Ideas spread, products become irreplaceable, and businesses grow when they stop being mere commodities and have meaning attached to them. It’s not possible to be a brand and a commodity all at once. Customers don’t demonstrate loyalty to commodities but they can fall in love with a brand.
PRODUCT-MEANING=COMMODITY
PRODUCT+MEANING=BRAND
Anything you care to think about from a book to a city, a graffiti artist to a platform, a store to a TV show can stop being a commodity and become a brand. Hundreds of business have a ‘swoosh’ based logo. Only one has managed to attach meaning to it.
Story (as distinct from just narrative) is how we attach meaning and significance to anything. That’s why the world’s leading brands and savvy entrepreneurs work hard to tell a better one.
Image by Steve Wilhelm.
