Brand Experience
Assumption is the mother of all cock-ups
Regardless of whether you’re delivering mobile phone apps, business strategy or pizza, if you’re any good and stick at it long enough you’ll end up with a reputation. A good reputation is obviously a great thing to have – this intangible equity pays real dividends when you’re trying to attract the right staff and win new business. It’s also what brands are built on.
The problem with a good reputation is when you start to rely on it and take all the work invested in building it for granted. The minute you assume that because you’ve succeeded before, you’ll never fail, is the minute you’re in trouble. If you assume nothing when approaching a new project it won’t be a guarantee of success, but it will mean that even in the face of possible failure you’ll be less likely to repeat the same mistakes in the future. Evolution requires it, survival depends on it and business thrives on it.
Experience is great but it’s unbeatable when linked to open mindedness, curiosity and a desire to challenge accepted thinking and uncover real insights.
What Is Open
Open is a forum for exploring Commercial Intimacy – by looking at what’s evolving in the worlds of consumers, and where this is both challenging and liberating for business.
Open’s goal is to examine trends, issues and innovation, plus be a forum for discussion within the broader topic of Commercial Intimacy.
Follow us at @dna_open
Get Open By Email
Sign up to get the latest Open articles delivered regularly.
Comments
Absolutely Ed - and your comment feeds directly into another related area which I kind of touched on in Retrofitting The Magic vs Duplicating The Model. Often in a small business the owner/creator/driver IS the brand. That's great until the business either a:reaches a scale that it's not possible for the individual to be everywhere or b: when the business is sold. There are ways to solve both but so often as you say, it's linear demise time.
Aaron
I'm no brand guru, but ...
Have seen that with so many brands that are acquired or are exposed to new management - often with much excitement and high expectations. You can almost predict the linear demise once the core values of the brand ignored, lost, or never appreciated in the first place. In these cases it seems the brand is mistaken for a value in itself rather than just making a set of them recognisable.
What do you think?