Why brands should think a bit more about themselves

Not long time ago Fast Co.Create wrote an article called Patagonia business manifesto still ahead of its time 10 years later. Just the title made me think in lots of things. Reading it, i associated with other things that have been popping in my mind recently. I liked the sentence that i wrote as a title and i imagine that helped to have you here.

Why it’s so hard for brands to identify, respect and follow their essence? Following Patagonia’s example, what i already read of and about the brand made clear to me that more than wanting to be the most innovators and ahead of its time, they are just doing what they believe. The brand obviously constantly adapt to it's context, but without changing a lot of its identify, and keep gaining market year after year.

All brands started from a point and found a mission in a moment of their journey. It doesn’t need to sound pretty, connected to planet’s needs and with great respect for people as the American brand (even though those are great attributes). It could be the passion of one or more people about a subject or even a less romantic vision rooted in market opportunity and money. Then it could get harder, but not impossible.

One of the main points is that, of course, brands just like people are constantly changing. It is not easy to be constantly reflecting and analyzing internal issues, add to this the amount of energy needed in understanding external facts that can give new directions to business and lives. But what is essence is essence and can adapt, not change from one day to the other and in every new campaign. What we see today sometimes look like a circus of brands in a hunt to connect with people and be part of cultures without measuring costs. And the cost of it could be a bunch of brands without identity.

Probably not to say for sure that's a more critical problem in big companies and their many levels of interlocutors. As Allen Adamson say in the book Brand Simple: only paranoics survive. Keep the essence of a brand and that it has a relevant difference for people is a hard and daily work. But it is possible and strong brands come from there. I had the experience of working with Nike for a couple of years and understood better the kind of energy needed to keep a brand true to its values and that builds this relevant differentiation for people.

We all know that consumers are telling the moves brands should make more than ever, but base your moves only and strictly in it doesn’t seem so smart. The run to identify cultural tensions and what’s the next behavioral trend, lots of times has a weight way heavier than the respect to the own brand. Besides that, brands and partners look and base their moves mostly on the same analysis and lots of times have the same conclusions.

My main point is that sometimes brands should forget the consumer just for a while, forget the competitors just for a while, forget the cultural movements just for a while. Connecting more with itself and checking how those external factors fit on the brand's journey without losing much of its identity.

Maybe this could help us seeing more brands getting into conversations in a truly, more authentic way and less fake messages that don't support themselves.

An equation like brand identity > external factors. Just like a person's identity > external factors, but that's another conversation. If you have time and enjoyed the thought, click here because it also worths the reflection towards this.

*In the image, Chris Burkard and friends following their essence knowing where they are without losing sight of the horizon.