The current Fast Company has an excellent article about seven trends that are likely to influence the conversation for the year to come. There's some excellent points here, but of course, this one certainly caught our eye!
2. The experience will be the expression of the brand.
Ten years ago, it would have been hard to imagine building a national brand with little or no advertising. Then along came Krispy Kreme, Google, and Amazon.com. They're among a small group of hugely powerful brands that gained prominence without once appearing on . Brian Collins, executive creative director of the Brand Integration Group at Ogilvy & Mather, says brands are moving from a marketing model that says, "I'm going to talk to you and you better listen up" to an experiential model. "Marketers need to focus on the way a brand gets brought to life tangibly, where it really lives," says Collins. Whether it's the folksy humor of Southwest Airlines' flight attendants, the boudoirlike ambience of a Victoria's Secret shop, or the Zen-like simplicity of TiVo's remote control, the experience conveys the essence of the brand. And often, it's design that creates the experience.
That design message must now be distinctive enough to hold its energy in a vast array of places: in a magazine, on a T-shirt, on a coffee mug, at a skate park, on the subway, or blown up 10 stories high on a billboard in Times Square. "It's a lot of work," Collins says, "and you must sweat the details."
Here's a list of the other trends that they predict:
1. Brands will be authentic.
3. Brands will be hard-wired in our brains.
4. The line between entertainment and brands will blur. And how's this for some powerful information...In 1994, AmEx spent 80% of its marketing budget on TV; by 2003, that number had fallen to 35%. The change, Hayes says, was driven by the defection of audiences to other outlets -- DVDs, the Web, cable, video games -- and technologies, such as TiVo, that let viewers skip commercials. "We need to be where people are and involved in things they value," Hayes says.
5. Increasingly complex brands will require new organizational structures.
6. Brands will create social and cultural values.
7. America will be reborn as a more culturally sensitive brand.
It's an excellent article and a nice short read, so go check it out!
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