Brand Commitment vs. Conviction

Kelly: You know, there’s a lot of books that talk about brand that are not really brand books, as much as business books. Old ones like The Discipline of Market Leaders remains a good one though, being very dated, even built to last. But one of my favorites is one that is called A New Brand World by Scott Bedbury. I used to give it to clients because it really does speak to the power of branding as a construct for organizational behavior.

Matt: I actually have assigned a class this last semester to read a couple of chapters of Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan, which is an amazing glimpse into the mind of a creator. It’s a blast to read. And then I always answer a question like this with The New Yorker. It’s the best, most provocatively written publication I know. And if you want to be a great writer and you want to see people who are incredibly skilled at capturing complicated thoughts in language, just go subscribe to it.

Kelly: I think the biggest thing that has changed in my role and in some of the work we’re doing is we’re very, very mindful that our whole world is going through some incredible stresses right now. And COVID is only one of them. We saw last year, the murder of George Floyd. We’ve seen an increase in violence against people of color by police. In many cases we see inequities that inconceivably continue to be part of our society. Even when we know they’re wrong.I think what we believe is that we have a responsibility… We can change people’s minds. We can give voice to confidence. We can help organizations own up to their responsibilities. All of us, anyone listening to this who’s in the world of marketing. You have incredible power to do some of those things. And, to me, the past 18 months have all been about understanding the responsibility to think larger and to try and push back on some of the challenges that we’re facing right now.

Matt: We have a bigger part to play as we’re living in a world that’s maybe more immediately broken than we’ve seen in a long time. And, when the world is broken as it is now, it’s more immediately apparent to surround myself with (the fact that) everybody’s dealing with challenges in their personal life, and they’re difficult. And the question becomes, how can we as leaders, as managers of a community that’s disguised as a company, how can we be part of the solution and not part of the problem? Because, you know what, we’ve been way too big a part of the problem, and the business community has to change.