The connections between brands and consumers, brands and marketers, and even marketers and their own brands are much more amorphous than ever before. So in today’s new era of less formal and unstructured ways of communicating and connecting with audiences, how does a brand get established and then how is it sustained?

inter national ist asked some of the experts to share their views.

We live in interesting times of unprecedented change. Bombarded with clutter and showered with choice, consumers are caught between two worlds and two commensurate extremes—neither of which is healthy. Somewhere in the middle of the raging current of fragmentation and proliferation lies equilibrium, the happy medium where intelligent and connected consumers are married with the right choice of the right product for the right reasons.

That’s good news for brand marketers.

So is the fact that during times of confusion and ambiguity, we tend to defer to that which we know and trust — opting for consistency and reliability above uncertainly and impulse.

Now, here’s the bad news. Most marketers and their respective brands wouldn’t know that place if it whacked them over the head with a quintessential 2x4.

The problem with branding is really quite simple. Brands have become ends unto themselves, as opposed to a means to an end, an enabler. Somewhere along the line, advertising took the position that consumers had to fit into a contrived brand architecture, forgetting that brands, in fact, fit into our lives and not the other way round.

Somewhere along the line, we foolishly assumed that abundant choice would be our savior and loyalty our safety net, when in reality we underestimated the power of the network — the networked effect and impact of social media, a.k.a., word-of-mouth on steroids; this is a world where pretender brands are about as transparent as the emperor’s new clothes, a world where authentic brands are pulling ahead and leading by example.

This is a world where innovation and product “form and function” are seemingly trumping the warm and fuzzy brand attributes and aspirational qualities predominantly communicating through advertising. Think Motorola’s Razr or the iPod as examples. Think hybrid cars from Toyota and Honda vs. DVD players and extra cup holders from Detroit.

This is full contact branding, where each and every brand interaction and transaction should be treated as if it were the only one; there is no lifetime value anymore, but rather “times of our lives.” This is a brave new world where brand guidelines are meaningless in the eyes of colorblind consumers.

But amidst the flux and volatility is arguably a limitless array of possibilities, opportunities, and breathtaking invitations for brands and the consumers they serve to peacefully, productively, and proactively co-exist and co-create. This is the time where brand building is organic, fluid, and non-linear; there is nothing predictable except the fruits of honest, authentic, and open conversation and dialogue.

This is a time where leadership brands will pull further and further ahead of the me-too challengers. There is much risk. There is even more reward.

Brand on!  •

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