Blind Brand Strategy
Blindness is the state where one is unable to see either temporarily or permanently: Cambridge Dictionary. Applying this to one’s goals and mission, it could mean temporarily or permanently losing focus of the goal — the “why” you are doing what you’re doing. Unlike physical blindness, it could take years to realise that you went blind to what you were pursuing. And unfortunately, the effects of time cannot be solved with surgery or eye drops.
Tunnel Vision and the Strategy Fog
Tunnel vision — a ubiquitous term that you may discover upon opening your eyes after a long period of losing focus. I remember more than one instance during one of our #brandstrategy retreats, when the team had gone through tonnes of research from the field after a rigorous understanding-phase process — intense and draining, especially on social batteries. If you’ve done branding or rebranding for large organisations, then you feel me.
Back to my misfortunes — I realised that during the retreats, at the point where we were supposed to translate research into brand strategy ideas and a brand name, my brain used to fry. As if a dark, sticky cloud wrapped its claws around my brain, which was trying to expand to derive more ideas. Right about then is when a sugary snack and some scrolling sounded like a great idea — anything to relieve the pressure, ease your mind, and pluck you from the mental block you find yourself in.
Organisational Blindness
Over the years, working with diverse organisations has led me to realise that most of them have a one-track mind when it comes to what #branding and #marketing is. As a consultant, when joining these teams, I have found a common trend of brand and marketing managers stuck on monthly tasks and checkboxes so much that anything that remotely threatens disrupting how the end-month report will look is treated with thunderous hostility. More often than not, even their subordinates are unwilling to think differently.
Unfortunately, when they bring us in for rebranding or marketing, I have often felt like it is always tied to expectations of a checklist like — “we just need a name and a logo” or “we just need you guys to come up with content we will be posting consistently every month.” Of course, we end up flipping these expectations on their head, and it takes some tug-of-war before the truth is accepted. Worth noting is that it is senior management or the board that understands us first, before the rest do — no surprise there as they are the dream bearers.
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Breaking the Block
What happens to unlock the mind block — because it has to be done for work to progress? I found that having some time to pluck yourself from the task(s) and look at the project like an observer from the outside helps you regain direction. You ask yourself questions that help to redefine the “what, why, where, when, who, and how.” Like:
- Why have we done all this?
- Why do we need a new brand?
- What have we learnt so far?
- How does this tie to the new direction
- What information are we missing?
- Who do I need to talk to?
- Why is all the information collected important?
The White Smoke
The “white smoke” is a term I recently realised is used by the Vatican to signify that a new pope has been successfully selected. Before that, it only used to be our team’s code word for cracking the brand work during a retreat. There is nothing as ecstatic as arriving at the “aha!” after hours or days of pondering over something.
The Loop of Tunnel Vision
I have observed that many organisations are stuck in tunnel vision — year after year, doing the same thing. Maybe because of the size of these organisations, the checking of redundant tasks (especially in marketing and branding) seems to work internally.
Maybe it’s limited exposure to other ways of approaching the job or a bias towards the comfort of a system that nobody seems to question — especially the bosses. I’ve noticed that it takes some special event such as rebranding or the need for a unique campaign to shift their perceptions. Enter consultants. Even so, the perception shift never seems to last, because after consultants leave, the old ways creep back in.
The Hopeful Upside
The upside of this kind of blindness, I believe, is that it is not permanent — unless it leads to the collapse of an organisation. It is never too late to re-focus. I believe it’s time for brand managers and marketing managers to habitually pull themselves out of tunnel vision. This will allow them to become effective custodians of the organisation’s “why” vision and to encourage the rest of the team to remember, re-adjust, and innovate.
Furthermore, it will enhance the collaborative work done between consultants and internal teams. When the mind remains flexible, magic happens during co-creation — because each person is looking to learn and level up, instead of one side feeling intellectually insulted or degraded. I believe that no matter how many years you’ve been doing it, you always have something to learn.
Are you ready to open up your mind so that you can do effective brand strategy innovation?
