While technology re-defines everything, brand executives need to be more open to challenge the status quo, and decide if the brand identity is more important than their fears, setbacks etc. Ready for a quick example? Here we go...
Phone rings...
Client - Hello
PR Agency - Hi, we highly recommend participating in the summit we discussed earlier. We consider it as a solid opportunity to position Mrs. X as a thought leader, if we can implement the idea we discussed.
Client - There is no way our Director would accept It right now, I don’t think it is a good idea anymore… Thanks…
‘’New world, new orders.’’ This has been the brutal truth. Every single day we wake up to a new world and adapt ourselves to its ‘new’ orders. The pace of technological innovation over the last 20 years has been quite overwhelming. Technology is changing so fast, it’s like a beam of light, and when it shines directly, it creates a new kind: Living Companies.
Today, almost every company has an identity, character, style, tone and charisma. Apart from what they are producing, they are selling their image. The brand guidelines act as their personality books that tells us what they like or what they don’t like, what they can achieve or where should they turn to when they are in crisis.
Leaders are chosen according to their qualities, based on their ability and skills to become the face of the companies. However, sometimes some leaders are changing the game. Sometimes we see that their personalities and vision are ruling over the company.
If we consider global corporations such as P&G and Philips, we see that the brand identities are stronger than any leader or executive. The company is like a living organism, every decision that employees take are based on to the companies’ character, strictly guarded by brand guidelines. On the other hand, there are some other companies, and even if they want to be seen as an corporate establishment, the human aspect plays an important role and strictly controls the development of the company with its relative decision making mechanism. We mostly witness this among family owned companies however even the corporations are open to this fallacy.
As agencies, part of our role is to be proactive and be able to throw valuable ideas that match with our client’s business goals. If the latter kicks in, suddenly we constantly find ourselves hearing “the decision-maker will not approve this”, even if it is an idea that perfectly fits to companies’ positioning and direction.
These ‘easily rejections’, ‘unexplained disapprovals’ hurt the brands the most. Almost an auto control censorship mechanism kicks in and god knows how many valuable PR ideas die down in the blink of a non-corporate decision-making process.
These unending conflicts may result with poor brand management that leads to scattered perception of the brand.
Brand teams should be scraped off their fears, and ready to embrace the brand values by heart if they want to be successful in this era. Challenging the status quo while sticking up with brand values and stand up for valuable ideas are the keys to success.
Challenge the status quo so you have more chance to survive in the face of fierce competition. We will be there for you, no matter what.