…because I believe brands should only invest in marketing
communications through existing users of their brand

this last post from my IPA essay reaffirms what I have come to firmly believe: that we're too wasteful.  we're investing pound after pound in inefficient aqcuistion-based advertising that – at best – does nothing for exsiting customers, and at worst actively alienates them.

enough already.  conversations about our brands are happenning right now.  the tools exist to join that conversation and respond accordingly: by creating and deploying collatoral that adds value to the lives of our existing customers, and then thru using media to tell everyone what we're doing.  I do not believe that this is an add-on; but rather something that should lie at the heart of how any early 21st Century brand behaves…

The role of brands in the early 21st Century

Brands are stubborn things to pin down.  They have been described as metaphors, as
intangible assets, or as codes of conduct and rituals; as the ties that bind us
and the ideas that inspire us.

I believe the role for brands in the early twenty first century
is twofold; that brands give people reasons to be loyal to a product and
service, and that brands provide an affirmation of our purchase decisions.

I believe

I believe brands should only invest in marketing
communications through existing users of their brand.

I believe we will come to look back at our marketing efforts
at the turn of the twenty first century as excessively wasteful; where
marketing was divorced from the products and services to which it pertained.

But most of all I believe we will look back at how we
embraced change.  Not because consumer
behaviour forced us to, but because we collectively saw a better way to nurture
and grow the brands we held so temporarily in our care.

a pdf of my essay can be downloaded here:
Download I believe in existing customers – Chris Stephenson
please note that it is subject to creative commons.  thanks.