Companies, and now some regions, devote substantial resources to adopting “brand strategies”. How effective are they in terms of awareness? No doubt it varies, depending on the talent of the creatives and the budgets allocated. But in terms of ownership, they are always counter-productive.
Yet proximity and ownership are among the key issues – openly claimed as such – for companies and organisations. Engagement, mobilisation, but also crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, even co-construction… so many established or emerging concepts and terms that reflect, beyond recognition schemes, the desire for and necessity of collective action. Yet brands are the object of substantial investment, then of roll-outs often accompanied by managerial injunctions, legal constraints and financial counterparts. All processes that restrain, or break, genuine collective dynamics.
Intelligence versus contribution
The very way a brand is adopted is telling of the distance this strategy will create. “Creatives” work on developing a brand message, based on images that are perceived, claimed or assumed.
The choice may then be finalised by a small group: communication is an “art”, which has its experts, and sometimes its stars.
The “leaders”, who pay, are always involved. But are they listened to? And above all, are they really consulted, beyond a mercenary deference that sometimes hides the disdain of the “one who knows” for the “novices”?
Sometimes, more people are involved, through “participatory” or “collective intelligence” exercises. And when it comes to giving an opinion – especially on “communication” – everyone can take part.
But what are the criteria for choosing? The unconscious mechanisms, born of individual history and collective interactions, are indecipherable. And why not? The major handicap of this approach is that it relies solely on the intellect. And one is often “more intelligent” than the other – especially now that alternative forms of “intelligence” (emotional, relational…) are finally emerging.
But what is the relevance of an idea if it is not implemented? Without action, intelligence is uncertain – but above all useless. So what is the relevance of a brand that does not reflect collective dynamics, concrete actions, contributions past, present and future?
In collective processes, success does not lie in intelligence; it lies in action.
The fleetingness of image versus the permanence of belonging
What do Apple or Starbucks evoke for you today? A present, an image. And yet they are also two companies, with their history, their genetic capital and the “values” that underpinned their success – and to which their leaders regularly want to return, to rediscover their authenticity and coherence of action: their closeness to their employees and customers.
Moreover, because it is not rooted in action, in daily life, in proximity, a brand can be replaced by another, depending on the quality of products but also on the communication budgets allocated. Apple or Samsung? A far cry from joining a collective adventure…
Sometimes the definite article (“le”, “la”) is dropped, to capitalise on the past. It may seem insignificant. It is a radical change, because it marks the shift from belonging to symbol, from recognition through living together to recognition through a sign, from content to message.
One can change brand, as long as one has the means. And even then, awareness may take time… Transforming a company, a collective, takes years, talent and energy. And it often fails, for many reasons – often because an “intelligent” solution could not cope with the complexity of human organisations and their interactions.
So, unless one believes in magic wands, how can one imagine that a brand strategy could replace the mobilising power of collective energies?
Internally, a counter-productive exercise
One can admire a brand, even claim it, display it. One is then in the realm of the intellect, of the sign, and possibly of the symbols one attaches to it oneself (more than those it claims to “convey”).
A brand encourages passivity: animals are branded to identify them and claim ownership. Would you join a brand? Would you commit, mobilise for it? Would you contribute to its development, unless paid or otherwise rewarded?
Everyone works in a company, a public body, a region. One can only claim to belong by feeling that one contributes – sometimes proudly – to a collective adventure. One can be proud of a “label”, as long as it reflects skills, values, practices.
But of a brand? When it is a sign of recognition, it can enhance “those who belong”. But always by setting them apart from those who “do not”. An exclusive pride, not an inclusive one. And one that reflects belonging to a collective with which the brand may be associated for a while. A brand is a sign. It is not belonging.
Externally: branding versus interaction
One can interact with the representatives of a company, a public body, an organisation. And all “customer-focused” approaches aim to make each representative the bearer and actor of the skills, values – and also the image – the collective wants to convey, to foster proximity and create value with others: customers, partners, stakeholders.
One does not interact with a brand. One wears it – voluntarily, to benefit from its image, or for payment. Involuntarily, one often has it imposed, with the feeling of being merely a “vehicle” – a mobile billboard…
So the “relationship” – if it can be called that even when it is voluntary – is purely intellectual, disembodied. One accepts it, perhaps claims it. But it is above all a mental process. And while mental stimuli matter, they do not last, and they are not actions.
So, unless one seeks to lock people in by permanently capturing their “available brain time”, a brand strategy cannot generate a lasting relationship rooted in action, and is doomed to the endless, costly race against the “consumer’s” channel-hopping.
Because a brand also reflects commercial relations: you buy it, or it buys you. But relationships, including professional ones, are not made only of economic exchanges. The quality of a relationship is made of stories lived and shared, of human interactions, of affinities.
In the age of “extended enterprises”, ad hoc groupings and coalitions of circumstance, a brand cannot unite free actors, because it is not an adventure.
Finally, a brand strategy can become totalitarian, and thus kill the “relationship”, which feeds on the diversity of modes of interaction, by nature unequal and varied.
For places and regions, the dissonance created by a brand strategy is even greater. One grows up, lives and works in a town, a region, a catchment area. Not in a brand! When regions decide to adopt a “brand strategy”, they try to find – and often to impose – a common sign… But how can the complexity of lives, opinions and perceptions be reduced to a message?
To sell a “destination”, why not. But no sales campaign has ever mobilised crowds, apart from interested sales staff – and even then…
Communication actions are not useless. Gift wrapping embellishes the object, and in some cultures it is an integral part of the present. And the message accompanying the gift carries the whole meaning of the gesture, beyond the transfer of goods.
So a brand strategy can accompany the promotion of what a company or a region produces, when they wish to “renovate the façade”. But it does not exempt them from the real dynamics of collective action, which it will never generate.
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