Brand platforms that go beyond product
People no longer want to passively consume branded content, instead they want to set the context for brands to respond to. Our digitally connected world has created an exciting and empowering infrastructure – it gives consumers the power, but it also enables brands to think more creatively about their products and communications. Brands can harness an engaged and loyal following by creating and ensuring ongoing visual and verbal content that inspires, informs and feeds people’s interests.
Building a brand positioning with an emotional hook that goes beyond product is essential to connecting in this way. When done well, this allows brands to stand for something bigger, and to create communications that are relevant to the product but not completely defined by it.
Curate a community based on interests
Sometimes demonstrating passion for your product is best achieved outside the confines of your brand. Unbranded content, like Away’s Here magazine and Casper’s Woolly magazine, can be a great way to build consumer relationships, while separate social feeds can enable a brand to share its authentic values without the marketing veneer. Accidentally Vegan, an Instagram account that shares news of the latest vegan products in the UK marketplace, is run by the founders of The Vegan Kind, the UK’s biggest online vegan supermarket, but deliberately avoids promoting its own offer above its competitors. The feed’s delight in welcoming any new entrant to the vegan space, be it from Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts or Kit Kat, puts their passion for plant-based front and centre and in doing so reinforces The Vegan Kind’s reputation as the trusted voice for vegans.
Reflect a lifestyle
Creating, then embodying, a lifestyle that aligns with your consumers’ style and desires is a great way to connect. Many brands are successful at signalling something for consumers to aspire to, however reflecting a lifestyle needs to go deeper than just presenting aspirational aesthetics.
Outdoor Voices is a great example of a brand doing just this. The athleisure brand goes beyond the performance-driven, toned and sexy aesthetics of its competitors to create a deeper connection with consumers that reflects their values. Built around the idea of un self-conscious ‘happiness’, Outdoor Voices empowers and inspires this attitude in a multitude of ways. The brand shifts the athleisure narrative from performance sport to everyday low-impact movement, recreation and just #doingthings. Featuring un-retouched models with real bodies and real cellulite, the result is a brand that manages to create a desirable lifestyle through ideals of feeling confident and un-affected.
Craft a subculture
With a sense of cultural identity being desired in its own right, the best brands are ones that are able to create subcultures of their own. Rather than capitalising on existing cultural narratives for profit, consumers are looking to brands that recognise and resonate with their reality and act as a facilitator of their culture.
Recognising the links between personal care and mental wellness, Selfmade is a skincare brand that aspires to democratise mental health resources by connecting them with personal care products. Committed to creating a brand that meets the emotional needs of real people, the brand brings together a community of mental health experts, beauty developers and an advisory board of Generation Z women to develop its products. The result? A brand that creates its own cultural narrative around building individual self-worth and facilitates a platform to maximise human potential.
By reflecting a vision and values that go beyond product, brands can create ongoing engagement and real advocacy. They can facilitate a unique and special community and ultimately, they can play their own role in crafting and facilitating culture.
Originally Published in Branding Magazine
