How to Be An Exciting Brand Without Offending Anyone
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sorry, it's impossible.
If you want to have a compelling brand online, you have to be ok with the fact that you might alienate some people. It's a good thing.
I've been talking a lot lately about how to bring brands to life on the web. It requires you to care about something more important than your product, and to show your audience what you care about through the things you collect and decide to share.
Yesterday, Seth Godin reminded me of one of the biggest obstacles that companies put in the way of achieving the goal of getting a life online. Companies allow common unspoken goals based on fears instead of aspirations to get in the way of accomplishing what they set out to do.
How often has this (spoken or un-spoken) goal gotten in the way of a company doing something great for its brand? "We don't want to offend anyone."
If you're brand is acceptable to everyone, then it won't be exciting to anyone.
Think about the brands that have rabid fans.
Think about the brands that everyone talks about.
Think about the brands that have become a status symbol (in spite of their deliberate lack of symbols in their branding).
If you want people to talk about your brand and what you stand for, then you have to be willing to offend someone. Offending people is a natural bi-product of saying something interesting.
This doesn't mean that you should go out of your way to offend people. You shouldn't offend people for the sake of offending them. But, you have to be willing to risk offending people in order to more clearly demonstrate how passionate you are about an interest that you share with the people you're trying to reach.
If you want to have a compelling brand online, you have to be ok with the fact that you might alienate some people. It's a good thing.
I've been talking a lot lately about how to bring brands to life on the web. It requires you to care about something more important than your product, and to show your audience what you care about through the things you collect and decide to share.
Yesterday, Seth Godin reminded me of one of the biggest obstacles that companies put in the way of achieving the goal of getting a life online. Companies allow common unspoken goals based on fears instead of aspirations to get in the way of accomplishing what they set out to do.
How often has this (spoken or un-spoken) goal gotten in the way of a company doing something great for its brand? "We don't want to offend anyone."
If you're brand is acceptable to everyone, then it won't be exciting to anyone.
Think about the brands that have rabid fans.
Think about the brands that everyone talks about.
Think about the brands that have become a status symbol (in spite of their deliberate lack of symbols in their branding).
If you want people to talk about your brand and what you stand for, then you have to be willing to offend someone. Offending people is a natural bi-product of saying something interesting.
This doesn't mean that you should go out of your way to offend people. You shouldn't offend people for the sake of offending them. But, you have to be willing to risk offending people in order to more clearly demonstrate how passionate you are about an interest that you share with the people you're trying to reach.
2 Comments:
Well said, Mike. This actually reminds me of one of the few posts I actually disagreed with Scott Goodson on. He basically said he disagrees with Godin's use of tribes because the word is too inherently divisive.
To which I say, you just can't be for everything. And if you're not for everything, then you're against something. So either you're a tribe of something or you're full of shit.
http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/01/tribes-seth-godins-new-book-is-off.html
Anyway, great stuff.
Mike - This is my attempt to interpret your post graphically: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3084/3236637643_4c89678ea0_b.jpg
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