When I first started in marketing, I remember being puzzled by the social media accounts of the so-called "hot" brands. Surprisingly, their feeds weren't neatly curated at all.
They were littered with raw, unpolished photos and videos, awkwardly composed content, and even reactions so off the wall you'd think, "Wait, that's what you took away from this?"
Back when I was stuck in a supplier's mindset, I felt a strong urge to tidy all of it up. It looked like noise that damaged the brand's identity.
I think differently now.
A disorderly "sedimentary rock of UGC" is the most successful form that modern brand marketing can reach.
Today, brand marketing succeeds or fails less on "what the supplier says" than on "how the people who see it react and riff on it."
Unlike the past, when only companies could build brands, today anyone can be a media outlet, and ownership of the brand has shifted completely from the company to the public.
In the past, the basics of branding meant pouring in resources to continuously inject a consistent message. Not anymore. Before you throw out some grand message, there's an essential step: getting the world's permission to send that message at all.
You watch what ripples the stone you threw makes in the market, and then you ride those ripples.
Because a brand is no longer plastic, smoothly injection-molded in a factory. It's a massive sedimentary rock, formed from countless people's reactions and experiences piling up layer by layer.
Laying down solid strata that people can build on in their own ways: that's what brand marketing is these days.
