Bless your hearts, you presidents, vice presidents, CMOs, college deans and provosts, who somehow think you can “do” branding without doing any soul searching or gut wrenching. Sorry, folks – ain’t gonna happen.
Branding is about finding and sharing your “essence,” your raison d’etre. That sounds innocuous. Don’t kid yourself. It’s like going through adolescence all over again – the agonizing process of understanding who you are and how you fit in (or don’t). Think psychotherapy, with a twist: You have to shine a bright light on every zit, scar, and ingrown hair and – worse yet – you have to do it in front of strangers.
Bless your hearts (again), some of you just aren’t up to it. Maybe what you really want is a little teeth-whitening, a little hair-fluff, a nip and a tuck. But that isn’t branding – although there are plenty of firms who will be happy to give you an instant makeover and hurry on down to the bank.
Not me. Not Mindpower. If you ask us to be your branding partner, we’re going to “do” real branding, as messy as it can get. Count on us to slip past your facade and examine inside, underside, and backside. You’ll squirm a little, grunt and groan, and will (frankly) feel a little like someone’s going through your underwear drawer.
You’ll live through it. Better yet, you’ll come out of the process more sure of who you are than ever before. And (surprise), you’ll find out that people out there (your “market”) will actually like you for who you really are. You never needed that facade, after all.
To all you presidents, vice presidents, etc., who are reluctant to do “real” branding, I have but one thing to say:
You have nothing to fear but fear itself. And everything to gain.
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Posted by Libby Turner on August 5, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Filed under: Brain Candy for Health, Brain Candy for Wealth, Brain Candy for Wisdom
Tags: branding, college marketing, mindpower
In case you’re not feeling old enough today, take a gander.
Each August for the past decade, as faculty prepare for the academic year, Beloit College in Wisconsin has released the Beloit College Mindset List. Its 70 items provide a look at the cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of today’s first-year students.
Here are a few of the items from the list for those students who entered college in August 2007:
- Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
- They never “rolled down” a car window.
- They have grown up with bottled water.
- Pete Rose has never played baseball.
- “Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone.
- Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears.
- Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
- They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
- Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
- Fox has always been a major network.
- Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
- High definition television has always been available.
- Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
- MTV has never featured music videos.
- They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
- They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
- Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
- The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
- Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling
Go ahead, be brave. Have a giggle. View the whole list. Do check back in August when Beloit updates the list for the graduating class of 2012.
If you are feeling old, welcome to my world. At least we have sense enough to hire folks (babies, actually) to keep our “mindpower” fresh!
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Posted by Libby Turner on July 20, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Filed under: Brain Candy for Wisdom, Ramblings
Tags: Beloit College, higher-ed marketing, marketing to millennials, Mindset List, pop culture
