How Next-Generation Brands Do Things Differently
Why the future of branding lies at the intersection of authentic leadership, experience design, and community building.
Beyond just a logo, your brand is an emotive medium to communicate your worldview. It’s what you believe and the future you’re fighting for. The story you tell and the way you deliver it determines how people align with your vision. People are interested in connecting with your why and they want to feel that why throughout every touchpoint of their experience with your brand.
Next-generation brands embrace this view by operating at the speed of culture. They are nimble and aware of the needs of a globally networked community that demands social consciousness, an innovation mindset, and authentic leadership. Here are four things that next-generation brands do differently:
1. Stand Up for Their Beliefs
Increasingly, influential brands have become more vocal about what they believe and are standing up when challenged. Take for example Apple’s conflict with the FBI over privacy. Apple stood up for what it believed was right from a philosophical point of view. Ultimately, their defiant position builds positive brand equity for Apple because it affirms the brand’s core belief in their customer’s right to privacy.
When the Trump administration announced plans to shrink the size of two national monuments in Utah, Patagonia alerted its customers to take action to fight the anti-environmentalist policy change. The outdoor retailer leveraged its brand relationship with eco-minded consumers to inspire political action around the issue.
Brands are designers, influencers, and vanguards of culture.
In turbulent times, brands must become more radical about supporting their vision of the future. They are no longer simply commercial institutions selling products. Brands are designers, influencers, and vanguards of culture.
As technology-driven globalization continues to connect value creation and consumption across borders, where you spend your money is much more powerful than who you vote for. Next-generation brands must be more clear about what they believe and what they are fighting for in society.
2. Focus on the Total Customer Experience
Oscar Health, a technology-focused health insurance company based in New York City, is pioneering a new approach to fixing a broken U.S. health insurance system. While the government and traditional industry players fail to act on the immediate challenges of skyrocketing costs and inadequate care, Oscar is innovating by building their product around the patient experience.
A simple app allows members to find local doctors, make appointments, get prescriptions, access virtual care via telemedicine, and get support from a concierge team. By leveraging user experience design to increase patient engagement in healthcare decisions, Oscar is better able to direct its members to the most effective care and reduce overall costs. This type of design thinking provides much needed leadership in the industry, encouraging other insurance companies to modernize their patient experience and invest in technology to reign in costs.
The best brands don’t create products, they create experiences.
When I moved to New York City, I needed a mattress for my new apartment—fast. Despite being possibly the most boring product to buy, a local startup called Casper made the mattress purchasing experience feel fresh and delightful. Once I ordered the all-foam mattress online, it was delivered same-day via bike messenger, compressed in a box that I could easily walk upstairs. This was a welcome change from dealing with traditional mattress retailers and delivery companies.
The company used design thinking to identify the pain points in the existing purchasing experience and improve on it. Ultimately, it was just a mattress, but the thoughtfulness put into creating a new type of branding, packaging and buying experience made all the difference in choosing Casper over a traditional mattress retailer.
Understanding the total customer journey is important for identifying the pain points that someone experiences when interacting with your brand. From marketing to sale to fulfillment to support, your brand should express itself consistently throughout your engagement with customers. The best brands don’t create products, they create experiences. Next-generation brands seamlessly integrate the digital and physical worlds to create an effortless experience that builds trust and confidence in a brand’s promise.
3. Lead Authentically and Increase Transparency
Social media has forced brands to be more transparent from the inside out. Our relationship with brands and their leaders has become more intimate and requires more authentic storytelling from a personal point of view.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk leverages Twitter as a medium to communicate thoughts on his work at Tesla and SpaceX, as well as his general musings on the world and the problems it faces. Elon Musk demonstrates how executives can become more authentic thought leaders by sharing regularly about their work, life, and beliefs.
Conversely, the rise and fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick shows how social media can be both a tool of transparency and accountability for leaders. Because brands are observed under a microscope from multiple angles through social media, leaders must be authentically aligned with their brand both in and out of the office or face retribution for failing to uphold their followers’ ideals.
Used in the right way, social media can give a personal face (and heart) to brands that would otherwise be soulless marketing machines. Share behind-the-scenes photos, interviews with your team, upcoming prototypes, and amateur videos. Sharing more about what your brand is doing, what it believes, what it’s working towards, engages consumers more deeply and connects them with the living story of your brand as it evolves day-to-day.
4. Deliver Ongoing Value to a Community
A relationship is always better than just a sale. Next-generation brands realize that their products and services need to deliver ongoing value and connect to a larger community of kindred spirits to keep customers engaged in the brand’s long-term vision.
Take for example the indoor cycling brand Peloton that created a stationary bike with an integrated touchscreen display and camera that connects to both on-demand and live rides with cycling instructors. At-home riders are connected to live classes along with other riders around the world, providing the same style of peer motivation of an in-person studio ride with the convenience and flexibility of joining a spinning class from anywhere in the world.
Instead of just selling a bike, Peloton has created a subscription platform for delivering live classes on an on-going basis. By integrating community into the design of their product, the brand differentiates itself from other at-home exercise experiences, keeping their user base more engaged and socially motivated to continue using to the product. What might have been a simple, one-time purchase of a product transforms into an on-going relationship with a community.
From selling things to inspiring change.
Brands are the way we organize around ideas.
In an earlier era, government, religious, and cultural institutions played a more significant role in providing thought leadership in what to believe. While the power and influence of these traditional institutions have waned over time, the public’s desire to believe in something has not gone away.
As the lines between citizen and consumer continue to blur, the role of branding in our society is changing. Brand thinking is no longer reserved for selling just products — it’s for selling ideas, organizing people, and inspiring change. Our relationship towards brands is influencing how products are experienced, how resources are allocated, what social causes are important, and what ideas rise to the top of our culture.
Brands need to have a clear vision of who they are and what they stand for to connect with people in the long run. By building a brand on a foundation of transparency and honesty, leaders can connect people around a common vision of the future. Furthermore, designing customer experiences with a holistic perspective strengthens the relationship between brands and the communities they serve. By combining transparent leadership, design thinking, and community integration, next-generation brands are redefining the ways we engage and experience our world.
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Maximillian West is an international design strategy consultant with a diverse background across financial services, technology, international development, real estate, and healthcare sectors.
Max works with visionary entrepreneurs and leaders designing holistic brand and product experiences.
