The new playing field for the Marks is no longer the Market, but the Society. From my point of view, this increasingly obvious reality is causing the inevitable obsolescence of Marketing as a discipline capable of consistently leading a brand building and a corporate culture connected and sensitive to the new times.
We are heading towards a completely new scenario in which Brands need to lead from the Board of Directors and the CEO through Identity, Authenticity and a sincere Connection with the Society on which their Market depends.
From this new Paradigm, Brands led through the Culture of Marketing will increasingly lack the appropriate perspective and sensitivity to effectively manage a reality dominated by a consumer increasingly conscious, intelligent and indignant with the “Markets” and the inconsistencies caused by the primacy of commercial interests.
Perhaps it is a good moment to propose a true innovation and a real change of Model, circumscribing Marketing to its natural commercial terrain and discovering the new Framework of possibilities that Strategic Branding provides to Business Management.
The Social Branding represents a new way for many professionals advertising, design, communication, management and marketing who understand the current model as exhausted and need to evolve into scenarios and really new opportunities. This new discipline that I am lucky enough to explore professionally since 2007, is still to be developed and discovered and allows us to work for a true change in the way we sell and consume through awareness, intelligence, education, coherence and The sustainability.
This new philosophy represents every day more people and professionals who believe that consumption, as the cornerstone of the construction of our Society, should be conscious and intelligent and should generate economic wealth, but should also have the responsibility of generating a cultural wealth, social and educational that allows to build a better world for all.
The question that we should perhaps ask ourselves is: “What real mark is my Brand or Brands that I consume in our Social Culture leaving?”
In the 21st century, brands have to face a profound change of mentality that leads them to learn that they not only serve to sell, in the same way that television not only serves to put ads or that football is not just an excuse for sell shirts.
It is convenient to remind the Entrepreneurs and the Investors that the Culture of a Brand, is the best Strategic Container where to deposit the hopes that your business does not finish in the pure competition of the price.
A well-led and committed culture that is built from the inside and is projected in a natural and constant way abroad, is the best investment in long-term communication, as opposed to strategies based on the timely lottery of virality or in Opportunistic associations with contents that have little or nothing to do in the long term with the authentic mission and essence of the Brand.
The new consumer, increasingly disenchanted, bored and blind to the promises, simply demands a new and authentic sensitivity that prioritizes the sincerity and color of the people above the black and white of the figures.
Brands are and build our Culture every day of our lives through innumerable messages, everywhere and at all times. The Marks are the most influential and decisive actor in the construction and education of our Consumer Society and therefore, are the main responsible, not only of what we consume or want, but also of much of what we think, of what we believe and what we share.
Everyone begins to be clear that a credible Social Responsibility no longer passes only by a green image wash, by contributions of charity solidarity projects or by cannibalizing advertising and timely sensitive causes that are not born of a genuine commitment.
The Commercial, Professional and Personal Brands should assume the responsibility that the current Financial and Economic Crisis is no more than the result of another Crisis of Values even deeper than all of us have built: the Crisis of a Culture programmed to meet the demands of the Markets, above the true needs of the People.