“Daddy, What’s a Brand?”

We live in The Age Of Everything. Why commit? There are 80 milllion Millennials aged 9-28 in the U.S. alone. Half are already in college or the workforce, and the women will be a tornado. They group around shared affinity more than shared nationality, they’re prosumers not consumers, and they care more about peer recommendation than corporate reputation. They grew up in a world where change is too fast to process, but they know one thing: if you wait a minute or two, something better is sure to be along. They live on an IV drip of real-time connection, and are fiercely interdependent. If you’re a company, failing to consider their preferences would be, in their own vernacular, WOMBAT–a waste of money, brains and time.

“Daddy, What’s a Brand?” and 9 More Awkward Questions for Uncertain Times, by Graham Button

3 Comments leave a comment below

  1. My 3 year old son ask me, just today why he did not have a wife?

  2. This is such a tough one. I’m the owner of Ukoonto, a VERY small business that makes wooden building blocks and sells them to stores all across Canada. I’m trying to get ahead in the business, but it is very tough to adopt, because everything moves at such a fast pace.

    So if we believe that the speed is this incredibly fast, why are brands like Freitag still relevant? They’ve been around for a while now, and people would certainly just move on in a nano second.

    I think two theories are colliding here. The fact that it needs time for a brand to gain trust in a customer, and that the customer drops a brand for another in a heart beat.

    Personally, I think there are a lot of ADD-generation-Y’ers, but on the long run, the solidly founded and persevering brand will prevail.

    What do you think?

  3. Hans, I agree. There is something very powerful happening when a brand develops organically and honestly. One by one you’ll attract brand advocates- loyal customers who will stand by who because they feel they have a stake. That sense of loyalty and commitment is a very powerful thing. The rest– the ones with the short attention span will come and go.