{"id":2201,"date":"2024-11-19T10:16:36","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T15:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/?p=2201"},"modified":"2024-11-19T12:18:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T17:18:00","slug":"you-dont-really-build-a-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/you-dont-really-build-a-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"You don&#8217;t really build a brand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br><br>This post is a commentary on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/zoescaman_how-do-you-build-a-brand-people-love-activity-7264637850254553088-xJZO?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@michael.fitzsimmons30\/how-do-you-build-a-brand-people-love-7016dd4341dd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a fascinating take on brand building, but I think there&#8217;s a deeper insight hiding beneath the surface that few are discussing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed alignwide is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"You don&#039;t really build a brand\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cHcV6_K5bcE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, great brands are built by entire organizations, not just marketing teams. But here&#8217;s the counterintuitive part &#8211; the very concept of &#8220;building a brand&#8221; might be misleading. You don&#8217;t really build a brand. You build positioning that shapes perception, and the brand emerges from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WeTransfer&#8217;s success isn&#8217;t just about cross-functional execution (though that&#8217;s crucial). It&#8217;s about owning a powerful concept in people&#8217;s minds. They don&#8217;t just transfer files &#8211; they own creative enablement. Their positioning as an artist-like entity that enables other artists is what drives their coherent actions across the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The genius here is that their positioning informs both their &#8220;inside-out&#8221; business strategy (how they operate) and their &#8220;outside-in&#8221; brand perception (how they&#8217;re seen). When Fitzsimmons talks about &#8220;values over rules&#8221; and &#8220;actions over words,&#8221; he&#8217;s really describing what happens when positioning is so clear it naturally guides behavior across the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider his point about measuring brand value. Yes, traditional metrics are incomplete. But what if we&#8217;re measuring the wrong thing entirely? Instead of measuring &#8220;brand,&#8221; perhaps we should measure how deeply we own our chosen concept in people&#8217;s minds. WeTransfer doesn&#8217;t just measure file transfers &#8211; they measure their relevance to the creative community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s where it gets interesting: The debate about marketing teams versus whole-organization brand building might be missing the point. The real question is: Does everyone in your organization understand what fundamental concept you own in your customers&#8217; minds? Because when they do, the right actions tend to follow naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about it: When your positioning is clear (like Volvo owning &#8220;safety&#8221; or BMW owning &#8220;performance&#8221;), it becomes obvious how customer service should behave, what products should feel like, how HR should hire, and yes, what marketing should say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Great brands aren&#8217;t built &#8211; they&#8217;re the natural byproduct of owning a powerful concept in people&#8217;s minds and having that concept guide every decision. Marketing teams don&#8217;t build brands, and neither do whole organizations. They build and reinforce positioning, and the brand follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This might seem like semantics, but it&#8217;s a crucial distinction. It suggests that instead of trying to &#8220;build a brand people love,&#8221; we should focus on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Finding an unoccupied concept we can authentically own<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ensuring everyone understands what concept we&#8217;re claiming<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Letting that understanding guide decisions across the organization<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Measuring how deeply we own that concept in people&#8217;s minds<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>In this light, WeTransfer&#8217;s success isn&#8217;t just about cross-functional excellence &#8211; it&#8217;s about having positioning so clear and powerful that it naturally drives aligned behavior across the organization. They&#8217;re not just building a brand; they&#8217;re owning a concept so completely that a beloved brand naturally emerges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps that&#8217;s the real secret to brands people love: Stop trying to build them directly, and instead focus on owning a concept so fundamental that love becomes the natural response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just my two cents. What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post is a commentary on this and this. This is a fascinating take on brand building, but I think there&#8217;s a deeper insight hiding beneath the surface that few are discussing. Yes, great brands are built by entire organizations, not just marketing teams. But here&#8217;s the counterintuitive part &#8211; the very concept of &#8220;building [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2201"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2207,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201\/revisions\/2207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}