BRANDING: Another Call for Turning the Box Upside Down.

If you're one of the large and growing number of NOISE website fans (and there are, in fact, many of you), you've read our mantra about branding leadership that goes: "We don't just think outside the box. We turn it upside down and sometimes even break it apart."

Well, along comes a new, dynamic essay in Ad Age by Bernd Schmitt, Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and Executive Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership. In his diatribe entitled "To Build Truly Global Brands, You've Got to Break the Rules," Schmitt argues against the following assumptions:

1. YOU NEED TO USE COMMUNICATIONS TO BUILD THE BRAND. According to Schmitt, "a great product or service or original retail concept alone won't do. You've got to get the message out." Yet in his argument (and NOISE agrees), that doesn't necessarily mean traditional advertising. In fact, you should probably just throw the term "traditional advertising" out of your vocabulary as a) something approaching extinction and b) a massive waste of money. So the point is, yes, use communications: but new communications as we know them today and a creative mix of 'em.

2. YOU NEED TO USE ASPIRATIONAL APPEALS. We give this a double-two-thumbs up (four thumbs?) as both true and false — which is also what Schmitt states. The twist here is, while aspirational appeals still need to be made, they MUST be made in the context of real people or the real world (like Dove's wonderful "Campaign for Real Beauty"), because we're all way too cynical (particularly younger adults). And why are we cynical? Because (see above) traditional advertising has taught us to be that way.

3. YOU NEED TO USE GLOBAL MEDIA. Schmitt argues "not true" and NOISE agrees — to a point. If your audience is global, obviously forms of global media (web) are mandates. But what Schmitt is suggesting is that brands look to "global opportunities" (like sponsoring something in a high-global-visibility area like Times Square) on local levels. Same impact, different focal point.

The bottom line from Professor Schmitt and Professor NOISE? To most effectively build your brand today, you need to turn that box upside down and be open to any on-strategy creative thought — no matter how wild and crazy it might first seem.

SOURCE: Ad Age, NOISE