Brand Imperfection

Until few years back, brands and branding was all about pursuit for perfection. Marketers and advertisers spent huge amount of time and monies trying to build the perfect brand - its attributes, personality, attitude, etc. Communication was all directed to achieve this perfection - flawless copy, flawless models, flawless product shots, etc

However, technology and people’s use of technology, especially Internet and social media, changed all that. Today’s brands are spending efforts trying to be human. One important criteria of being human is ‘nobody is perfect’. It is the small imperfections that makes each human being acceptable, lovable, and sometimes more desirable. Just imagine, would the recent Dove commercials (using ordinary women) be as successful, if models were used? I guess not. In fact, a study done using neuro-scientific tool based on EEG’s, by a major European cosmetic brand, for shortening their long ads, showed that the more human-like the ad scenes were, the more the consumers connected emotionally to the same (read the entire article http://www.fastcompany.com/1540180/why-brands-should-strive-imperfection )

Imperfection attracts the audience attention. We are wired to pick out flaws. Hence, if our branding exercises are flawed, then the audience pays extra attention to pick up the flaw..thus increasing the attention time span.

With the increase in social media usage, branding is no longer a work of just communication, but also that of interactions and experiences. We as consumers, expect the brands to respond to our actions in the social media space (a tweet, FB comment, etc).  like the way we expect our friends or people in our network to respond.

In the future, brands will have to make an effort.....to be imperfect

Image courtesy: rhetoricallyurs.com