For something a little different - my recent article Daring Creatively: 4 Things Marketers Can Learn From Brené Brown is featured in Better Marketing on Medium. Here’s a snippet, but do head over and read the post in its entirety if you’re inclined.
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Last year, I started reading the works of the storyteller, vulnerability researcher, and bona fide Oprah BFF, Dr. Brené Brown. Her work resonates with me as a researcher and as a branding specialist. I’ve realized that what Brown has found in her work on vulnerability and shame applies to how businesses can build brands.
The marketing pendulum has swung toward an emphasis on media and data collection. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Better targeting can be good for the advertiser as well as help the intended audience connect with the products and services they want.
However, could this pendulum have swung too far?
Bob Hoffman said it well, “The online ad industry claims that they are entitled to some extra value — the value of knowing every little thing about us. This goes by the benign name of data collection, but what it really is is intrusive surveillance into personal aspects of our lives to which they have no legitimate claim.”
Brands have gone from earning consumer attention through interesting creative (a fair value exchange, in my opinion) to manipulating consumer attention by collecting, tracking, and selling people’s personal data. Is that branding, at all? How do you stand apart in a world where marketers have access to the same media platforms, channels, and data points?
Here is where creativity becomes, in the words of adman Bill Bernbach, “the last unfair advantage we’re legally allowed to take over our competitors.” Have advertisers thought more about the pipe, but forgotten about the stuff they send down it?
It’s the stuff in the pipes that is critical to building attention-grabbing brands. Yet it’s also the most challenging part for marketers to deliver.
And that’s where we can take inspiration from Dr. Brown.