We like the reassurance of a familiar face, don't we? Of course we do. But we also want to be surprised and to laugh. Yes, we want order, but we also want some randomness -- an adventure. Yes, we love excitement, but we also crave quiet time. Everything that touches our senses -- especially those things we love the most, like music -- is an alternation of stimuli: on, off, on, off, on, off.
The experience with your audience should be similar. Tickle their minds and their hearts. Don’t smother them to death. As the philosopher Alan Watts once said, “If you put your hand on the knee of a beautiful woman and leave it there, she’ll cease to notice it. But if you gently pat her on the knee, she’ll know you’re still there. Because you come and you go. Now you see me, now you don’t.”
There’s an old Zen maxim, “You can’t control the waves, but you can learn to surf!” We’re living in a new world now -- one that revolves around the rapidly changing expectations of the customer. There’s no stability. None. You must move with people, like a life preserver in a shifting sea. You must catch their wave.
So get out there and interact with your audience. Find new and compelling ways to become meaningful to them. Try something new and see if it takes hold. You can’t build a great brand by avoiding risks. Instead . . . dance!
Posted July 1, 2009
Email this post
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c684b53ef0115717fc8c8970b
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Branding is a dance:
The comments to this entry are closed.
(Rest assured, we will never provide your email address to anyone. Period.)
RSS feed
Tom on Twitter
@tomasacker
Tom is timely, thought provoking and all about the new brand vision packaged as a Seinfeld stand up. I went to school on his ideas.
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com and CEO, Eons.
When Tom Asacker writes, I read. Opportunity Screams is the right message for the right time.
Tom Peters
Dance, indeed. But keep in mind that the style of this dance has changed. No longer is it a formal ballroom dance with steps that can be charted out and learned in advance. It is freestyle. There are times when the customers wants to lead, times when they want you to lead, and times when when the magic of this dance is the ability of both partners to express themselves in free-flowing, unrehearsed movements.
Dance with all your heart. If you put your heart in it and your dance partner (the customer) feels that you are there to enjoy the experience WITH THEM and not just for yourself -- giving them your undivided attention -- at the end of the evening, you will find yourself embracing one another. If you are dancing but for your own enjoyment, you are destined for many long, cold, lonely nights.
Posted by: Dan Gunter | July 01, 2009 at 09:15 AM
Pertinent Observations at a Nightclub.
9:30 p.m.: The band is playing. An upbeat, country music hit. People are dancing in couples. No particular dance steps or styles. Just everyone having fun.
10:00 p.m.: The band is now playing a slow, country love song. Couples are embraced tightly. One person in each couple leads. Closeness. Intimacy.
10:30 p.m.: The band is now playing a fast, country music song and people are line dancing. Straight lines. Steps that have been rehearsed. They are expressing themselves as a group.
11:00 p.m.: The band is taking a break. The D.J. has is playing very fast, driving, "techno" music. The dance floor is full of people. They are all expressing themselves with their own unrehearsed motions. It's impossible to tell who is dancing with whom. A group consisting of two males and five females nudges their way to a corner of the dance floor and all begin to dance. Are they dancing with themselves? With all the people on the dance floor? It's impossible tell, as the members of the last group end up all scattered about the dance floor.
11:45 p.m.: The band is back. They're playing a 3/4 time song and couples are now "two stepping." Couples are formed, yet the collection of couples has formed a giant circle which encompasses the perimeter of the dance floor. Everyone in the group is doing the same dance -- essentially -- but each couple decided on their own when to "reverse," with one partner moving backwards while facing the other one, trusting in their partner's ability to lead without running over the couple in front of them or hold up the couple behind them, causing a collision and ruining it for everyone. There is freedom of expression and choice -- as couples -- yet there are tacitly understood guidelines and rules among the community of dancers, all of which is necessary.
This is a very fitting metaphor for how we live our lives these days. For how we want to work. To play. To shop. To connect. We want to be ourselves and express ourselves in ways that are unique to us. We also want to be part of a larger community. Within our minds are expectations and opinions of what is good and what is bad. What works and what doesn't work. We develop trust with certain partners. Not by chance, but by willingness to dance with them, which leads to experiencing the feel of the partnership and ultimately the inward sense of who is trustworthy, who is not, and who helps us feel good about ourselves.
So, are you truly dancing with your customers? Is there mutual trust? Do they feel better about themselves when they dance with you? Do they feel free to express themselves while you're dancing? Do they feel that you are totally interested in them while you're dancing? Can they trust you not to walk away and just leave them stranded on the dance floor?
If you ask a new customer to dance with you and they say no, it's because they don't know you. But if you have a reputation of being a a good dance partner, one who pays attention to the kinds of things mentioned in the preceding paragraph, there's a much better chance they will say yes. After all, people in nightclubs get to know "who's who." Customers are doing the same thing via online networking, web searches, and simply talking to others. If you're new to the nightclub, people don't know you. It takes time to build a reputation. So you mix, you mingle, you make friends, and you build a reputation. It doesn't take work to build a reputation. Just be there. Hang out there long enough and it will happen automatically. But what sort of reputation will you build? Good? Bad?
Building a GOOD reputation requires thought, planning, and good decision making. It also takes persistence.
Forget jumping onstage and grabbing the lead vocalist's mic and shouting "I'm a great dancer! Everybody is supposed to be dancing with ME!" You will be perceived as an inconsiderate, drunken fool.
Read that last paragraph above again. Think about it. Think really, really hard on it. Is that you trying to convince people to dance with you and your business? If so, then you need to read Tom's latest book "Connecting with Customers in a Noisy World." And consider finding yourself a good dance instructor to help you. One who will work with you regularly. You can become a dancing sensation -- the most desired of all possible partners. It sure beats looking like a desperate "lounge lizard" with four left feet.
Posted by: Dan Gunter | July 01, 2009 at 10:34 AM