Branding betrayed

adliterate made an AMAZING post about our approach to advertising (and branding) just the other day. Here it is.

Read down past the creative part and he talks about how "Advertising changed tack and started to differentiate identical products on emotional grounds. More than that, in the absence of difference or advantage in those products it started to believe it could be the difference."

Paul at Hee Haw hit me with the follow-up left hook this morning with "Branding is Dead".  He was responsing to a post by Russell Davies about the demise of branding as we know it. 

"Spend enough time around the blogosphere, and it's real easy to get that 'heard it all before' mentality. But when it comes from the mouth of someone like Russell Davies, there's a reason for pause."

He discusses how branding is being replaced by Design and Technology.  Read Paul's full post here.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we were moving back to creating quality products with true differentiation again?

And now we get to Dinner.

I had the amazing and wonderful opportunity to meet CK, Liz, Matt and Ann at a dinner in New York City last night.  It was a magical evening of laughter, sharing and real conversations.  It was as if I was meeting old friends. As Liz points out so beautifully, there was no small talk.

Liz shared some discussions she has been having with Doc Searls about how the shift to a conversation age is also impacting commerce.  And that we are moving back to a direct interaction between product creators and their customers.  And it struck me that this is tied in with the discussions above.

Could it be that the future of "advertising" or "marketing" is to work with our customers to actually design better products?  (As opposed to how to position, market or package them?)

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