Media, Brand Exposure and Pre-Requisite Sustainability

categories: Branding and Marketing, social capital markets conference

Published September 02, 2009 @ 12:17PM PT

According to Adam Werbach, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi S (for sustainability), we are living "in the most extraordinary moment in world business in business history ... [in which] every company is reestablishing its business plan and changing its communication strategy." This is due to how dramatically exposed global brands are in the internet era. So what does it mean for brands to be so exposed?

There are a few related phenomena happening right now.

Brands have never been more outside of the control of their companies than ever before. In the 20th century communication paradigm, brand was cultivated through carefully constructed messages, broadcast from a central entity out to the masses. In the 21st century, brand is those messages, yes, but it's more about how consumers and clients interact with, challenge, reshape and retell those messages to their friends and peers via the densely connected web of social media platforms.

This consumer to consumer connectivity is the key element of the new brand era. What it means is that brands that are and do good can spread virally and with almost no cost, as people tell the stories of the companies and organizations they identify with and care about.

The flip side is that everyone who's angry can find one another. And they can vent their anger. And then they can tell everyone else. This can destroy company's abilities both to sell and to recruit, particularly younger people.

Where does this leave brands? If we fully seize the moment, literally their only choice is to be good. Because if they're not, we'll find out, and using the internet - the greatest tool for amplifying small voices in history - we'll tell. That's powerful.

Werbach likens it to a bowl of jello. The disruption is happened, the moment is here, but the new world hasn't settled. We have an incredible opportunity right now to make the new future one in which sustainability isn't a luxury, but a prerequisite.

(Photo: Brand & Business Blog)

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Comments (5)

Sounds like a great unconference!

The ending discussion about social branding or just branding reminded me of the Cluetrain Manifesto circa 1999 or so. It's great read and quite short. It captures the essence of the current arrangement: Markets are conversations.

Evan

@epistoic

Posted by Evan Pankey on 09/04/2009 @ 02:34PM PT
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Consider the Connection to:

The Economic Pyramid

There are 2 sides to the Economic Pyramid

NEGATIVE & POSITIVE

NEGATIVE = WASTE-DESTRUCTION-EXTINCTION

POSITIVE =CONSERVATION-DEVELOPMENT-ABUNDANCE

Search 4:

www.carrotmob.org

CTC123GREEN

Posted by Jerry Mayeux on 09/07/2009 @ 08:42AM PT
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Since more and more people are consuming on line, what sites are there that group together companies who are showing social responsibility? So if you're going to buy, you buy from those companies, if you go to a mall, you can pull up those stores that are socially responsible!

Posted by Nicolette Jahnke on 09/07/2009 @ 10:37AM PT
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There's much truth to Adam Werbach's brief message on the interaction of brand exposure and the power of the internet to expose business that does not act socially responsible.

A case in point is that of Unilever's SKIPPY peanut butter brand, and the truth behind its sordid origin that is now widely read on the website of Skippy, Inc., www.Skippy.com. Fraud can never translate into a brand's "social responsibility", no matter how much the infringer spends on false advertising in hopes of building good will from a stolen name.

Joan Crosby Tibbetts

President, Skippy, Inc.

Posted by Joan Tibbetts on 09/07/2009 @ 02:18PM PT
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I love it! This is such a wonderfull time to be alive! As a popular web personality says the internet as we know it has only been around for 14 years! We are at the begining stages of communication, collaboration, and as this article points out corporate aucountability!

Posted by Joe Provence on 09/11/2009 @ 03:15PM PT
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Author

Nathaniel is the founding Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, which works annually with hundreds of students in dozens of countries around the world through curricular programs and student project incubation.