Branding in the new world order – Foreword

Silly question? On the face of it, yes. Of course it would be worth five dollars, but… only in America.

So what do I mean? As an example, a fiver to me is worth a decent glass of wine in a nice bar, or a couple of glossy magazines. To my youngest daughter, it would be enough sweets to make her sick.

In other countries it is worth a family feast every night for a week. In the wilderness where there’s no one to value it, it can at best serve as kindle, an invaluable commodity, if warmth is what you need… food for thought.

So it’s all relative – a bill is actually worthless on its own, just a piece of paper.  What it is, however, is a promise – an IOU. It’s a guarantee from the government that the shopkeeper or service provider will exchange that piece of paper for whatever value is printed on it. Something to be ‘swapped’ for something else, like cigarettes in a jail, or salt for cloth in an Indian village. Brands work likewise. They represent a promise made, an intangible guarantee for a service or product that only means something when you deliver on that promise and mutual satisfaction is achieved.

In this context, a successful brand is not the one with the flashiest logo or a great slogan. All these mean nothing if what we deliver doesn’t match the sales pitch. Long-term success for brands is entirely dependent on making good on a promise, because that’s the only way to build lifetime loyalty in the mind of the consumer. That is the very essence of what makes brands valuable. As brand designers we create the image of that promise through its visual and physical contact points.

Having worked with brands all my life, I have strongly felt this way for a long time. Elation at meeting an honest brand with credible values, and frustration on encountering businesses with less integrity, is a normal reaction from any sane adult. Today, however, brands face an existential crisis of unprecedented magnitude. Some trusted brands that delivered on their promises for decades are now struggling. Newer entrants have flourished through the consumer’s willingness to allow that brand to do the thinking for them. Other brands have created images to project a sense of trust to consumers who unwittingly, and for many years subconsciously, bought into the idea that brands exist to make their lives better. Consumers don’t know who to trust anymore.

Like brands, money, as a guarantee of value, has also failed. The US dollar, the bedrock of modern economic activity, is being doubted. Banks, which allegedly had trillions in assets till last year, now need government help. All that big talk about the virtues of capitalism is being pushed under the carpet as Wall Street queues up at soup kitchens, for their share of the dole. What has happened? Where did so many bright minds go wrong? What does the future have in store for brands? Will consumers ever believe TV spots again?

Recently, we have seen a substantial change in the mindset of consumers – they are re-evaluating brands and their relationship to them. I believe this is the consequence of four basic truths which are combining to influence our collective psyche, and that this shift will dictate the actions of nations, governments, businesses and individuals in the years to come.

This book explores these four truths and establishes the emerging trends that will influence all our futures. The book is not just an attempt to answer these and other related questions about the future of brands, but also, an exploration of the bigger challenge for branding that results from their emerging growing awareness that, we’re killing our planet, our financial institutions have failed, a loss of trust in leaders and that brands once trusted may not be all that they seem.

Until now, consumers have overlooked small lies and minor embellishments, and brands have behaved as if they didn’t matter. But what will tomorrow bring? How can brands, governments and organisations again earn the confidence, respect and allegiance of the consumer in what I call the resulting ‘New World Order’?

Aubrey Ghose
Dubai
October, 2009

Tags: New World Order

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 7:44 am and is filed under Branding in the new world order, Foreword. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.