The Social Currency Impact on Branding

In his conversation with Nick Westergaard of “On Brand”, a podcast for and by brand builders, Vivaldi Founder & CEO Erich Joachimsthaler discussed the evolution of branding from the more traditional into a strategy backed platform for maximum social currency impact.

As consumer attention has become increasingly fleeting, the need for more creative and engaging branding has grown significantly. Erich mentions that, “previously we could make people believe certain things easier but in this day and age where consumers have the attention span of a bumblebee or goldfish, in a day and age where we all multitask in front of television, just creating that exposure with consumers, creating a brand no longer works [the way it used to].” The concept of the consumer as a bumblebee is a new one; the advent of social media and the internet has irrevocably changed how consumers interact with any and everything and as a result, companies, their brands, and the strategies that support them, must adjust if they expect to stay relevant.

When asked on his perspective on the right framework to approach brand strategy, Erich explained the timeline of how brands have changed throughout the decades since the onset of television to the creation of the mobile phone and more importantly, why a proper strategy is essential:

We went through several evolutions in branding. The first evolution was where brands were simply a means of making advertising effective. It was the golden day of advertising in the 60s and 70s where brands were built through this new medium called television. In the 90s, David Aaker, Kevin Lane Keller, myself and many other academics said this is not how you think about brands. You’ve got to have a strategic framework about branding; branding is not the color and the design on the name of your logo. A brand is the face of your business strategy and we, from this academic business school perspective, took a strategic perspective to brand management and said brand is all about what you aspire to create; it’s the front and back end of your strategy; the front end is your brand and the back end is your business strategy.

With the pressure for proper methods of branding mounting and competition for consumer attention increasing, it’s important for companies to develop brands that not only engage consumers uniquely, but that also align with their overall business strategy. Now, in 2016, brand building and the role a brand plays within a strategy must adapt if it expects to be successful. Now, according to Erich, “Brands are much more of a means of making business strategy actually work. We at Vivaldi work with this idea of Social Currency. We believe that social is a very powerful brand building mechanism. Those things are digital, mobile, and when you bring branding together at the level of strategy as a significant lever for driving your growth strategy, then you are in a very different ball game. That’s where the future is right now.”

To hear more on how social currency is revolutionizing modern branding, click here.

• Topics:
• Social Currency