Digital is getting back to basics

When digital was new, businesses were in a rush to get onto the digital world. Just being present there was differentiation enough.

Now with the digital space getting crowded, one can get lost. The only way to stand out is to focus and go back to the old-fashioned in-depth consumer understanding. So the holy grail of branding - Who is your customer? What is your positioning in customer's mind? What is the kind of brand personality you want for your brand? - have to be applied in the digital world too. Hence the renewed focus on Target Customer, User Personas and Scenarios, Online Value Proposition.

What remains different between the new marketing and old is the need for user participation in building brands online. You can claim to have provided the most awesome value online, but if users don't comment, like or share, then they have not seen the value.

Whose side are you on?

Recently I went through a few Brand Strategy cases that my colleagues had done over the last few years. As I kept thinking of these and the projects I have worked on, I realized that powerful brand strategies can only come if you leave the guys who hire you and get on the side of the customer. When you step on that side and immerse yourself in their world and feel their joys and pains, you work towards a strategy from the heart.

Having done that, you step back on your client's side and get down to practicalities and then the solutions that emerge are both relevant and pragmatic.

Marriage of the head and the heart.

What dilutes a brand

I have been reading the news of Starbucks $1 Coffee with some interest. What makes a case-study brand depart considerably from its 'core' of premiumness and comfort? Will it survive the new line of competition with behemoth value chains that it puts itself in now?

Brands are what add to margins. If so, what kind of brands still continue to do so during a downturn like this? I have been pondering over these questions for a while now. Expect to see some research based answers on this soon.