How I found my passion for branding
A somewhat untraditional path led me to brand strategy, and I still reflect on my journey with awe and wonder.
I usually say I stumbled upon branding, but really branding found me. As a psychology major, I have an affinity for the inner workings of the human mind and behavior. How do people make decisions? What drives them to succeed, or fail? How does our upbringing shape our adulthood?
At the time when I was searching for professional direction, social media and 'branding' weren't in my repertoire of options, but lucky for me, one person and the courage to be honest about what kept me up at night opened the door to a very fulfilling career.
U of M's psychology curriculum is world class, but the clinical side began to bore me. Being from a family of business owners, I yearned for more real life experience working during the summers, and entrepreneurship lured me in. At Michigan, once you choose liberal arts you're pretty much locked out of the Business School. In 2008, the lululemon's and Google's of the country were all the rage. CEOs who invested in employee wellness made all of the covers of the popular business journals and 'company culture' was officially a buzzword. Brands that invested in their people had an advantage over their competition. I had to find a way to nurture this proclivity for management through formal education.
The Ross School of Business was home to a small group of passionate doctoral students and professors formally known as 'The Center for Positive Organizations.' I sought out a research assistant position for a well known professors (her name is Jane Dutton), told her my story and landed the gig. I was thrilled to be organizing data for studies around empathy, small acts of kindness, and positive impact on corporate bottom lines. Things couldn't better —I married my love for psych to big enterprise.
Senior year was approaching and Jane wanted to know how she could help me find a job. I can still see her desk, the window behind her overlooking campus and the smell of fresh sharpies lingering in the hallway of the B-School. She was in the middle of piloting a ‘Job crafting' program, which entailed inventories of individual strengths and curiosities to design better job functions and meaningful relationships. Naturally …
Jane: "Alex, what makes you tick? What lights you on fire these days?"
Alex: "You're gonna think I'm crazy, but I’m curious about the bottled water and beverage industries ... how did Coca-Cola become the better cola company? How can there be hundreds of different successful water brands? It's just water! WHAT are these companies doing that's working, and that's special?”
Jane: "Delightful. You're talking about branding. And there's a lot to it."
Sometimes our word view doesn't contain what we need.
Sometimes it takes an unforeseen step to get us there. In this instance, I learned a few things: follow your gut, there are no stupid ideas, embrace your natural curiosity, and surround yourself with people who inspire you.
Branding is about the cultural associations - unconscious and conscious that we have about products and transactional experiences. Human beings make decisions based on a variety of driving forces. The process can be simple, but the foundation for what makes a great brand is everything but. I admire the entrepreneurs brave enough to articulate their vision, and am honored to help those visions come to life.
Oh and by the way - thank you, Jane.
For more on brand development, say hello@brandbarr.com
