To paraphrase noir novelist Raymond Chandler, an adventure story is no adventure story if it doesn't happen to a character fit for adventure.
It's an appropriately pithy statement for an author famous for persistently pithy dialogue, but it's directly addressing an idea I think a lot about in relation to brand building: being suited for the task at hand.
Brand people love to think of their brands as the hero of the story, but we're supporting characters at best, and most often we're mere cameos. The main character is our customer and our brand is only as successful as it is compatible with our customer's story and our customer's goals and objectives.
An adventure story is no adventure story if it doesn't happen to a character fit for adventure.
As a brand, we must be fit for the type of story that's happening to our customers. We often frame our "target audience" (which, side note, I find a rather macabre phrase, especially when strategists visualize it as a literal target) in terms of their demographics or psychographics, but rarely in terms of the journey they're on.
Our best customers are on a journey that we can help them on, not selfishly (although of course, this is capitalism, we want to make money) but symbiotically. We help our customers get closer to who they want to become and they provide revenue and feedback for us.
But we won't even be in the story if we're not fit for their adventure.
It's an appropriately pithy statement for an author famous for persistently pithy dialogue, but it's directly addressing an idea I think a lot about in relation to brand building: being suited for the task at hand.
Brand people love to think of their brands as the hero of the story, but we're supporting characters at best, and most often we're mere cameos. The main character is our customer and our brand is only as successful as it is compatible with our customer's story and our customer's goals and objectives.
An adventure story is no adventure story if it doesn't happen to a character fit for adventure.
As a brand, we must be fit for the type of story that's happening to our customers. We often frame our "target audience" (which, side note, I find a rather macabre phrase, especially when strategists visualize it as a literal target) in terms of their demographics or psychographics, but rarely in terms of the journey they're on.
Our best customers are on a journey that we can help them on, not selfishly (although of course, this is capitalism, we want to make money) but symbiotically. We help our customers get closer to who they want to become and they provide revenue and feedback for us.
But we won't even be in the story if we're not fit for their adventure.