It’s an interesting statement. How could anyone possibly humanize their brand? After all, brands are labels. And those labels represent a type of product. And that product represents a specific function or use. They’re simply materialistic possessions. Nothing more than that, right?
Well, don’t tell that to us. For the Millennials, brand-culture is taking on a significant paradigm shift. For some time now, brands have slowly begun to move away from a product based culture. And for anyone that has been paying attention, you would have noticed that the Millennials have become the catalysts of this progression into a lifestyle brand culture. There is not denying that Millennials love their brands. And it’s something that goes beyond the brand itself.
We want to talk about you. We want to share about you. We want to get to know you. We want to have real relationships with you. The essence of the brand has moved beyond our notions of use, functionality and materialistic being. Though use, functionality and materialistic quality still remain imperative and should in no way be taken to a lesser extent, for us, brands have begun to encompass who we are. And we have become very willing to tell everyone about how awesome “my” brand is and how great “our” relationship is.
I remember a time not too long ago when brands were seen as fashion faux pas’. There was a strong anti-brand sentiment in a sense. Maybe it could be that the consumerism of the 90s was based on cool. Nike was cool. But now it’s about comfort. Our brand values have changed considerably. In a world where everything is seemingly cool, we’ve gone above and beyond to distinguish ourselves in any way possible.
And this shift has only been fuelled by social media and other online innovations. Simple instances of searching and sharing have become more alive and real. Aside from the algorithms of these online processes that are in fact trying to become more human, googling, youtubing, facebooking and tweeting are not only changing language and speech, rather they’re beginning to represent fundamental actions in our everyday life.
Once you move beyond the online based power brands of Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, you begin to notice that we are googling, youtubing, facebooking and tweeting to engage our brands just as we would engage colleagues, friends and real individuals. The essence of brands themselves has come to represent these same feelings of engagement. We are engaging you as if you were colleagues, friends and real individuals.
For Millennials, brand engagement itself represents something completely different than it did for any other generation. This is about trust, loyalty and influence. There is no denying the greatest influencers to Millennials are Millennials themselves. Equally, you better mean every word you say. What you say must be as great as you promised it to be. You have to represent who you are. And if you can establish that trust, we will be loyal customers and brand-activists. But, and this is a big but, you have to provide us with loyalty in return. A relationship does not simply involve us. It involves you and me.
Brand humanization is more evident than we currently understand. It’s not just a smart phone. It’s a BlackBerry or iPhone. It’s not just a coffee. It’s a latte from Starbucks. It’s not just about liking your Facebook page. I want to hear from you Coca-Cola. You have over 15 million likes and you’ve only posted 7 things on your wall since October 13. Your fans are talking and they want to hear from you! Why else would would anyone really want to say anything unless to evoke a response? I’m still amazed that only the lovable Old Spice Guy figured out his friends wanted to hear from him. And he did what any good friend would, he got back to you.
It’s quite clear that with technological and online advancements, our understanding of brands has forever changed. It can also be understood that brands are becoming more human and in fact, they must become more human simply because the virtues of social media dictate that. And we want these relationships. Is it a little unrealistic to suggest brands have to act like this? Maybe. But if you want the attention of the Millennials, if you want us to respond, you might have to come to us on our level. It’s not simply about you the brand. It’s about being real. It’s about our relationship.
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