Is your brand absurd?
On a recent trip to Bali, after I had despatched the trashy holiday novel, I turned my attention to filling some nagging knowledge gaps. You know, those things that you vaguely understand but wish you actually knew more about, and finally have some time to explore.
One of these for me was existentialism. Existential threats seem to feature frequently in the news these days with things like accelerating climate change, the prospect of World War III, and nuclear threat. But no, as it turns out existentialism is quite a different matter, and surprisingly relevant to marketing, branding and indeed FMCG Business.
Back in the mid-20th Century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (amongst others) came to the conclusion that we exist as a person first and then find the meaning in our lives second. This idea was in direct contrast to what the old Greeks Aristotle and Plato thought. Their view, called essentialism, is that we all have our own inherent meaning of who we are and our life’s journey is to uncover and understand our personal ‘essence’.
Existentialists believe we all have the freedom to determine our life’s meaning for ourselves. That meaning shapes what being authentic is to us and thereby guides our actions in order be true to ourselves and not act in ‘bad faith’. People are free to choose their own purpose in life; it is not fixed or imposed.
Within existentialism is the concept of absurdity. This is the idea of looking for meaning in the world beyond the meaning that people give to something.
Which brings me to the issue of brand or company purpose. Countless hours are spent every week with Post-It notes and whiteboards interrogating organisational and brand truth; to identify their essence, purpose, mission, vision and values. As anyone who has been involved with this knows it is usually quite protracted and painful. A lot of sweat goes into crafting words, often by people who are not natural wordsmiths. Simon Sinek’s Golden Circles, or brand temples and pyramids are used to extract the holy truth about a brand. This is what the existentialists would say is absurd.
The existentialist way to look at branding is more one of desirability, definition and commitment. That is, work out what will make your brand truly desirable and then stick to that idea consistently. The real truth about brands is that they are fundamentally inert things without any inherent meaning. Branding is a way to make products and companies more relatable and desirable by adding human values and meaning to them. Good brand management is the process of maintaining consistency to that meaning, or acting in good faith to preserve the authentic truth about the chosen brand meaning. This takes confidence and discipline.
Anchor makes dairy products, but their most recent branding idea is that they provide a “Taste of home”.
Whittaker’s makes chocolate, but they’ve decided to raise the quality stakes with a commitment that “Best is always better”.
Unilever makes food, household and personal products, but they have decided to focus on “Making sustainable living commonplace”.
Each of these examples speak to the existential mindset. They don’t try to claim anything that is inherently essential to their products. They all attach an external meaning to how the company operates and how they want people to see their brand. They are self-defined ideas that serve to guide behavioural authenticity. The challenge is how consistently they can follow their meaning over time and not change with the wind.
So for your next brand session try to be a little less absurd and focus on how you want to determine your strategic direction and the success it can bring.