Lead Brands – Brands gain in value and retain their

Brand managers and strategists need to look beyond their daily activities and be inspired by the real, living world of the culture around us to add value to their brands. The changes in meaning we see today – questioning and rethinking everything – are having a strong impact on the way brands create value in the real world. The more meaning you can share with your customers, the stronger the mental, emotional and cultural ties you can create between your brand and your business and the broader cultural and social context in which your customers live. Culture and cultural relevance have become the new products that brands and organizations need to create and maintain in order to maintain and increase their value and utility. But because we don’t have the right metrics to measure what makes sense and creates value for brands over the long term, the symbolic gap between brands and organizations on the one hand and culture and society on the other is getting deeper and wider every year. And when the fundamental pillars of value, trust and social meaning are damaged or destabilized, the idea of doing business and building brands becomes difficult and inherently questionable. We need to find new strategic mechanisms that allow us to investigate and analyze the evolution of culture in real time and measure its importance in keeping brands vibrant, relevant and profitable. Because without relevance in the broader context of the culture in which your business is embedded, the value created by your brands will not be sustainable. It’s about understanding what creates real social meaning and taking huge steps for the benefit of people rather than brands. When the context changes and we no longer know what things mean in a positive way, it becomes difficult for brands to create relevance – to point out their value. The more meaning you create as a brand, the more value you have and the more meaning you can share with your customers.