The future of branding. I liked Seth's summary of the branding-is-dead-is-not-is-too debate: basically, brands are not dead, but branding as an activity isn't registering a pulse.
I'm happy to say that you shouldn't grow up to be someone who does branding. - Seth Godin
Speaking of the future of brands, Johnnie Moore hasn't given up on his disdain for Kevin Roberts' views on branding. (Roberts is the author of the Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands book that Tom Peters gushed was the best BizBook of the HalfDecade. I was pretty effusive too but it's not worthy of best of the half decade.) Pretty soon Johnnie's reviews of Lovemarks should surpass those of the official Lovemarks site on Google.
Another hint: Don't look for books to portend the future of brands. Or the future of anything for that matter. The unfurling edge of the unfolding future is being revealed in the real world all around us (observe!) and, secondarily, recorded within blogs, daily and monthly media. A book takes 12-18 months to publish after it's written (and that's after you've written the proposal, found an agent, condensed all your thoughts and research into cohesive drafts and revised the drafts and submitted to your editor and...) Roberts first shared his thoughts in Fast Company magazine in September 2000, after speaking about them for months. Perhaps cutting edge then....too bad Roberts wasn't blogging; he could evolved his ideas in that timeframe.
Speaking of the future. I'll use the comment exchange I've had with Johnnie to do a little bit of foreshadowing. It gives a teeny peekhole into what I'll be talking about in the coming weeks around brands, marketing, persuasion, meme-containers and worldviews. Oh, yeah, and it all ties in nicely with the topic of unconscious bias and blind spots too. All this and you don't have to wait until the publisher's book release of Spring 2006!
(And heartfelt congrats to Hugh for being recognized as a great micro-brand. Power to the Long Tail!)
P.S. Todd says 800-CEO-READ will have guest blogger, John Winsor, author of Beyond the Brand on the 800-CEO-READ blog this Thursday.
Yes, publishing a book the old-fashioned, Dick and Jane, way took forever...but in the new millennium, publishing can take as little as 3-6 weeks...after your manuscript is complete. Print on demand is just that...print on demand. The writing part is the tricky part, and the marketing part is the tricky part, the publishing part can be simple and quick. Making any book relevant at the time...especially when used in conjunction with a blog.
Posted by: Yvonne DiVita | Nov 16, 2004 at 11:37 AM
I'm not trashing books - as you can see I still refer to them quite frequently - but not to see where the bleeding edge of the future is headed. And my favorites have a timeless, classic quality to them.
Great comments on print on demand. I think I also wrote this post because my mind was harking back to a conversation this weekend with a new friend writing a book on globalization. I think he's going the traditional route because that's what is "credible" especially as he has serious public policy recommendations within it so he needs the additional credibility of a serious publisher, or so the world thinks. But I wish it were published YESTERDAY not in two years.
Sometimes I wonder if people dismiss blogs as "credible sources" because there is almost (I'm aware of a global digital divide) no barrier to entry; but that neglects the fact that having a low-cost printing press doesn't come with a ready-made readership. The credibility is built one reader at a time. Sigh, I wish I could convince more writers to blog AS they write their books.
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | Nov 16, 2004 at 03:30 PM
Evelyn, are you using credibility to mean depth, enduring quality and validity? Or do you mean eliciting belief?
In the first case: the quality or validity of blogs must, of course, be an issue. Readership is no measure of quality or precision, only popularity. And I can’t imagine you thinking popularity is a measure of validity. To be a reliable source blogs need to be subject to the same torturous assault books face. The problem (and benefit) of blogs is they don’t stay still long enough and a post three-days old doesn’t get read. As a result they don’t get the same degree of attention as a book which happily hangs around for years until you get the chance to give it some real scrutiny. As you say, it’s the timeless quality that, in part, leads to credibility.
If you are using credibility to mean eliciting belief, you’re bang on. It’s tough to find a better, real-time pulse taker than blogs. The hot ones are hot because their driving reactions and, one assumes, beliefs. In this sense your suggestion that authors blog as they write is a very helpful one. Authors would find great benefit in circulating their core ideas via blogs before taking the plunge with a full-fledged book. That’s exactly why I think ChangeThis is such a cool opportunity.
Posted by: Jeremy | Nov 16, 2004 at 06:01 PM
Okay, if brands are dead, but the process of branding IS, then all that needs to be done is taking the act of branding undercover, so no one really knows you're doing it. Same thing with PR. Don't *call* it branding or PR, and all will be well.
Snarky, maybe, but come on. Isn't that how we really do things? Heh.
Posted by: Eric Rice | Nov 17, 2004 at 11:35 AM
"There's a difference between brands and branding. Brands exist whether you want them to or not. Brands aren't going to go away any time soon. Brands are a useful shorthand for a complicated asset within an organization. Branding, on the other hand, is a thing you do. And as an activity, branding is problematic. Branding is ill-defined, usually vacuous, often expensive and totally unpredictable. I'm happy to say that you shouldn't grow up to be someone who does branding." - Seth Godin
This is like claiming that ‘advertisements’ are good, but ‘advertising’ is bad. Just as advertising is the development of advertisements, branding is the development of brands. If we don’t do branding, we don’t have brands -- one can’t exist without the other.
So if you are passionate about brands, grow up and be proud to be someone who does branding.
Posted by: Errol Saldanha | Apr 17, 2005 at 04:19 PM