Check out this must-read deck on digital brand strategy from ad agency giant Wieden + Kennedy (198K views). It’s particularly relevant to social commerce because it tackles one of the biggest myths in social media – that people actually care about you as a brand or service.
Coming from the ‘get-real’ camp of Byron Sharp (How Brands Grow), Wieden + Kennedy suggest that the fastest way to fail in digital is to use the language of human relationships to frame what you do. Terms like ‘engagement’, ‘commitment’, ‘communities’, ‘love’, ‘fans’ are vanity terms and bad metaphors – reserved for self-deluded brands who think that consumers buying from them or clicking their like buttons means they actually care about them. They don’t. Get over it.
Human relationships are complex and vital, brands are trivial and incidental. Which is why only 1 in 5 people (the desperate, lonely and compulsive) think they have ‘relationships’ with brands. The digital challenge is not about creating ‘relationships’ – it’s about serving people.
We couldn’t agree more.
