All the rules are irrelevant. Because they were written in the days of old media, by old FMCG marketers.
These companies made their money by mass-production of goods that would have consistent appeal to a large majority of consumers, over a sufficient period of time to create maximum profit. Branding was the discipline they used to communicate the consistency of their product and the reliability of its promise - 360-degree branding tried to ensure that this message was delivered consistently across all communications, to all consumers, at all times.
But nowadays, the money’s in services, not products. Walmart’s revenues are around three times bigger than the entire revenues of both Procter & Gamble and Unilever combined. Citibank and ING are more than twice their size. This is the age of services, not products - and service marketing requires totally different rules. Services are customised, not mass-produced. Each customer is different, each contact is unique. Companies must adapt to the different needs of each customer, each time, at each touchpoint.
Secondly, most of today’s most powerful brands are built on concepts, not products. Do you know how Apple produced the iPod with iTunes? First, it commissioned an idea and a design from Ideo. Next, it bought chips from Motorola, and put them in a casing made by Foxconn. Then it hired developers to create music software. Meanwhile, agents negotiated access to content, which was in turn created by publishers and artists. Apple merely packaged all of this together, managed it and sold it. It produced nothing.
Third, if a brand is predictable today, it’s dead tomorrow. Disney develops a new product every five minutes. Sony produces around 5,000 new products a year. Zara can take a fashion design from the catwalks of Paris to the shelves of Orchard Road in 15 days. In today’s world, innovation is everything.
Fourth, even if you want to create a predictable brand message over time, you can’t. There are more than 50 million blogs, perpetually communicating messages about brands.
These messages are based on customer experience, personal agenda or social rumour - but are never based on your agreed strategic positioning. In China alone, we’ve seen countless examples of online ‘brand terrorism’.
The formaldehyde stories battered beer brands. The triclosan gossip savaged sales of soaps and toothpastes. Rui Chenggang’s nationalist blog shut down Starbucks in the Forbidden City.
Fifth, the brand is now the business and the business is now the brand. The brand is encompassed in every experience that the consumer encounters - and therefore in every action a company takes.
The implications for marketers are massive. These new principles require a new kind of company with new methods of marketing. It’s not enough for companies to be effective marketing organisations; they must now become marketing organisms.
An organism is a living, breathing creature, whereas an organisation is structure-bound and system-driven.
A marketing organism is decentralised and instinctive, not centralised and controlled. It empowers its people and technologies to respond in different ways to different customers in different circumstances at different touchpoints.
Because, in this new world of marketing, it’s no longer about 360-degree branding. It’s about how well you manage the one degree that matters at every moment.
