Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits

Now I think we’ve evolved, and brands now have the responsibility to enhance the communities in which they exist. By virtue of that, once a brand is in a community, it can quickly be built up or shut down.

In earlier years, I think branding was a lot about a recognition and an attachment to a person that you aspired to or held up on a pedestal. So we went through an era where brands focused on an association with a celebrity or an inspirational individual.

The main idea of purpose-driven brands is about recognizing, embracing, and celebrating the fact that brands can enhance people’s lives and help them to feel better about themselves—whether it makes them look better, do a task better, or even gives them the opportunity to do good in the world.

In the context of branding, I often define “innovation” as that which connects the familiar with the unknown.

Coke is international; it’s global. It’s no single country’s brand, but people everywhere consider it their favorite national brand. This is utterly fascinating to me.

They can release these ideas into the world, but they don’t get to own them anymore afterwards.

we are going to have an accretion of provenance branding—of the brand as a manifestation of place and of “where I come from.” The place is going to become very, very important.

It makes sense that social media is so popular if a common denominator of so much of our behavior is connection.

Culture and Consumption II. In the essay titled “When Cars Could Fly,”