Connecting vs Controlling

When we moved office last year, I took a fresh look at some documents we had issued and received over the past years.

Reading the language which is used day-by-day in our branding world, I find a lot of it to be militaristic. We talk about “targeting” our market and we “bullet-point” our recommendations. We launch “campaigns” and we aim to “knock ’em dead”! How did this verbiage unthinkingly become part of what we do? And when we think about it, isn’t this a sort of legacy language handed down from the Mad Men era?

I don’t see the aggression as having much relevance to the positive work our agency does – using insight, intuition and creativity to help clients build successful brands across digital and traditional media.

Interestingly, Karl Heiselman, Wolff Olins CEO, made some similar comments recently on the BBC’s Today programme. He commented that, in the new communications landscape, a great brand is one that is “very clear about its purpose and role in people’s lives.” The familiar jargon of marketing doesn’t fit our new, connected world: “It used to be that we used military analogies, that it was about ‘creating a position’…’defending it over time’…’campaigns’…we need a new language here.”

Grain helps brands to communicate and celebrate their difference – to connect with their customers and to become their preferred choice. Branding today is about engagement, not conquest.

Consequently I’m planning not only to use fewer words to tell clients what I think, but also to make a conscious effort to eliminate some of the “power language” from my lexicon.