The Next Engine: Beyond Campaign Thinking

I recently read a post that piqued my interest. While this article speaks more to the physical design of products, I think the same argument can (and should) be made for branding. The statement that I think captures the essence of this argument is this:

“Focusing on the connective tissue between disciplines makes products holistic.”

Replace “products” with “brands” and voila - an advertising mantra is born. We often see a divide in the marketing world (both client and agency side), where one half touts proven processes and the strong history of the tried and true media (by the way, for all the talk about the death of TV, upfronts sure still bring in quite a bit of cash) - while the other half hails the digital era and the many possibilities (and opportunities) it brings.  And while everyone fights to make sure their thinking (and their department) is right and getting the lion’s share of budget, someone gets forgotten - the customer.

The reality is that no customer actually cares about which media their bad brand experience was in.  They don’t care what department was at fault.  All they care about is that they had a bad experience.  So why is it that we as marketers feel the need to silo everything and approach our work at such a micro level, when the one person we should be thinking about (the customer!) couldn’t care less.  The only thing on our mind should be that we work together to provide the best possible brand experience so that a satisfied customer can use that crazy little thing called the internet to tell all their friends about it.

In my opinion, as marketers we have to begin working together.  And that doesn’t mean have brainstorming meetings with one representative from each department to kick off a project and then never speak again.  This needs to become a part of our fabric - a passionate focus on the brand experience should trump all else.  Because brand experience is the one “metric” that everyone should pay attention to.

So, while I’ve got some of my own theories - I would love to hear what you all think is the reason for marketers losing sight of the one important thing in their jobs.  Why is the overall brand experience being lost in the minutiae of corporate silos?

Tags: brand experience, corporate silos, design, user experience