THE PERSONALIZATION OF BRANDS,
THEIR ASSETS AND PRESENCE.
HOW DO YOU PRESENT? HOW DO YOU SHOW UP?
HOW ARE YOU PRESENT?
Has anyone ever spoken to you about showing up? That is—when you show up, what happens? How do you present? In a manner, it all comes down to that proposition—how you present, how you show up, do you show up? Sometimes: people, their brands, the brands that they manage, the brands that they are—they fail to show up, or they do.
I was thinking about that world, brand presentation, retail, shopfronts, shelving, websites; brand narrative:
What happens when you show up?
Present—you present: [content, form, visual attributes, textual layering—your storytelling;] you’re storytelling. How’s that actually working out for you? People paying attention?
And finally, the question might be—even in your presentation—you’re present?
You’re here, you and your brand—you’re paying attention, watching the trends, the waves, the roiling of time and the market?
Sometimes, studying brands, it’s interesting to see how completely derailed they are—they’ve forgotten where they are, what business they are in, what their story is, or was—and more so, how they tell it. That’s where we usually work, getting things back on the rails—where is the story, what’s it sound like, what’s the nature of its telling—what’s it look like—and mostly, who cares about it?
Thinking about brands, how they work, who they work for—the people that are involved; invariably the emotional connectivity comes into play—“what’s it feel like?” For it to feel like anything—the brand, its team, have to present. And they have to be present. Brands don’t survive well in vacuous arrangements. They need more, substance, human-touch, attentiveness and intentionality. That’s how listening, touching and sensation happen.
And, as we all know, sensation is where memory lies.
When one contemplates the journey of a brand, a team and the enterprises of their making, a sense of the you emerges.
Quest–that journey, is a question, that lays the foundation for everything.
And it is a matter of watching—your back, your front, the who of you.
Sure, that can be you—you, sitting here.
And that can be the you of you[r] brand,
that you’re managing, designing around, building, rethinking—
engineering for the now.
You are:
?
You look like:
?
You feel like:
?
You smell like:
?
You sound like:
?
Your messaging and presence is: what?
Consistent?
Whenever?
Calming? Erratic?
Precise and fluent?
Rambling and meandering?
Is it all the same to you?
Or them?
I was “thinking
about that person,
and what they represent —
and you came to mind.”
You and You-ness.
I was thinking about you and all the
things about what makes you, you.
Sight, presence, stance, scent, voice, message, touch and content.
Is VirginAir hardware?
Is Nordstrom a pile of shoes?
Starbucks—just coffee grounds, paper cups [white] with hot water?
Amazon? Really, a river? Microsoft, really a?
You go into this brand
because
there is a story being done,
and you’re part of its telling.
Perhaps that relates to
friends and intimates.
You hang out with
your people
because:
you look better,
feel better,
do more,
get more done, have more fun?
In any brand study, the alignment between person and place,
brand experience and storytelling—the ROI will be outcomes, actionables, deliverables, income—
in the sense of the actual doing of the work,
the being of the practice, the layering of the storytelling of that enterprise, it all comes back to the actuality of the
making and the doing of it.
Done–what came of it? There’s the real ROI-what’s my return on the doing of the brand, what’s been accomplished? Or—you. What have you done?
In story-doing, a brand actualizes, it’s not a theoretical positing, it’s doing what it says.
That might be seen as a kind of breakaway from people, since we all know that many people talk a lot, and rarely do what they talk about, or they profess a certain expertise, but the proving ground of that legacy is smoke and mirrored theory, evanescence and vanishment.
Big story. No doing.
And to that, in looking at brands, and the geometric swing of a 360º analysis, you’re looking for the glue between the messaging and visualization and the reality of the doing.
Everyone’s doing it —
“What’s your story?
How are you telling it?
What’s it sound like?
“What’s it
look like?”
And most importantly:
“who
cares?”
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and they go on and on and on.
And you’re, like, “whoa, what am I doing, listening to this
——
nonsense?
Really, this is all gas, it’s smoke, it’s bu––––––t.
Boring.
Yeah, as in the opposite of boring, it’s not “boring into amazing ideas, new tunneling-in ways of thinking,” rather: “it’s drilling a hole” in my head.
In other words, you don’t care, the hierarchy of your needs doesn’t align with the architecture of their offer.
Or—for that matter—their ability to tell a compelling story.
You-ness, the spirit of the brand in the construct of persona is “who it is, what it is, aspects of expression, tone and manner — a holistic quality of posture, stride and grace that bespeaks everything in its flow through its adventuring and its appearance in making a place for you, experiencer, to journey into.”
The bridge is in the nature of the offer, who offers what and how that offering is made, on what premise is the platform of that statement and how that inquiry is extended to the right listener. A bridge gathers disparate points of grounding—two ends, and brings them together.
Like any good storytelling, the key lies in the intimacy of relevance—which, in its history as a word comes to notions of “relief and lessening”—LIFE—now it’s easier—this is relevance because there’s utility: it’s useful.
I’m listening because I can “relate.”
I can relate, and I will relate [to others].
You are having fun, right?
That would be the point.
Tim | Old Queen Anne | GIRVIN Strategic Magic Studios
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BRANDSPIRIT AND THE FIRE OF IMAGINATION
https://bit.ly/2F6HCA5
WHY BRANDS ARE LOVED:
Girvin strategies of memory +
enchantment = audience engagement
http://bit.ly/h9kJdW