Data or Love?

I'm reading an article in warc's morning newsletter titled "Brand Owners Must Build New Marketing Systems". It provides great commentary on the need for brands to think beyond the banner ad and approach the digital space differently than traditional media, correctly stating "in a Web 2.0 world... [it] isn't simply a matter of throwing some banner ads against a few likely websites and seeing what sticks." I was expecting the article to take a deeper dive into relationship building, however what followed felt like more of the same old, advice... more 1.5 than 2.0:

Any adequate response to the evolving preferences of shoppers should be premised on exploiting the vast amount of data now available

More broadly, corporate leadership, skill sets and incentives ought to be "geared towards the digital world" rather than reinforcing outdated models

While the article (based largely on data from a recent Booz & Co report) is tactically focused, almost systems based (and presumably not meant to address communication/relationship strategy), the absence of brand culture and community building is hard to ignore.

It still surprises me, even when we're talking about amplification tools, that we can ignore the importance of brand integration and brand culture. Echoing what so many have said before: branding is no longer (nor should it ever have been) the sole responsibility of the marketing department. No matter how fine tuned a communications plan is, if brands continue to focus on a) marketing materials to carry the burden of the brand message and b) building a brand that is not lived and loved by ALL employees, meaningful connections will not be meaningful at all, they'll continue to be traditional advertising (maybe in a non-traditional format). Zappos, Patagonia, Apple etc. are all great cases of integrated branding done right. Comcast, just about every legacy carrier, Bank of America etc. are examples of integrated branding gone wrong.

Let's face it, there's no ignoring internal branding. Every interaction with a company from traditional mass communication to the mile long receipt you get on check out, is a brand experience that gets hardwired into the consumer's mind.

My point is this: while the digital world is quantifiable and measurable, its greatest asset is qualitative. It's the relationships it has enabled us to build. Rather than spend millions focusing on fine tuning metrics and determining the best time to email, allocate resources to defining the brand's personality and expressing that in a natural, human way. It's a damn shame that we've gotten to the point where this is synonymous with unconventional in the business world.

I've long heard the phrase data is king. It's time data took up an advisory role and brand culture took its rightful seat at the head of the table.