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11.23.2004
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WHAT IS CULTURAL LEGITIMACY?
One of the great things about consumer capitalism is that it continuously generates the New. Some of these concepts succeed in establishing themselves, but most don't. The reason lies in the difference between a fad and a trend. Trends have more staying power because they have established themselves within the culture as having legitimacy. Products and services achieve cultural legitimacy to the degree that they establish themselves in association with trends.
A brand gets cultural legitimacy depending on whether it has street credibility within the world it wants to hang its shingle. Within the globalizing culture there are many worlds, and you have to figure out which one you serve. But whatever world you're in, you have to understand that it is changing as it interacts with the visitors from the worlds that surround it.
If you're Bic Pen, you serve a world that is mostly interested in price and convenience. If you're Mont Blanc, you're serving a different kind of world that is more interested in the recovery of soul values and "the art of writing." Both products serve a particular purpose; both fulfill a specific need. In order to operate a successful business, you've got to understand the rules and customs of your particular world, but you always have to be watching to see what's going on in the other worlds around you.
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HARTBEAT
July
9, 2004"5 Steps to Building a Cultural Brand" - an interview with Harvey Hartman
July
29, 2003"The
Magic of the Cultural Brand" - an interview with Harvey Hartman
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Subscribe »The New Brand Mindset: organizing For Cultural Legitimacy
The other day, the obvious smacked us right in the face.
In spite of all the talk by marketers about the power of creating cultural brands and customer experiences, there aren't many brand groups who really believe that experience marketing matters. Or at least they don't act that way.
To deconstruct the situation, we began with a list on the whiteboard that compares what most brand marketers do compared to what a truly cultural branding team would be doing:
Traditional Brand Manager Activities
| Activities Cultural Marketers Would Do
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As we assembled the above lists it became clear that the core problem is one of mindset. Traditional "marketing centric" brand groups were originally organized in the late twentieth century. As such, they continue to use the old twentieth century (ie:modern) mechanistic model of management that assumes that building a brand is like building a dam.
The presumption is that one can "build" a brand. To do so, you engineer some blueprints that lay out a mechanically sound model and then start placing rebar and pouring concrete. Essentially this mindset says that brands can be scientifically architected for success.
However, if over 80% of brands built with this model fail in the first year, doesn't it stand to reason that we should apply Einstein's famous saying: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results" and figure out what to start doing differently that will create success?
Contemporary branders have adopted a more post-modern mindset and recognize that we cannot build a brand, rather we can discover the brand consumers want. From this perspective the company doesn't "own" a brand, rather brands essentially belong to consumers, because it is consumers who give brands value or take away value through their affinity. Contemporary branders recognize that products and services operate in a situational narrative and the role that a product is able to play in that narrative that people find attractive or boring. A brand, like a good friend, is a part of your life and what they do should surprise and delight you. Friends are not functional, they mean something to you and you want them with you. This is the brand purview of such companies as Starbucks, Stonyfield Farm and Trader Joe's.
It's not surprising that in an era when vibrant breakthrough brands are culturally driven that there is a rapidly growing body of marketing literature that focuses on identifying and mapping the trajectory that successful experience driven or cultural brands are taking. But, as with much of post-modernity, the soul feels stimulated by the new and breathtaking experience but the mind searches for an anchor to grab hold of or a star to steer by.
Or expressed more practically, how can we measure progress in this wild open new space? And then once we see where we are, how can we go about discovering and cultivating the brand the brand's cultural connection and experience with consumers?
The Metric of Cultural Legitimacy
Earlier this year Harvey Hartman and Jack Whelan proposed that brands seeking to execute a cultural branding strategy would do well to begin measuring their performance in terms of cultural legitimacy. From this perspective, the traditional measures of brand share or sales growth operate as lagging indicators that mark where a brand has traveled, while a much more salient metric of current and future brand vitality is the depth to which the brand is delivering a deeply satisfying solution (depth) to a universally experienced need (breadth).
As we continued to think about this new approach we began to visualize what this might mean organizationally and how it would become embodied in everyday workplace activities.
If a brand group was serious about developing a cultural brand, I mean really serious, it would radically affect the "where's" and "what's" of the work activities for all (and I mean all) the worker bees of brand marketing:
First we compared where the important activities take place:
Traditional Brand Manager
| Cultural Marketers
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Then we realized that to really get into the skin of a particular user group would materially affect how long a person would be assigned to a specific brand:
Traditional Brand Manager
| Cultural Marketers
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It would also affect the measures that management would use to award performance incentives:
Traditional Brand Manager
| Cultural Marketers
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So is anyone doing this now?
Well, yes, actually. One example is the fast-growing little apparel company Vineyard Vines in Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts (www.vineyardvines.com). Vineyard Vines ties are the hot ticket among hip young trendsetters and have been spotted on people ranging from John Kerry and Bill Clinton to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dave Mathews.
Vineyard Vines is the epitome of "old money, back East preppieness" and has naturally allowed their customers to "build the brand." One of the most-read parts of their website publishes photos of wedding parties where the groom and his court all sport Vineyard Vines ties. Even if you don't know any of the participants, browsing through these wedding photos is a fascinating tour of affluent weddings (and aspirants to affluent weddings) from a beach wedding in Harbour Island, Bahamas to Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
Then, when you go to the Vineyard Vines employee pages and click the "about us" button, you don't get the usual boring hierarchical chest-thumping about who's in charge and what business schools and hotsy-totsy companies the key managers hail from. Nope. It's photos of Vineyard Vines employees at parties and golf outings and on boats and mingling with famous people. There's no identification of titles or names, it just compellingly communicates team and fun and commitment and hip style without saying a word.
For Vineyard Vines, good business activities are being out in the field asking questions, participating in social networks and learning, learning, learning from customers. And, of course, occasionally wander back to the office to share insights and refine the work plan.
Now before some brand groups start following this new strategy of "let's build a brand by partying" formula...STOP! Every company is different and has to discover their own role and opportunity in customer's lives.
FINDING YOUR PLACE IN YOUR WORLD
In the universe of cultural branding the first place to begin is by understanding how consumers see your brand in relation to others. Mapping your product (or products) in the context of a world perspective and its dimensions of consumption are a terrific way to begin. Next, immerse yourself with the participants in your product world, at home, at work and at play. Discover what really matters to them and the dimensions they measure satisfaction by. You'll be surprised and your focus for improvement is likely to radically change and profoundly broaden to include activities that you previously would have discounted as secondary.
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