Johnnie Moore

Brand: Promise or peformance?

Johnnie Moore

Johnnie Moore

I’m Johnnie Moore, and I help people work better together

Tom Asacker is a good exponent of short, sharp blogging, fitting his self-description as provocateur. His entry Mae West on performance provoked me. Especially this sentiment:

A brand is NOT a promise. It’s a performance. So let’s stop all of the brand ranting and get down to brass tacks.

I keep hearing that mantra that “a brand is a promise” and it’s never really worked for me. I’ve always been left a bit confused, thinking “is it?”. The idea of brand as performance certainly engages me more. And it fits my view that brands are social creations, things that are created between people moment-by-moment.

My additional thought: great performances are not simply delivered by a performer but result from some kind of chemistry with the audience. Indeed, the audience is a player too. I am passionate about using Improv work in business because it captures the value of spontaneous performance in organisation.

Share Post

More Posts

Waterfalls and chaos

I linked to this paper on wicked problems the other day and Chris Corrigan commented “there’s a lot in that paper eh?”. Which is true.

Passion branding

Passion brands bring people together based on common interests and excitements. I’m particularly interested in ones created from the bottom up, as opposed to driven by producers concerned mainly with profit.

Medinge Moments

Just back from another extraordinary gathering at Medinge where the community that has produced Beyond Branding meets each summer. I was planning to keep this

The volatile chemistry of trust

Interesting research from Stanford suggests that exciting brands get more trusted after making mistakes and putting them right whilst more “sincere” brands start with more trust but lose it more easily. Perhaps the sensible interpretation is that second-guessing customers can be a waste of time!

What brand are you?

Thanks to Matt Tucker at Smith Associates for telling me about What Brand Are You. It strikes me that lots of companies waste money on

New Abbey

So the Abbey National is rebranding itself this morning. As I write this entry, they are revealing their new look, their shortened name (just “Abbey”)

Just Undo It?

The AntiBrand: blackSpot sneakers, a project by Adbusters attacks Nike directly. In doing so they take on what has become one of the great icons

Putting humanity into branding

We live in a world of too much marketing and too much branding. People’s faith in advertising has fallen to new lows as we simply

More Updates

Emotional debt

Releasing the hidden costs of pent up frustrations

Aliveness

Finding the aliveness below the surface of stuck

Johnnie Moore

In favour of doubt

JP Rangaswami writes about doubts and uncertainties. In short he’s in favour of them, as am I. He quotes Ben Franklin: In fact, if you wish to instruct others, a

Johnnie Moore

Workshop next Monday

I’m running my workshop, Facilitation for Surprise next Monday at the Islington Hilton. I’m looking forward to it. There are currently 2 spaces left if you fancy making a late

Johnnie Moore

Gutenberg parenthesis

I’ve been thinking a lot about that Gutenberg Parenthesis idea. I think we have inadvertently allowed the linear format of the printed book to be the gold standard for intelligence.