digital is human

If you are controlling your brand, you are already behind.
In today’s shared economy, people create and share content faster and more authentically than companies.So, why don’t most of us allow our customers to own and tell our stories? Why don’t we let go of our brands?
Is it the risk? As marketers, we are control freaks:We want to protect our brand. In the name of consistency, we try to control every touch point from defining the message to dictating timing and channels. It’s like being in a one-way relationship with a control freak. “Human”? Maybe. Desirable? No.
While this approach may have had its merits, it is not in tune with today’s reality.People care about people, not products or features.They don’t want to be told a story; they want a story to tell, and they want to tell it on their own terms.
If you look at the brands (e.g., Coke, Heineken, Patagonia, McDonalds, Lego, Red Bull, BuzzFeed…) that are thriving in this new reality, they share a common trait: they are live br…

In today’s connected world, actions speak louder than words. Consumers not only tend to have shorter attention spans, but they are also more skeptical of messages coming from brands.  They don’t want to be interrupted unless there is a clear value exchange.
This means that it is getting harder for brands to get their message across through paid media. TV, which is still the medium with the most scale, has become fragmented and less impactful as people spend more time online. Display advertising has become almost invisible. Direct mail’s response rate has consistently decreased in the last decade. And let’s not even talk about print.
These trends have pushed brands to shift from storytelling to storydoing to stay relevant. By storydoing, I mean looking at their audience’s experience from the lense of the brand promise, figuring out where is the value gap and trying to close it. Then, facilitating people to do the storytelling on the brand’s behalf to create a more authentic, human an…