The new brand continuum

(Credit: Durbin Media)

What exactly does a brand manager do? I asked people who carry this title, but I could never quite figure out which responsibilities this most ominous job entails--besides creating hefty brand books with arcane brand architectures and guidelines (usually ignored by employees and vendors), auditing brand equity through some arbitrary tracking mechanisms, and chasing malicious brand violators all over the globe. If that sounds like a valuable job to you, fine. To me, it sounds more like a combination of the worst aspects of legal counseling and a PR internship. If the marketing 2.0 textbook holds that everyone's a brand steward, why have a dedicated brand manager? In the age of social media and "brand hijacking," how is "managing" a brand even a possibility? Seems like a pretty lofty but unrealistic idea.

Brand designers, on the other hand, are on the surge, especially in the digital space. Their task is not to manage a brand but to creatively co-shape its appearance on the Web, such that it becomes a viral conversation. Increasingly, brands are built (and destroyed) on blogs and Web sites, so that there is a strong need for experts who understand brand in the context of online interaction paradigms. Digital branding experts know that nowadays brand architecture is largely congruent with the information architecture on the corporate Web site--and brand identity is made of the content that is disseminated to online audiences through search results, online ads, blogs, campaigns, and micro-sites. At last, brand designers dispel separations that have been artificial anyway, establishing a brand-new equation: brand experience is user experience is user interface design. Digital branding is branding. And your Web strategy is your brand strategy and vice versa.

Traditional interactive agencies see this as an opportunity and have started adding brand design to their services portfolio. One notable example is New York-based agency R/GA, which recently launched its new Brand Design practice, led by Marc Shillum, who previously worked at TBWA, London, Wieden + Kennedy and BBH, along with a post at Netherlands-based design firm Studio Dumbar. In an interview with Creativity, Shillum asks for a more holistic view on branding: "Hopefully, what we're going to bring (at Brand Design) is a seamless experience. There are lots of digital companies that do 'customer-up' communication and a lot of branding agencies that do 'brand-down' communication, which results in a 400-page book sitting on somebody's desk that you've got to follow. What we're trying to do now is form an idea and an expression of an idea in one place."

Brand, user experience design, product design, marketing communications, PR, online advertising, etc.--what we're seeing is an increased convergence of all these creative disciplines. It is not a matter of strategic choice, more a necessity: The truth is that today's consumers demand that all these disciplines converge. As their experience of a brand spans different platforms, media, and technologies, ranging from the TV ad, blog review, the retail purchase, the out-of-the-box experience, to online customer support, the creative disciplines must, too. A seamless, convergent consumer experience requires seamless creative convergence--which means that there is not much tolerance anymore for agency-to-agency hand-offs in between. Branding is a "city that never sleeps." Creative firms that embrace this new brand continuum will win.

[Schawkster]

There is indeed a convergence of marketing disciplines taking place throughout the industry. With over 30,000 SKUs introduced each year there is greater pressure for brands to perform, which is causing a shift in how brands are managed. In order for a brand to resonate with consumers, it needs to deliver a compelling and consistent brand experience across all touchpoints ? in the store, on the shelf, in a magazine on a billboard, digitally, etc ?

The smartest companies today are looking at brands very holistically. They think about managing their brand(s) beyond "integrated" marketing across disciplines -- and take it a step further by bringing operational expertise into the equation to ensure that brands are truly consistent and compelling.

Consider: Schawk has found that packaging is an increasingly critical factor in delivering a successful brand -- with more than 70% of purchase decisions made today occur while shopping. The visual experience allows a brand to resonate with a consumer often driving a purchase decision, making design an increasingly critical branding component.

When a company integrates strategic, creative and operational excellence to deliver consistent and compelling brand experiences across mediums and geographic locations -- that's integrated brand point management. Brand point management helps companies deliver brands that are compelling enough to turn shoppers into buyers. The category of brand point management touches all phases of a product?s life ? from ideation to design to market implementation ? ensuring that whenever a consumer interacts with a brand, the experience remains consistent throughout. To learn more, here is some information about brand point management: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/854644/Brand-Point-Management.

I'd love to know if people have any thoughts or questions about brand point management.

[sparxoo]

I completely agree that branding has to be strategic and creative, and that it needs to be integrated with the full company to create an overall brand experience. If you deliver a great experience, your customers will be your embassadors. There is so much opportunity in the digital space as we cover on our Sparxoo blog, http://www.sparxoo.com