I should have written it, nonetheless it’s vital to your business prospects…
By Bob Wheatley
For years I have been writing, exclaiming, extolling, expressing, supporting and exhorting the value of looking at brand building and business through a different lens. One based on relationship building rather than viewing consumers as walking wallets and marketing as strictly a persuasion and transaction-focused exercise.
I am ashamed to say that despite the many times I told my self, “self, listen up you need to write a book on this paradigm of how to build brands. It’s time. It’s the right thing to do.” And surely as daily life interferes and demands of my obligations both personal and professional gang up — I didn’t get around to it. I may have written enough blog posts and articles to fill the pages of a book, but did not make the leap. Sigh.
Well thankfully, Bob Garfield and co-writer Doug Levy have done it and probably better than anyone who has played previously in this territory. They have created Can’t Buy Me Like, the manifesto and guide to brand building and communication right for the age we are in. It is dynamically correct from page to page in summarizing the 15 bagillion reasons why the world has changed and business is no longer about push messaging, persuading, yelling, shouting — or even looking at social channels as mini, micro push platforms. Consumers rule — and relevance to their lives and aspirations is a prerequisite to any kind of lasting relationship where exchange, reciprocity and conversation dominate the landscape more so than strict “build preference-drive sale” thinking.
The Relationship era is built on trust, transparency, relevance and belief…
Nope instead trust now looms large as the basic kindling for starting any kind of marketing fire. With all of the apologies above for abdicating my journalistic responsibility in this, I can say that Emergent and its approach is fundamentally a living laboratory and testament to this kind of thinking. And smartly I think, it’s benefits.
Oh by the way, the book is well-written, engaging and a fun read, too.