Customer-Centric Marketing: Build Relationships, Create Advocates, and Influence Your Customers

CHAPTER FIVE

BRANDS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

Making Your Brand a “Beacon of Light”

FOR DECADES, MARKETERS HAVE BUILT THEIR BRANDS ON A fairly predictable playing field with a consistent set of rules. Until recently, it could be characterized as a somewhat one-sided affair, where marketers pushed their message out to the assembled customer masses. Before the Digital Age, traditional advertising and its mass delivery systems provided efficient, predictable, and safe channels for the delivery of brand messaging to customers.

As we've seen and discussed in previous chapters, customers now have a formidable decision-making role in a brand's future longevity. Empowered with technology and social media, customers are redefining how the game is played.

As Amazon's Jeff Bezos says, a brand is:

“The things that people say about you when you're out of the room.”

Today, customers are saying a lot, and not just to their immediate social circle. They are talking to anybody and everybody online. And when they're not talking, they're listening to whoever else is talking to inform their brand perceptions. This role reversal has given customers a significant influence on the health and reputation of any brand.

DOES A BRAND ADD VALUE?

One could ask: “Are brands still relevant and valuable in today's marketplace?” My answer is a resounding “yes!”—brands are probably even more important than ever before, ...