The Nine Gates of Brand Intelligence
In the long watch of the brand shepherd, steward and sentinel—
it’s important to consider a 360º surveillance of territories. In a kind of mirrored language, it shall be called outlook and look out. If you visualize your brand as a landscape—a palace of dreams, a lighthouse, a mountainous vista, or an insular containment, it’s a kingdom.
The query would be—in this wide expanse—
what are you watching?
I might suggest, the first gate, close-in, your community lookout, is the opening and most crucial tier of inquiry and watchfulness. How close-in are you, how connected? In our experience, there are two opening pathways for closeness and tighter, more conscious, scrutiny. You can connect, study household and consumer brand use and integrations, anthropologically—and move-in with them.
And the second gate, brand posses.In our legacy of posse-related engagements, we bind fans to brands to act as close-in, committed advisors, like, for example, our work on Sebastian—with select posse teams that had a commitment to the brand, could share their everyday appearance concerns and status updates, relating to their many-times-a-day hair change-up routines. Working with them, we dove into the psychic space of: “why would you want to do that, change your hair that many times a day?” Learning more, we built our brand strategy around that consciousness—product development specific to this attitude.
A community is a crowd, and it’s on any brand steward to dig in, know more, understand the crowd, the hive of humanity—in the original context of the etymology, which is “inner standing,” as in the notion of being in-between, standing in-between. Understanding. Your third gate as a portal of brand consciousness would be knowing, deeply, the history—the legacy of character in the genetics of heritage. In our brand work—from 700 year old brands, to month-old startups, if there are characteristics—the DNA should have a red-thread that reaches into the heart of the enterprise.
The red thread, isn’t our concept, in fact it’s a Nordic connection, which might be more redolent of life blood. Still—look for that string, reaching back into the heart of the brand. And towards watching your six, you’re looking back—where your brand was, then, and where it is now.
Looking out—the broad view, the close-in overview, surveying your landscape, the vista of what was—watching your six—
the sentinel of the brand, there is what is flowing outwards from the brand;
and there is fluency, inbound, coming into the brand. A tertiary point of examination might be—
what does your community say, social and reviews, and two, what your brand says to them? What is that con-vers-ation.
A song, a shout, a cry—joy? Or the discord of disconnectedness?
The fourth tier—your brand on a swivel, getting out there, the overlook:
the question might be, do you look out, in the nature of seeing what’s happening
in the marketplace, and what that might mean in the evolution of strategy?
The fifth set as a spherical expression—paper, for touch, digital, for broadcast.
I make notes—gather up notations on brands
that I’m working on, build books, gathering journals of ideas and inspirations.
You can do this—gathering up notes, inspirations, messages and
forms that push to a new expression, all together, boos of ideas.
Gate six, go live inside the brand.
In a matter of days, road bound I am. I’m walking on the outer pathways—out of Seattle, for other places,
increasingly focused on the live and eye-to-eye—meeting people, and hello.
And in that movement—jumping from project to project, place to place, you see things differently; when you’re traveling,
you tend to find yourself more on the lookout; than not following, or focusing on the trends of change.
Moving, you are the change.
Gate seven, the touch of the brand—sensationalism.
In the work that we do—we are looking out for our clients—as stewards of the touch points,
acting as a kind of sentinel in exploring the nature of the circles around them. Do we have a scent, a taste, sound, our look—could we have a “touch”?
The eighth gate—operations and brand mechanisms.
These days, the examination of brand, and the incipient strategies of direction, will be less about
merely watching the competition, but more about what the brand actually stands for.
A traditional path might be to position, or lay the groundwork, for a ringed
strategy of defense (how do we position the brand, and relate to the competition?) rather—
we look out, study the horizon, analyze what’s happening and look to the stance of the brand in relationship to its authentic character.
Recently, in what was then a struggling, then failed client relationship, “let’s get real,”authentic, truthful–I kept at
the principle—“there’s one thing to reality, the real work that you’re doing,
and there’s another to your ‘theoretical’ premise.”
The core question is—‘where’s the truth?’”
What’s the truth of the action?
If you speak, you must deliver.
The Ninth gate—authenticity, the truth at the core.
But that process, and meaning, needs to be both a study of the trends
that affect a community, and the interlacement of brand, a series of relationships
that interweave, and the reality of the truth of the delivery of the brand.
Look as you are:
be true to your world.
For brands to be alive, they have to be active, and activated. To this conception—
action, forward reaching, looking out, they have to be perpetually activating
their connection to the relevant utility of their audiences, in useful, relevant and resonant applications.
SEE OUT | SEE IN
One might suggest that the lookout — that patterning — is using that data as a surveillance:
both statistical and feeling, a study of what is around, considering the flows and movements,
and how to bring those relationships closer to heart. Personal connectivity—
“I have a relationship with that brand, and that brand has a relationship with me.”
Just examine the sphere of the brand world—would be this simple call-out.
LOOK IN. LOOK OUT. LOOK BACK.
tim | GIRVIN STRATEGIC MAGIC
QUEEN ANNE STUDIOS
Digital | Built environments by Osean | Theatrical Branding
Girvin builds projects in strategy | story | naming | messaging | print
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