We now see numerous examples of brands working together to address issues such as environmental degradations, climate control, pollution, poverty and disease.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We'll continue to see more and more brands integrate social causes, charitable components and environmental issues as underlying themes to their campaigns and messaging. Humans connect with humans after all, and brands are using this as a point of connection to engage with their audience, especially charity-minded Generation Y.
Brands' products should be the manifestation of a company's values. Those values should be the subject of all sorts of wonderful stories that comprise your company's narrative.
The question remains: which brands will commit to creating a private sector pillar of social change, and which will become casualties of their own outdated thinking?
There are brands out there in the world that have an incredible influence on the culture. Numerous ones are badly done.
Brands are facing a new competitive landscape in which self-definition, core values and purpose will increasingly define their ability to reach customers that only allow what is meaningful in their lives to pass through their filter.
Brands must become architects of community.
Unfortunately, being a brand is really important nowadays.
Even though people are under economic pressure, they still want to support those brands with values that are compatible with their own.
We always talk about how you have to build a brand from the inside out, not the outside in. Brands are not wrappers. Brands are based on the values of the founders, and then they spread to the people who work for the company, and then that psychological contract is spread to the customer.
Your brand is your public identity, what you're trusted for. And for your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed, and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear.