Capitalizing on Contextual Awareness
Brands are members of our community, invented to represent our ideas, commerce and culture in the marketplace for ideas.
Our relationships with brands are much like the ones we hold with other human beings. Emotional attachments are formed based on shared experiences and the things we hold in common. This might sound strange, but consider your alma mater as a brand, I’m certain they do. Or, if it's easier, consider the number of people who name their cars. We have intimate relationships with brands (knowingly or not) and intimacy not only implies depth, but demands depth of character.
We use language to express how we feel about each other. We use language to translate emotions into rational actions. We use language to define our relationships, and the same applies to brands. Do the brands in your life think the relationship is defined by one shallow line of copy or is there something more?
Brands with depth are complex organisms and require a larger vocabulary than a single line for everyone they meet and certainly something more for those who’ve known them for decades. Once you start to see brands as living organisms, it doesn’t make sense that they would have one line. It doesn’t respect the relationship to believe human beings can only handle one simple message about a brand. Brands can do better, must d|o better on their side of the relationship.
Headlines are the answer we use. They come in a variety pack and can adapt to a moment in time, context, audience or medium. When a brand knows itself, confidently, it can use more than one line when speaking to its most important audiences.
An example, from the rebrand of the Minnesota Orchestra.
You might have remembered the labor strike that happened a few years ago. It made national news and even showed up in “Mozart in the Jungle” an Amazon streaming series. After the strike was over and Capsule was helping launch a refreshed brand, we crafted a messaging platform that included a series of headlines.
The headline used right after the strike ended was, “All Together Now.”
The music reference brought forward a confidence in the future of our Minnesota Orchestra. It was designed for a moment in time and accompanied with a variety of headlines for future use as the orchestra continued in a positive, uplifting direction.
As brands age and become more aware of their own role in the community, it almost feels like what we’d imagine walking for the first time. The freedom it brings is profound along with the confidence to know the space you’re in and your new role in it. A confident brand is more aware of itself and the messages it is sending to the world.
If you’re wondering about the messages you’re sending, reach out for a conversation.