{"id":2841,"date":"2022-02-09T18:17:31","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T17:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.brand-club.net\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:29:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:29:29","slug":"wieviel-sinn-macht-marken-sinn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wieviel-sinn-macht-marken-sinn\/","title":{"rendered":"How much sense does brand meaning make?"},"content":{"rendered":"

To counteract their declining relevance, brands have recently been focusing on purpose-driven offerings to revitalize themselves. Some are overdoing it. Now is the right time to critically examine the positioning of brands and their purpose-driven offerings.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brands have always experienced a loss of significance.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Much like churches, political parties, and trade unions, they seem to be increasingly dispensable to many people. The Meaningful Brands study by Havas claims to have found that 77 percent of all brands could easily disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While institutions lack relevant answers to the major questions of our time, brands are plagued by other structural problems. Humiliated by Stiftung Warentest results, which almost always make the cheapest option look good, they are suspected of deception by the public. Disgraced by platform providers like Amazon and others, it no longer seems worthwhile to spend more money for the same number of star ratings when they all appear in the same league. Made redundant by technological advancements, many brands await consolidation, such as insurance companies and regional vacation rental agencies. Discredited by too many pseudo-innovations, people in the highly differentiated dishwasher tablet aisle prefer the store brand to the name brand. Who could blame them? Many brands have lost their purpose. They no longer serve an organizing function and have become interchangeable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alarmed by the disastrous results of the Havas study, the purpose movement then set out to breathe new life into the struggling brands. They should be relevant, they should have meaning, inspire, educate, inform, reward, help, even entertain \u2013 phew, that's quite a lot and requires careful thought and orchestration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, we've seen a flood of purpose-driven offerings from brands seeking to revitalize themselves or even launch entirely new ventures. Dove positions itself as a skincare brand that promotes self-esteem. The water brand Viva con Agua advocates for global access to clean drinking water, thus making an ethical purpose its business model from the outset. Swapfiets, the rental bikes with the blue front wheel, promise "never a broken bike again." The Vegetarian Butcher, a new Unilever brand, even aims to save the planet with a meat-free diet. These are all plausible purpose-driven offerings that extend beyond the purely business-oriented goals of profit maximization and growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as the entire economic and, consequently, social fabric faces entirely new challenges, is the perfect time to critically examine the positioning of brands and their purpose-driven offerings. It's a good time to regroup and, if necessary, make adjustments to one's strategy. With regard to purpose, agencies and companies should ask themselves: Where might we need to make adjustments or even start completely anew? Experience shows that there is always potential for innovative product ideas and more effective communication strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For agencies, companies and organizations, the focus then shifts to the question of how they can arrive at a meaningful offering that naturally fits and provides genuine added value for people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my experience, there are 3 facets that should be systematically addressed in a structured process when searching for a credible, competitive, and meaningful identity:<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Facet: Mega-Trends<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

First, companies should examine overarching megatrends and consider their significance for their industry. Megatrends, such as self-optimization, are movements that shape the vast majority of industries for many years. Therefore, when considering trends, it's not about whether woodruff or salt caramel is the hottest flavor at the frozen yogurt shop this summer, but rather about identifying the overarching trends that are important for my specific industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean for the product and service portfolio? What contribution can design and communication make in their orientation? The architect Rem Koolhaas has made an interesting observation on this. For him, the increasingly important needs of people are security, sustainability, and comfort. However, these three behave like eternally squabbling siblings, constantly fighting over who gets to sit in front. The pandemic, with its at least temporary resurgence of the disposable coffee cup, made this abundantly clear. For the moment, security trumps sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2nd facet: Competition<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The second facet in the search for a meaningful identity involves seriously examining the environment in which I operate. How far along are my competitors? What can I learn from them without copying them? Have they already adopted overarching trends that will shape the coming years? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who exactly is the competition? I see time and again that companies are delighted when this question is raised. I remember a furniture manufacturer who thought that because he made solid wood furniture, his competitors were only other solid wood furniture manufacturers. He was very happy to be able to see things from the perspective of someone who actually wanted to buy a dining table. Suddenly, the world looks completely different. Because these people weren't primarily choosing based on materials, but approached the purchase with a much more open mind. Do I like the table? Does it fit in the room? Understanding motivations is always important, even in the "new normal.".<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3rd facet \u2013 Personal strengths and values<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Then it's also very much about examining one's own strengths and values. From the multitude of things a company achieves and how it sees itself and the world, a Brand Activation Map should ultimately be formulated that makes it distinctive and unique. The two crucial questions in this collaborative discovery process are: Are these strengths and values truly relevant to people? Or do we just think they are? "Tradition" is a good example in this context of an often overrated value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you've identified your focus setup of strengths and values, you can then examine how effectively these are currently communicated through branding, messaging, packaging, and other means. There's usually enormous potential here that's easy to address once the map is in place. From there, it's a short step to a meaningful positioning strategy with all its implications. In this way, meaning, as an organizing principle, can emerge almost organically from the brands, their relevant environment, and their benefits for people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let's not forget:<\/b> Many brands we knew are dead. New brands are emerging. Without people's voluntary affection, they are nothing. Branding is also about design, but above all, it's about trust. This social bond is a trust in meaning and in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Um ihrem voranschreitenden Bedeutungsverlust entgegenzutreten, setzen Marken in j\u00fcngster Zeit auf Sinn- oder Purpose-Angebote, mit denen sie sich wieder aufladen wollen. Manche schie\u00dfen dabei \u00fcbers Ziel hinaus. Jetzt ist der richtige Zeitpunkt, um die Positionierung von Marken und Sinn-Angeboten kritisch zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen. Marken erleben seit jeher Bedeutungsverlust \u00c4hnlich wie die Kirchen, die Parteien und die […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aus-dem-vorstand","category-markenthemen"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6191,"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/6191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brand-club.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}