Me, us, them, and the brand
What would happen if we went out to get people (customers, potential customers) to engage with ‘me’ or ‘us’, instead of ‘the brand’? Would that work better?
For those of you who are completely freaked out by the idea, what if you tried saying ‘engage with Coke / Lego / HSBC’ rather than ‘the brand’? Would that work. Name the bloody thing. Otherwise, you’re missing the whole point of ‘the brand’.
As a side-thought, if more often we all said engage with ‘me’ or ‘us’, would that make it more fun, more human to work in advertising and marketing (because despite being all about understanding people and communication, it can too often be a pretty inhuman environment to work in)?
Got thoughts on this? Why not drop me a line, or alternatively, leave us a comment.
cheers,
Andy
I agree Andy, the word engage is also hideously overused, particularly as a political buzzword.
The brand is supposed to elude to a range of different ideologies and the sum of all images built up by the work of PR and advertising, hence its usage over the actual name — but to what extent does it acheive that? After all we indulge in PR and advertising to build the brand ‘name’, not ‘the brand’.
If engagement is the opposite to alienation, then ‘engage with the brand’ by its definition requires a naming of the actual brand you are trying to align people with.
25 Jun 2008 at 6:36 pm