Branding is Spirit
It’s safe to say businesses -- entities serving a need for profit -- are filling in the holes for any desire necessary.
It’s safe to say that nearly any material experience is soon going to be given some kind of commoditization product.
In content creation, here are three tools I share with my clients to offer them more agency over their business communications. Both inside the business and client facing.
Magisto—Create Beautiful Videos in Minutes
Canva—Online Design Made Easy
Wix—Free Website Builder
A story...
I remember sitting in Craig Welsh’s Ad & ID class in the mid-2000s, and someone asked, “Do you think we should know code?” My palms got sweaty.
Craig took a moment to think, and started to smile and chuckle to himself. Clearly, the student was touching the tip of an iceberg. He knew it was a tactical matter, and digital pioneers were climbing that mountain for the rest of us.
During that time of the internet, designers who could code as well as design were seen as “digital ninjas.”
Note, a couple of designer friends who were digital ninjas back then have since rose the ranks in Google and Facebook. No surprise, design led companies outperform the S&P 500 by 211%. They created our digital communication platforms.
Craig replied, “In a matter of 5 years, you and I won’t have to code.”
Since then, content creation is all the rage today, and for good reasons too.
Creating content shows others how we think. It shares what we want to do. What's important to us. It pairs our values and intentions with what we are talking about.
As a practice, teaching is a formidable tool to learn how to formulate opinions and, in turn, solve the confidence issue we experience from time to time.
We are in the midst of massive accessibility for talented technicians entering the entrepreneurship arena. Creating new wealth, or at least, getting paid on value instead of time.
Going back to business, let’s talk about “brand.”
My brother from another Anks Patel has reframed what "brand" is.
What Anks shared filled the gap. The gap between business and branding. It comes down to this -- are your actions aligned with your intention?
Not only is brand an intangible piece of business -- we already have one.
Here are some synonyms of brand:
(1) reputation
(2) demeanor
(3) capabilities
(4) accomplishments
(5) persona
(6) vibe
(7) credibility
(8) memory
(9) standard
(10) spirit
(11) energy
(12) expectations
#Branding has been misguided. The juxtaposition I’m finding is that more and more SMBs and S&Ps are relying on appearance and less on the evolution of work, and the work is energy exchange.
Planned obsolescence is the inherent devaluation of visual branding, and another conversation all together. 91.7% of global businesses do not practice any kind of circular economy, missing the backend of the sale, not taking care of their clients.
It's great we have tools like Magisto, Canva, and Wix, and how we use our tools directs us back to our intention.
Why we show up. Where we serve. How organized we are. Integrating knowledge. This is the opportunity of being valuable.
If you can distinguish pretty faces from value, you can distinguish intention. Intention is self propelled and cultivated.
It's the human spirit which climbs up on the giants' shoulders and allows us to push higher.