Human consciousness is crossing a threshold that may be as mighty as the one from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. People are hungering after experiences that feel true on the inside, after so much hard work mapping the outer spaces of the physical world. They’re gaining courage to ask for what they need, living interconnections, a sense of individual worth and shared opportunities.
In her book, The Crossing Point, artisan and poet M.C. Richards expressed it this way: “One of the truths of our time is this hunger deep in people all over the planet for coming into relationship with each other.”
Our relationship to past symbols of authority is changing as we are awakening to ourselves as individuals with an inner sovereignty. Property, credentials, and status are not as intimidating to us anymore, and new kinds of experiences are arising that represent pictures of wholeness. Freedom sings within us as well as outside of us. People don’t want to feel stuck, suppressed or overly controlled, they want to be free to explore, change, and ascend. They want to find greater purpose, meaning and joy.
How The Lack Of Self-Awareness Threatens Brands
Yet many businesses operating today have business models with very tenuous and weak foundations, often because they have very limited self-awareness.
Indeed, so many corporations and brands at large in the world today are at most dimly self-aware. They can be brilliant at programming and producing things but relatively unaware of how to read the invisible energy on the human interactive field, which is the critical source of all brand field knowledge.
And yet this lack of self-awareness on the part of most companies, (your competitor’s?), can offer a significant source of advantage for your company, if your company develops a robust brand sensing and planning perspective, while your competitors are ignorant of it.
The fact that so many corporations live shorter and shorter lives raises the question about how they sense evolving conditions and respond to changing times and needs. In companies with greater longevity, brand planning has emerged as the key discipline that helps make the lumbering corporate Frankenstein’s become more self-aware, socially adept, charming, and handsome citizens of the world.
Self-aware corporations that evolve, respond to ideals, tread lightly on the Earth and create new products and experiences which make the world better for widening circles of people … these organizations, more than monopolies or governments are driving the plot of human culture forward, precisely because they are in touch with the social zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.
Thus, branding is an essential corporate planning discipline focused on the art of making corporations more…
- Self-aware
- Concerned with ideals and better ways to live
- In touch with image and identity needs of society
- Adept and responsive at solving hard performance problems
- Insightful, inspirational, and innovative
- Adaptive to changing marketplace dynamics
- Sustainable, prolonging the vitality of business models.
These core ideas and others can be found in my new book The Brand Bridge – How to Build a Profound Connection Between Your Company, Your Brand, and Your Customers.
The Blake Project Can Help: The Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
