Since I began writing for brand marketing, many people have asked me to explain the difference between branding and advertising.
In an interview with Jeremy Hildreth, UK-based branding expert, he described advertising as “a bit like telling a girl in a bar, ‘Hey, I’m really cool.’ Better to just actually be cool and find indirect ways to exhibit that, right?” The latter half of his statement is the essence of branding.
At lotus823, we understand that integrated marketing is the culmination of many little processes, not a blunt statement of intent. That’s why branding is essential in a world of dynamic technologies. We create voices and ideas, and when a client has these things, a customer can have a two-sided conversation with them. We grow – and bloom – together.
Branding is almost like creating a person, a whole character. You shake hands with a brand, and when you ask a brand how it feels about something, there is an answer.
Consider this: we live in a world where news can break on Twitter faster than CNN. Eyewitness accounts are refuted or corroborated by more eyewitness accounts, and a purified version of the truth emerges in the blink of an eye, only to change in the next blink. To keep up with a world like this one, you have to change in small ways and meet the daily changes of the universe. Today, they trickle out constantly, in tiny drops.
That’s what a person, or a whole character, or a brand is today, the sum of tiny information droplets flowing into a giant river.
So if you seek a major life change, look to branding to make it. Don’t say, “Look, I have this thing;” make subtle connections in many different media to show the world why “this thing” makes you happy. Don’t just advertise, saying, “Look, I’m a good person;” become a good person by establishing or changing little details every day and sticking with them.
Six months ago, I started flossing again, making my bed every day, calling my mom at night, and writing a song each day, good or bad, no matter what. Today my brand, my whole character, is different because I changed those little things. Frankly, I’m much happier. Marketing solutions can be life solutions if you allow them to be. It’s not that our lives are work; our work is lives: making them, changing them, and growing together.
What changes are you making today? Today is your first step toward a new life. Tell us what you are doing to grow on Facebook and Twitter.
(Photo Source: http://twitpic.com/tbdig)