Brand Clarity, Part Seven: Where's Your Focus?

Let’s see if this resonates:

“If you had told them 60 years ago that in 30 years they would be flat on their backs, broke, and pleading for government subsidies, they would have thought you totally demented.”

That quote was not taken from today’s paper or a recent blog post. That quote is from an article entitled “Marketing Myopia” written by Theodore Levitt and published in the Harvard Business Review. And here’s the kick (in the head or otherwise)…

It was published in August of 1960 and he was talking about the railroad industry.

If you’re playing at home, that’s 48 years ago. Still relevant. Still counting.

Myopia is defined as “a common condition in which light entering the eye is focused in front of the retina and distant objects cannot be seen sharply.” My entire Brand Clarity series (up to this point) has focused mostly on self-awareness. I have even referred to it as preparing for your close-up. All of this is critical during the early stages of developing a brand…

But we don’t want to become myopic.

Think about your job title for a minute, especially if you’re in a corporate environment. I would suggest that your job title itself is myopic. Mine certainly was…Web & Publications Manager. That had shit to do with what my purpose actually was and/or should have been.

That isn’t to say that the duties we perform aren’t important, because they are. What I’m saying is that in the midst of responding to daily fires it’s easy to become myopic, both for ourselves and the businesses we work for. We must constantly remind ourselves what those distant objects are. Those distant objects are people…our customers…our readers…our audience.

It takes imagination to build a brand. It takes even more to sustain and grow one.

“I grieve to see the most advanced physical and social organization of the last century go down in shabby disgrace for lack of the same comprehensive imagination that built it up. What is lacking is the will of the companies to survive and to satisfy the public by inventiveness and skill.” (Jacques Barzun, “Trains and the Mind of Man,” Holiday, February 1960)

Written 48 years ago. Still relevant. Still counting.

At the end of the day, our brands serve others. I’m using my brand so that (hopefully) others will benefit. I write blogs for the readers, their employers, and their customers. I design logos for the client, their customers, and the friends of their customers. What I do is simply my product. If I get hung up on that, my focus is lost.

One more quote from Mr. Levitt:

“In every case the reason growth is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not because the market is saturated. It is because there has been a failure of management. The executives responsible for it…defined their industry wrong; they were product-oriented instead of customer-oriented.”

I changed the current company on my TR page to “as many people as possible.”

I changed it two weeks ago. Still relevant. Still counting.