Let’s talk about platforms. But in order to talk about platforms, I’d like to first talk about products and brands. Why?
Because a platform presupposes that, as a brand, we need to abandon the notion of focusing on the idea of a product to expand the potential of a brand. This can be done by anyone, including those with personal brands. Let’s go to the next slide on what is a product.
In math, when we say that changing the order of the factors does not change the product, the product is the result of something. So, when you have a product on a shelf, this product is the result of harvesting, processing, and roasting, in the case of coffee, the packaging, a marketing department, the distribution, and placement at a point of sale, advertising, negotiation, and various other things, like media relations. So, a product is a result when it arrives in someone’s hands.
So, let’s think about this idea of a product. Of consuming. Let’s move on to our next idea.
Let’s talk about brands. It is traditionally said that a brand is a product with a soul. So, it’s a product that gains a lot of value.
So, when you take a product like coffee and transform it into Starbucks, you are increasing its value. You are creating something very different. Is this correct?
It is correct. There’s a lot of literature saying so, but I’m going to expand a bit more on an idea that I prefer better. I worked on this idea in my book, Black Belt in Advertising and Marketing.
So, let’s talk about platforms. A platform is when you take away the soul of the product. Imagine a product like Apple.
Apple is not a cell phone. It’s not a computer. Apple is a brand that became a platform.
The best example for me to talk about a platform is Disney. You can enter the Disney brand universe through different points of contact. Disney is not a comic book, it’s not a theme park, it’s not a film industry.
It’s not a games industry, it’s not a fashion industry. It is a brand that became so strong that it built a very consistent platform. So, if we want to make our brand very strong, we need to abandon the idea of a product, and understand that our name and our consistency must be so strong, to the point of, who knows, within our scale, do as Disney has done.
Therefore, I can understand a platform in the following way. Brands have a soul, a body, a life, and they deal with technologies. Just like people, right?
What is the soul of a brand? The soul of a brand is its positioning. How it wants to be remembered in the minds of consumers.
What’s the purpose of this brand? Why does it exist? What is its discourse?
Is its tone more aggressive or more pacific? So, everything that’s behind the existence of that brand, everything that will make it inspire confidence, is the soul of the brand. So, we need to work on all of that.
What is the body of the soul? The body is the logo, its visual identity, its institutional colors, and the whole sensory aspect, like sound branding. Globo has plim plim, Sega has “Sega” Brands have a smell, like mmartan, and Melissa.
Brands have tactile elements which make them unique and instantly recognizable, like the texture of Lacoste shirts or the texture of Legos. This is all recognizable. So, this is the body of the soul.
What is the life of the brand? It is how it deals with its daily business. What are its service channels?
Who does it walk with? Does it associate itself with other brands? Does it talk through WhatsApp?
Does it appear in the media? Does it give interviews? Where we interact with the brand is its life.
And technology is the use of a watch, a microphone a camera, which I’m using to talk to you, the internet, and so on. So, which are the technologies that will help these brands to talk with people in a much more effective manner? So, let’s think about this.
Whether you are a digital influencer, a small business owner, or a large company manager, are you managing well the soul, body, life, and technologies of your brand, and creating a powerful platform? This is my invitation to you. See you, next class.
