The case for a "fluid brand"

2/17/2013 Unknown 0 Comments

Jose Martinez-Salmeron
Executive Creative Director
social@Ogilvy
Jose Martinez Salmeron, Executive Creative Director at Social@Ogilvy, blogs at SmashingMagazine.com about "the practice of branding . . . undergoing a deep transformation."

Salmeron makes the case -- perhaps counter-intuitively for the some -- against brand consistency. He quotes from a 2012 HBR blog by Grant McCracken: "'The consumer now appears to believe that the brand should earn its public attention the way all of us must. Say boring, repetitive stuff and you suffer the punishment that every bad conversationalist faces. First, we ignore you. Then, we exclude you.'"

Salmeron makes the case, variously, for "fluid brands," "dynamic rebranding," and, in general, a bit of playfulness -- or "the brand as an ecosystem of interactions . . . brand identity definition is no longer a one-way street."  He shows with several recent re-branding efforts that "Beyond formal considerations, a brand is also defined by experiential parameters (and now more than ever): how and where do customers interact with a given brand, online and offline."