I am not normal – neither are you
Brands are such a part of the fabric of our world that it is difficult imagine our lives without them. Major products and services have embedded themselves into our phsyche fashioning and communicating their values and connecting with us the audience.
But a sea change is happening. Historically major brands grew because they could connect to the mass market though a single channel such as TV. Marketeers would develop and transmit their messages and we, as consumers, would respond accordingly.
In his latest book ‘We Are All Weird’ Seth Godin argues that the age of mass marketing is over. He says ‘The key to mass marketing is normal and normal was important because profits depended on it.
Normal diets made it easier for mass food manufacturers to generate a profit. Normal driving habits made it easier for mass car manufacturers to reach their production minimums. Normal behavior made us easier to control’.
Today they are many more channels and audiences have become more fragmented and harder to reach. As our lives have become more integrated with technology major players such as Apple, Google and Facebook have given us the control to decide what content we want and when (and in doing so have become some of the fastest growing brands of all time).
Social media means we can now connect to everyone, we can easily customize our messages, create and share our own content and, in doing so, express our own vision and values. This is the rise of brand you.
But what are marketers to do now that a one size fits all approach no longer works?