On Nov 1st Jim Stengel (ex P&G Global Marketing Officer) launched a new kind of marketing consultancy with an extremely lofty ambition:

 “to accelerate a movement to deeply rethink and transform the roles and meaning of marketing and branding.”

When Mr. Stengel starts to talk about branding needing a rethink people sit up and take notice, but when Mr. Stengel quits his job and sets up a consultancy with the sole aim of accelerating said rethink, everyone in the industry should probably pay very close attention. His central tenet is that marketing should be more about defining what a company does - beyond making money - and how it can make customers’ lives better, he calls it ‘purpose-driven marketing.’  But this isn’t the first time someone has called for a radical rethink of the marketing processes and structures. 

In ‘The Brand Innovation Manifesto’ (2006) John Grant talks about the death of image-based branding and the emergence of ‘New Marketing’. He introduces a ‘Brand Molecule’ model which looks at brands as clusters of strategic cultural ideas that are loosely connected and change over time. What’s interesting is the similarities between this thinking and Jim Stengel’s - the overarching principle driving Grant’s model is that the cultural ideas should be real, seek to make a difference and be close to people’s lives. 

“the other vital component is a sense of focus and direction. Brand building is supposed to have a point, and your molecule should be more than just a ragbag of ideas; they should all be in the service of an overriding cultural logic”

The more you look for this sort of thinking the more it starts to reveal itself, back in 2007 at the Venice Media conference Esther Lee (ex-Chief Creative Officer at Coke) referred to marketers having two businesses to run:

“the revenue business and the citizenship business.”  

‘Citizenship’ can be construed in several ways but within the context of her speech I believe Esther was also referring to the business of affecting peoples’ lives for the better, namely through encouraging active participation and creating engagement on a personal level.  More recently, Paul Isakson also echod a similar approach in a presentation about ‘Modern Brand Building’, Isakson argues brands should stop ‘campaigning’ and start ‘committing.’ He believes campaigning leads to a constantly changing story, whereas brands should build their brand on core principles that never change.

Whether or not this turns out to be a true revolution of sorts is not really important. What is important is that it’s already started, the people I’ve mentioned above are not necessarily revolutionaries, no, they’re simply brilliant and astute observers of change, a change that really started to take hold at the turn of the new millenium. A change not dictated by marketers or brand strategists, but by consumers themeselves. The connected consumer now demands much more from the brands that seek their loyalty, time and attention and this has meant brands have had to shift their focus. To many the shift represents a clear movement away from a brand centric, broadcast approach, towards a much more consumer centric and participatory approach - one that seeks to create meaningful and real ideas and assets that add value to the consumers’ lives. 

Tags: brand innovation manifesto, brand molecules, branding, Esther Lee, Jim Stengel, John Grant, marketing, P&G, participation, Paul Isakson, purpose-driven marketing, value