In our new section "Inspiration by BrandTrust", our founder Klaus-Dieter Koch shares his thoughts and inspirations with your four to six times a year, to guide you off the beaten (thought) path. He ventures to make the occasional prediction for the future and looks forward to trading ideas about topics that are touching us in the present, to opening new perspectives or offer exciting insights. Recommendations for further reading let you delve deeper into the subject if you're interested.
6th inspiration: Fumbling the future: The problem of non-sustainable sustainability
The uncertainty of Russian gas supplies to Europe has turbo-charged the issue around alternative and, more importantly, sustainable energy resources. The ubiquitous topic of sustainability has become even more present. However, sustainability is often simply equated with ecology and thus restricted to just one area. In Klaus-Dieter Koch's view, however, sustainability has three sides: The ecological, the social and the economic side or as it is called in English: ESG (Environmental, Social, Governmental). Unfortunately, this trinity is often neglected in discussions and considerations.
Without social peace, prosperity and freedom, ecological change will not be possible. During famines nobody thinks about biodynamic agriculture and during an energy crisis even already damned and closed coal-fired power plants are reopened. We can twist and turn it however we want, before ecological sustainability comes social and economic sustainability. Even if the urgency of the ecological challenges cannot be denied.
Read Klaus-Dieter Koch's full thoughts on sustainability and sign up for "Inspiration by BrandTrust" using the form below.
The remote working requirement was lifted a few days ago, and everything is supposed to go back to normal. Only, it's not happening. Something has changed over the past two years. Apparently, the pandemic measures triggered something that was already there, somehow, and now that everything is supposed to go back to the way it was, that something is taking shape more clearly: the nomadic working society.
Many companies, in particular international numbers-driven corporations, are already rejoicing, because a workplace in the home saves a great deal of money. Controllers are busily calculating how much expensive office space, often in prime city center locations, can be saved.
But this is precisely where caution is called for, because what remains when all the employees are just sitting at home in front of their screens? What binds them emotionally to the company? An effective employer brand has never been as important as it is today. If you want to bind your employees to your company in the long term and not just with financial arguments, you have to create a difference.
Just as a brand is always the condensed expression of peak performances, an employer brand should express and condense what the corporate brand means to the workforce. Employer Branding is about managing that meaning, recharging it, and nourishing it continuously with ever new condensed peak performances.
Individualization means deciding for oneself how and where one wants to live one's life. It is mainly a social development that is naturally mirrored in the economy. A large number of consumer brands believe they are responding to this trend by offering customers a choice of individual components in their product design. This may work for some things like cars. But it is not a recipe for success per se. Branded products personalized to death become watered-down, magic-less commodities.
So what exactly does the megatrend of individualization mean for B2C brands and how can they meet it?
Yuval Harari says it perfectly in his book "Homo Deus": He writes that for thousands of years, the few have ruled the many, because the few were better organized than the many. Nobility, the military and the clergy were perfect organizations, which secured the power of their members. Societies were pyramids with a broad base and narrow top. What does that mean for me as a person, as an entrepreneur, as a brand?
Digitalization is turning this structure on its head. For the first time in human history, the many are better organized than the few thanks to the networking effects of the internet, and nobody knows what this inversion will trigger.
"Alexa will kill brands" - This famous quote by Scott Galloway still gives me food for thought. In my current inspiration, I would like to reflect with you on the future elementary importance of AI. Often thought too utopian, it is almost pushed aside as currently irrelevant science fiction, but it is far from that. AI has already found its way into so many areas of our professional and private lives that we should be dealing with it intensively right now in order to avoid being left behind. In purchase, marketing, pricing and fraud/fake detection, the consistent use of AI is already normal and is part of the standard, otherwise these enormous amounts of data could no longer be managed. In brand management, it feels like this is still a long way off at the moment, but I dare to predict that by 2025 this will change fundamentally and brand strategies will no longer be able to be developed and implemented without the use of AI.
Read the complete thoughts of Klaus-Dieter Koch "Alexa wants to kill brands" for the most diverse industries and areas of our lives and register for "Inspiration by BrandTrust" with the form below.
The first encouraging inspiration of our founder Klaus-Dieter Koch on the "Explosion of the Joy of Living"":
The Italian philosopher Franco Ferrarotti coined the term "Explosion of the Joy of Living" right at the beginning of the first wave. It has now been delayed longer than hoped, but his assessment is still correct. The explosion will be characterised by the enormous need to catch up, the urge for self-reward and the formation of a new appreciation.
Managing Partner and BrandTrust founder Klaus-Dieter Koch is one of the most experienced brand strategy consultants in Europe and regularly shares his thoughts and inspirations with you here.
Do you have any questions or suggestions regarding "Inspiration by BrandTrust"? Then please feel free to write to Alma Prüfert.
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