Collaborative Branding and Sustainability

In “Brand We.” Rachel Botsman speaks about collaborative branding and the emerging trend of companies shifting their brand focus and advertising away from products and towards building collaborative communities.

Until recently, we, the consumers were hooked to the “me” brands like Apple, Nike, because they helped us create self-esteem and identity. Today we are feeding our social self that seeks connection and belonging and hence latching on to “we” brands based on relationships and participation.

Community driven brands talk to their users across various touch points – as if they are unique individuals. They talk with them and not to them. Customers are treated as members and given all traditional benefits of joining a club: status, identity, shared interests and ownership. Collaborative brands thrive when they have soul and rallying cry; they are built for meaningful community participation that serves an important purpose in consumer’s lives.

 

We have seen how successful some of the community driven brands like CRY (Child Relief and You), Help Age etc. These companies work for social causes like empowerment of the poor or helping the Old and disabled and are successful because members are passionate about the objectives of these organizations.

 

We as consumers can use collaborative branding to “advertise” companies which promote sustainability of nature and its resources. There are companies which promote technology that increases energy efficiency – which is the easiest, cheapest and quickest way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly there are companies which generate power from alternate sources like wind etc. Together, we can promote these companies because we believe in environmental sustainability and pollution reduction.

 

-Rahul