Everyone ignores you, until they cannot resist you anymore. This is how you build “attractive” in your brand — a combination of doing what has not been done before and of believing in what you’re doing. Of course, you need to have something to offer that people will find valuable.
That’s where communication comes in. Often discounted as the easy part, communication in an increasingly crowded and noisy product and service landscape can be what sets your apart. Different and interesting emerge when communication aligns with the your core brand value(s) with Zen-like focus.
The new world of attention and real time has people come up right alongside established brands and companies in vying for our attention, and often winning it.
Zen is the repetition of simplicity
It’s not necessarily a popularity contest, rather one of substance. Zen-like communication focus does not mean it takes a straight line. It’s also not about crafting messages in isolation of the reality of business. Instead, it’s about delivering on it time and time over, despite the fragmentation of media and publics.
In the last post here we talked about the characteristics of good brands — utility, experimentation, and design are among them. People are looking for a relationship from other like-minded people.
The keyword here is looking. They’re not necessarily wanting to have a relationship with them, just yet. They may especially not want a relationship with your brand. Looking is a very different activity than having. In fact, often, when we have, we start looking again.
Just do
It’s not just the brain that thirsts for novelty, it’s the behavior of those around us that moves us elsewhere as we observe it. Hence utility, experimentation, and design are powerful concepts to align with your branding efforts.
- Utility – do something
- Experimentation – do something new
- Design – do something new that changes things
Communication is what you use to prepare the ground, manage, and learn. You may be surprised to know that the most comprehensive definition of communication encompasses a two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange (encode-decode) information but also create and share meaning.
This post was written by Valeria Maltoni. Was this helpful? If so, please feel free to follow my writing by subscribing to this site's full-text RSS feed. I also write at Conversation Agent. Want to connect elsewhere? Find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Contents © 2006-2010 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.
