Branding is Dead; Long Live Branding by Seth Godin

[In case you were wondering - BzzAgent releases 2 chapters at a time.]

Here’s my take:

1. The data is irrefutable. The number of massive megabrands and their value (in terms of the premium consumers are willing to pay) is shrinking, and fast. You can’t charge as much for a Sony DVD player or a Marlboro cigarette as you used to.

2. The number of new microbrands is exploding. Blogger Hugh MacLeod, founder of gapingvoid.com, is a brand now. If we define the word “brand” as shorthand for a set of commercial attributes, emotions, stories, whatever, then any blogger with a following has a brand. And the same goes for the thousands of microbrews, perfumes, and hot-sauce products. All are brands, all cluttering the shelves of our minds.

3. There’s a difference between brands and branding. Brands exist whether you want them to or not. Brands aren’t going to go away anytime soon. Brands are a useful shorthand for a complicated asset within an organization. Branding, on the other hand, is a thing you do. And as an activity, branding is problematic. Branding is ill defined, usually vacuous, often expensive, and totally unpredictable. You shouldn’t aim to be someone who does branding.

Markets engage in conversations, but marketing often doesn’t. The reality is that most brands are actually monologues, not dialogues. A conversation might create a better, more robust, more useful brand but, alas, most organizations can’t handle that truth. So they do their best to do it the old way.

Big brands are dying. Little brands are doing great. Branding is a weird gig.

There. Let’s hope that riff helps my brand a bit.