toward the Future

Customer Service Is No Longer Enough

The fact of the matter is that you have to get along with people in order to remainemployed. This kind of economy goes under other names, but they all mean the samething:

Collaboration economy Service economy

This trend began decades ago and has reached its fruition today. Brands aredifferentiated by emotional labor. 

It is no longer enough to fortify the customer's sense of self. It is not sufficient tomake them feel a part of a community. A brand must demonstrate that it is prosocialcommitted to making the world a better place.

The True Meaning of "Networking"

I was talking to someone the other day who has impeccable credentials. But theywere well-aware that credentials are not enough. They needed leadership skills andmanagement skills. But even more than that they needed a mentor and a professionalnetwork.

The ability to build and maintain such a network, both at your job and outside of it, isan insurance policy for your professional brand. It is the basis upon which you will getreferrals and references. 

More importantly, your ability to connect emotionally with other people  it is thecornerstone of your ability to maintain your employment once hired.

The Pro-Social Economy

High School All Over Again

It has always been true that you have to get along with people at work. You can't just"do your job" and expect to have a rewarding career. 

But with the proliferation of social media tools, the ubiquity of social devices, the24/7/365 nature of work, and its remote nature, the boundaries between personal andprofessional have blurred. On top of that, employers are increasingly concerned aboutthe reputation risk that your personal brand poses to them. 

A New Need For Boundaries

In a perfect world, you should be able to keep your personal life always personal andyour job situation purely about the job. But in the new pro-social economy, that hasfrankly become impossible.

Today, your emotional health will depend on having clearly articulated boundariesyour professional self and your personal self, as you will be called upon to projectfriendship with other people only for the sake of your job. 

The Bottom Line

We are living in a new world of personal branding that impinges on our personalspace in many ways. In this environment, it is key to maintain your professionalism,even in a work environment where people frequently engage in personal relationshipson the job.

The Newly No-BoundaryWorkplace

A Matter of Trust

Trust is the foundation of brand equity - meaning, the added monetary value that thebrand provides over and above a commodity - and therefore of the brand itself. If thecustomer does not trust that the brand will deliver its promised benefit, theconversation is over before it starts. 

This holds true no matter what kind of benefit we are talking about: 

Functional - that the brand performs better than the competition.  Emotional - that the brand makes you feel particularly good in some way.  Communal - that the brand affords you a sense of belonging to a group.  Spiritual - that the brand affords your life a sense of meaning. 

Nodal Networks 

Blockchain by its nature will transform the way consumers come to trust in brands.Rather than a linear relationship, with the brand producer "creating" a trustrelationship for customers to either accept or not accept, the responsibility for trust isdistributed. 

In the blockchain model, all transactions--financial and contractual--are validated andrevalidated continuously through a distributed network. The best metaphor I've heardto explain how blockchain works is that of a Google document, where updates to thecore are made and recorded by many individuals (nodes) on the networksimultaneously. 

Implications of the "BlockchainFuture"

Rise of the Blockchain In Media

You can see this shift happening right now in the collapse of the mainstream media.Per Gallup (September 2016): "Americans' Trust In Mass Media Sinks to New Low."Concurrent with this we see the rise of independent "micro-journalists." 

In this model: The journalist is not funded by a colossal corporate network and theirfact-checking isn't supported by a salaried person employed by said colossus. Instead,anyone can contribute facts to the collective and a seemingly infinite number ofanonymous individuals do that, on platforms made to collect and/orpreserve information. 

Asynchronously, content is developed, produced, and distributed, and the credibility ofthe distributor is continually questioned. Over time, some journalists emerge as"trusted quantities" whereas others are discarded as non-credible. 

The new media will be about a consistent brand experience, but that consistencycomes from a silent mass of people converging to anoint certain people and not othersover time, and based on a history of repeated transactions that are open andaccounted for to the public. Those transactions are information-based, and they arepreserved in perpetuity for anyone in the public domain to examine. 

New Realities, New Models

Powerful companies are "getting into" the blockchain and related cryptocurrencyspace, but even a cursory review of the news demonstrates that blockchain thinkinghas barely made a dent.  Companies are still trying to get their employees to representa perfect image of a perfectly consistent brand, that some mythical Wizard of Oz isengaged in creating.

But that is an old model, Branding 1.0. 

It was superseded by Branding 2.0 several years ago--this is where people

talk back to the brand.  Branding 3.0 is where people co-create, and go one stepfurther, by curating multiple brands together. 

The new age of branding, Branding 4.0, will be where people collectively transform

the nature of entire industries, without even trying to do so.

It's Never Over

Paradoxically we will say "branding is over." But in the sense that trust powers allfinancial relationships, and imbues our professional world with a variety of "knowncharacters," the act of branding and the strategy involved in crafting some brands as"more trustworthy than others" endures as both art and science. 

We have trouble admitting when the old ways are dying, but we do ourselves afinancial disservice by failing to come to terms with reality. 

V. PredictionsLooking Toward the Future

1. Blockchain

Look for the blockchain industry to generate many products and services - brandedvirtual currency, smart contracts, training, staffing and backup.

2. Pot

Watch for cannabis to expand its march toward legalization and regulation for medicaland recreational use, leading to branded products, accessories, treatment practices,magazines and resorts.

3. AI

Artificial intelligence - think of Alexa and Siri - will begin to go mainstream as peoplefigure out how to use these tools to save time and run their lives in a more organizedmanner.

4. Robot Relationships

 We will see robots providing emotional and physical intimacy; in the form of virtualassistants, daytime companions, nighttime spooners, cuddle parties and sex robots. 

5. Self-Defense Culture

Guns, martial arts and swordfighting will grow in popularity as "prepper culture"grows and consumers seek products, training, and recreational activities related tosurvival. 

5 Brand Trends for 2018

1. Citizen Journalism

In a trend that continues from the campaign, we will see official sources of newsdecline in public interest as it is perceived that they spin a pre-fabricated narrative. Atthe same time, the perceived honesty of independent bloggers, researchers and othercitizen journalists will lead the public to turn to social media first and potentiallyexclusively to find out what is going on. In 2017, the "MSM" will serve chiefly as fodderfor the real conversation, which occurs in public and private social media forums.Expect social media to fall into relatively stratified ideological lines, with the Lefttalking mostly to itself and the Right doing the same, while the media wrings itshands over "fake news" and struggles to make the case for its legitimacy. 

2. The Decline of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube

A number of factors have combined to create distrust in what can now be called"traditional" social media. These include issues related to privacy and governmentsurveillance as well as issues around perceived censorship and favoring of specificideological views. In response, the public will turn to new, homemade, alternativeforms of communication that are not perceived as servile to anonymous mega-interests. 

3. Alternative Education

Many forces will power a shift away from traditional education toward home-curatedforms of schooling. For one thing, there is extensive coverage of the ideologicalwrangling taking place at the college and university level, with extremist professorsand coverage of student demonstrations eclipsing discussions of research andscholarship. Additionally, there is a longstanding concern among parents

10 Brand Trends for 2017

that traditional schooling, even at the undergraduate level, tends to reward those whoplay to a rubric rather than individualistic students, whose contributions at the level ofcritical thinking and creativity are impossible to measure at the quantitative, herdlevel. Further, parents are increasingly aware that the economy requires their childrento attain significant proficiency in science and technology subjects. All of thesefactors will combine to make parents readier to pool their efforts or workindependently to ensure their children are well-prepared to face the future.

4. The Growing Irrelevance of Washington, DC

The U.S. presidential election of 2016 highlighted the cultural dissonance between ournational capital and the rest of the country. Despite the fact that Donald Trump wonthe Presidency, the seeds of distrust have been sown deeply, and we will start to seethe elimination of "what's going on in Washington" from ordinary conversation. 

5. The Fight To Define "Alt-Right"

With the election of Donald Trump, his amorphous collection of freethinkingsupporters will spend much time this year defining itself. One of the more noticeableissues that has cropped up is anti-Semitism. 

The movement known for its frank talk and anti-establishment nature will strugglewith the concept of establishing boundaries around public discourse, as censorship isseen as the ultimate taboo. 

Other significant questions will concern the extent to which the movement questionsDonald Trump's actions, or is tied to his sometimes inscrutable choices; "newmasculinism" and a strong anti-feminist bent; diversity and inclusion versus a strongdistaste for political correctness; attitudes toward Islam; and the implementation ofmeritocracy in light of widespread economic distress. 

6. Tiny Homes

The trend toward affordable standalone homes will continue as people move furtherand further from urban centers to claim their own stake of property, however small.As families face difficult economic choices, expect more bodies crammed into smallerspaces, with correspondingly more multifunctional, utilitarian home items, clothingand more.

7. Bug Food 

Expect continued interest in unorthodox sources of protein and harvesting of any andevery piece of a killed animal for food. These items will be presented to the public notas scraps of food for the desperate, but as delicacies, leading to the introduction ofnew products for the mass market of foods formerly considered "gross." 

8. Rise of the Security-Obsessed

The rise of terrorism worldwide has in turn heightened anxieties among the publicabout whether and when an attack may come. Correspondingly, expect a continuedincrease in gun purchases and associated training; martial arts training; and increasedinterest in all manner of electronic devices that promise passive, no-contact protectionfrom without. These include home sensors, protective fabrics for bags and clothing,security devices for travelers, detectors for food tampering, and even bulletproof glassfor automobiles and homes. Women will lead the way in searching for protective gearthat is affordable and undetectable, allowing them to enjoy fuller participation in lifewith less concern for their personal safety. 

9. Communal Tables

Expect more and more emphasis on "breaking bread together" in casual eateries,where relatively rootless customers seeking a social connection will eat and drink withstrangers who become temporary friends. This continues the trend toward a "trustingsharing economy," which was fuelled by the rise of services that depend on customerfeedback for their growth - eBay, Uber, and Airbnb. 

10. Russian Culture

It was perhaps inevitable that Donald Trump's "bromance" with Vladimir Putin wouldlead to a cultural fascination with mysterious "Mother Russia."

The Cold War has been over for many years, but Americans never really warmed up tolife on the "other side." As world events continue to put Russia in the spotlight, expectAmericans to want to learn more about this remote land, and its culture, forthemselves.

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