Since the dawn of mankind, people have been looking for ways to attract the attention of the audience. With time and thanks to technological support, strategies and techniques have been refined and improved. This has evolved into the often misrepresented disciplines we know today, under the name of Branding & Marketing.

With growing importance attributed to branding, Brand Managers  were later introduced in order to increase the perceived value of brands and products, by creating an image or identity in the mind of the target market. This is known as Positioning or the 'relative competitive comparison' of the product in a given market. Positioning has its own life cycle and evolution process, and exists whether a company proactively acts or not. Through research, analysis and strategic actions, a company can formulate a position that will influence the perceived image in peoples’ minds.

Companies aspired to carefully maintain the position of their brand. Any small change in their message or strategy could seriously harm their brand. Different control levels had therefore been introduced to protect their brand identity and its perceived value. Such controls are not an easy task and it have actually become much more difficult with the numerous new channels that social media has brought. Many brand managers and marketers still don't comprehend that the Web is a conversation. People can blog about you, rate your products and use many other forms of user-generated-content to remix or disrupt your brand. This has encouraged many to suggest that companies should give up controlling their brand and instead include a participation strategy and embrace this new acquired freedom.

More adaptive companies have started integrating Brand Engagement  in their marketing strategy. A brand’s value is solely based on the perception people have in their mind and therefore it makes sense to say that consumers have more claim to the brand than the actual owner. But this is not only true for the consumer; this is the case for every stakeholder of the brand, starting with the employees.

By combining brand engagement with openness for a multi-positioning strategy, companies can better harness the advantages offered by today’s social media. Martin Lindstromcalls it the “Me Selling Proposition”. In this model, consumers assume ownership of the brand and do most of the communication work for you as part of a brand community. This model infringes and encompasses other selling propositions or positioning by empowering the brand’s stakeholders.

While it is common knowledge that most global consumers brands are making their first steps into branding 2.0  by facilitating interactions and becoming more socially and environmentally aware, this can also apply to smaller firms or B2B companies wishing  to be part of this new revolution.

On the other hand, social media creates a lot of pollutant information. Such noise not only impacts the quality of the information received and used by the final consumer, but will also force consumers to lose touch with the guidance offered by one unique brand positioning. This means that a right equilibrium must be found, and interaction between brand and engaged stakeholders should become strategic and based on clarity and mutual understanding.

The ZackBrandit team wishes to take a step further and introduce Brand Empowerment. Instead of broadcasting information or playing the role of a community facilitator, companies should be able to stretch their Brand Identity  and include their customers and potential markets in their overall strategy. By empowering advocates and any other stakeholders with a piece of the brand’s identity, you can yield the same effect as providing company shares to employees. This is not about control, nor even management.

This is what may help companies benchmark their Brand Equity 2.0, which will be covered in a future post.