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Foundations of a breakaway brand: Trust, Community, Dialogue

iPod, Viking, and Converse topped the list of fastest growing brands determined by strategic brand and design consultancy, Landor Associates. The list isn't so surprising. The drivers behind this growth will surprise a lot of marketers.

In an interview with Fortune Magazine, Hayes Roth, chief marketing officer for Landor, summed up the factors behind these brands' growth this way:

"Today it's all about trust, community, and creating a dialogue with your customer that shares real knowledge."

These sound like soft, fluffy, "feel-good" characteristics that are a tough sell to a CEO, much less a CFO. But the Landor study showed that iPod added $4.5 billion in bottom-line value; Viking added $147 million; Converse added $298 million.

Now that makes a C-level exec feel good!

The Landor site provides more depth on these factors:

Building on a foundation of trust

This year's brands earned their customers' confidence by living up to their promises; in turn, their customers trusted and followed the brands as they diversified and moved into new spaces.

Cultivating brand communities

Leadership brands capitalize on the basic need for human connection by allowing enthusiastic customers to borrow the brand image to express a collective voice: the voice of a brand community.

Empowering customers with knowledge

The ten brands in this year's list are arming their customers with information; by proactively educating customers, a brand can better manage its image and get valuable feedback in return.

The article also quotes Michelle Roehm, associate professor at Wake Forest University, who says, "It's no longer, 'What can we blast out there about ourselves?' Brand theory now asks, How can we connect with the community in a really meaningful way?"

I'm definitely feeling an acceleration in the shift away from what John Stichweh Coca-Cola's Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing called "Holistic Harrassment" (aka, integrated marketing, 360-degree marketing) to a more respectful, engagement-oriented relationship with consumers.

I'm not sure we can even call it marketing anymore. I am sure that companies need to rediscover the true purpose of marketing: to discover and satisfy the want, needs, and motivations of consumers.

Posted by Jim Nail on September 18, 2006 at 05:48 PM | Email this post Permalink

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