PSFK’s Good Brands Report 2009 highlights the fundamental ability by these companies to pursue their daily business commitments, be responsible, innovate, and be social while they retain Zen-like focus on what they’re about.
The report highlights several characteristics used to rate and rank the top 10 brands. Utility, experimentation, design, community and listening, to changing the model, going beyond the 30-second ad and prioritizing the environment all made the cut as desirable business traits and behaviors. Being helpful is the new black – utility is a call to operate as part of a system or context and understanding how to behave or your role and contribution within it.
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A group of people working together towards a common purpose can form a community. In some instances, we call it company, in others neighborhood, in yet others we call it agency. When the group is really cohesive around its common purpose, they think of themselves as a tribe.
Brands go way back with us. They are our shortcut to meaning, the symbols we use to trade experiences via emotional impact. Images can remind us of events we enjoyed. Think about the stickers with product or group logos many put on their laptop cases, for example. They signify to us and the world that we like or identify with a certain product, brand, band, and so on.
If narrative is the shortcut the brain uses to make sense of the world, symbols are a short hand for the way something feels. Go way back in your memory and you will know why you kept the stubs from that concert you went to with your first group of friends. It’s not just the photographs, but the objects themselves that remind you of the experience when something was unique.
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