With our friends and colleagues we’ve started a series of communication-focused presentations for YPO members. I’ve introduced three principles we use to manage brand publishing programs. Here’s the first one: the awareness of cultural context.

1. Brand Principle 1
Culture
Brands operate within the culture.
If you see the culture changing, grab that opportunity.

2. What is a cultural opportunity?
Here’s the parenting example:
Parenting is undergoing a massive cultural shift.
Women in their thirties are giving birth to more
children than their twenty-something
counterparts.

3. Being a parent of a very small child (or expecting
one soon) gradually became synonymous with
being thirty-something - and that is huge.

4. For parents and society, this comes with a new set
of challenges, social needs and behaviours.
Currently, parent-focused brands have
the historical branding opportunity, rethinking
their brand to embrace 30-somethings and their
lifestyles.

5. Almost all big brands of the past were built around
huge cultural shifts like this - Michelin, Nike, Patagonia,
Ben & Jerry’s, Converse.

6. They all seized cultural opportunities of their times,
and created narratives that made people see their
own lives differently.
Decade of intensive academic research shows that
brands that act as cultural leaders in their categories,
that seize these cultural shifts, dominate.
*Read more on this in “How brands become icons” and “Cultural Strategy” (both by Douglas
Holt) or in multiple Harvard Business Review articles on this topic. http://culturalbranding.org/

7. Is there a cultural shift that your brand could grab?
My society
and/or my life
now
My society
and/or my life
in the future
The biggest branding
opportunity you could
ever have lies in the
social transformation
connected to your
service

8. Parenting example
Majority of the first-
time parents are
20-somethings
Majority of the first-time
parents are 30-somethings

9. When thinking about your brand concept,
think about society and culture.
How can your organisation transform it, on the
fundamental level?
Soap companies do it well:
- Dove: changing body image
- Soap companies 100 years ago: building healthy nations

10. If you see social or cultural change happening, grab it
and make it part of your brand.
Dark world with
global warming
Brighter world with less
severe global warming
Biggest branding
opportunity you could
ever have lies in the
social transformation

11. Life no.1 Life no.2BRAND
Tools
Advice
Products
Content
Support

12. But don’t worry if there’s no big social change around
your company or service. You can use the
transformation principle in sales and campaigns, too:
http://tomtunguz.com/marketing-roadmap/

13. Use transformational principle on individual level to
create product messaging.
Customer without
your service
or product
Customer
with your service
or product
Campaign narrative:
“By buying this
product, your future will
be better. In software,
this typically means the
buyer will be
promoted.”
http://tomtunguz.com/marketing-roadmap/

14. Combine both approaches for the full power
Individual
now
Individual
later
“OK”
Brand

15. Combine both approaches for the full power
Culture now
Culture later
Individual
now
Individual
later
Great
Brand

16. Wrap-up
1. Grab cultural transformation to build
almighty brand.
2. Focus on individual customer
transformation to sell products here and now

17. Jan Sifra
Folk
More on branding, strategy and culture
follow on LinkedIn