Professional Amateurs

I'm totally digging Tim Leberecht's take on the mystique of Big Branding and the concept of shrinking and fragmenting a brand.

It is acknowledged that brands have to deal with what John Moore, the author of “Brand Autopsy,” dubs “the Growth Paradox”: “The smaller you are, the bigger you must look. The bigger you are, the smaller you must get.” And yet, the bewildering disruptions in the realm of social media, in conjunction with significant changes in consumer behavior, raise many new questions for marketers that go beyond sporadic, anecdotal smallness.

Q: What are the strategic implications for brands and branding? And what are the vehicles in the micro-marketer’s arsenal?

A: Read the rest from the smart folks over at Frog Design's Act Like An Amateur.

The piece closes with what I believe is the most sound approach: Be eye-to-eye with your customers instead of bigger than life. Make your brand the water and not the rock. Be around your customers, at all stages of the customer life cycle, and surround them with meaningful conversations. Every interaction with the customer is a referendum on the brand. Re-create your brand every day and make it the fabric that embeds your customers’ micro-verses. Do everything as if you did it the first time.

In other words: Act like an amateur!

That's Right

HMK

Thanks again to Frog Design.