Brand Marketing in a Post-Pandemic World Tuesday, August 10, 2021

The Buzz 1: “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is -- it is what consumers tell each other it is.” (Scott Cook, Intuit co-founder) The Buzz 2: “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” (Steve Forbes, Forbes magazine editor-in-chief) The Buzz 3: “A great brand is a story that is never completely told.” (Scott Bedbury, Brandstream CEO) The Buzz 4: “Whether B2B or B2C…We all are emotional beings looking for relevance, context and connection.” (Beth Comstock, Imagine It Forward author) The American Marketing Association [www.ama.org] describes “brand” as “...a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” More than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic where volatility, complexity, and uncertainty have been at an all-time high, a brand’s ability to get attention, be remembered, and be an educational resource has become more imperative than ever. That, in conjunction with consumers wanting their buying power to reflect their personal values, has placed extreme pressure on brands to get it right. Given all of this, what role does branding play in the buyer’s journey and has that changed since the pandemic began? What could or should companies do to be better at reflecting the social climate or should they not engage in that conversation? What other impacts will the pandemic have on the future of branding? We’ll ask Alicia Tillman, Mike Grehan and Dennis Thomas for their take on Brand Marketing in a Post-Pandemic World.