Branding and shared missions
Why you need to be championing other causes and not just your own.
Gary Bloomer | SHAKING THE TREE # 306
The marketing playbook for the last decade has been obsessed with the frictionless transaction.
We’ve optimized every page view, tweaked every sales letter, and redesigned every button; we’ve tracked every pixel, and we’ve chased every buy now click and abandoned cart until the soul of the brand has been buried under a mountain of data, much of which never leads to meaningful change.
But here’s the reality: by 2027, the transaction as we know it will be starting to become a commodity.
If you’re just selling a product or a ticket to an event, you’re competing on price and convenience—this is a race to the bottom of the attention pool.
To survive and thrive you have to move toward shared mission.
Marketers and particulalry nonprofits that don’t wrap their heads around this rish losing out.
Look at the work many businesses are not doing: they’re not cheering on their competitors because doing so is bad for business, right?
Not really.
I think the reponse to COVID gave a good look behing the curtain when brand after brand rolled out the same “in these torubled times” and “We’re all in this togeter” messaging. All of those some-old-same old messages meant little stood out.
Meanwhile, nonprofits are doing something different, particularly in their social media in terms of championing the causes of other nonprofits.
They aren’t just selling sponsorship packages; they’re championing the efforts of their partners as they solve real issues in their local area. It’s time to ditch the corporate bios and instead, it’s time to focus on positioning yourself as a trust asset.
In 2027, consumers won’t just ask “What do you sell?” They’ll ask “What do you stand for, and does it cost you anything to stand for it?”
If your brand doesn’t have a heartbeat, the algorithm will eventually stop it.
As always, thanks for reading.
—Gary
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Next time on Shaking the Tree: Looking at hyper local authority
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Originally from the U.K., Gary Bloomer is a writer, branding advocate, marketing specialist, and an award-winning graphic designer.
His design work has been included in Creative Review (one of the UK’s largest design magazines). Since 2009, he has answered over 5,000 marketing and business questions in the Know-How Exchange of MarketingProfs.com, placing him among the top 3% of contributors. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.