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The future of business is responsible for $2 negocios at risk,

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if you're looking to see me in the same place as conscious co-mingling of growth and impact.

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So either way, lights, I seem to be a team that befits your business, a consumer responsibility as part of a mission.

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We got knackery or take over. The future of business is intentional and transparent.

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The two comes from the dragons. All the gloomy companies have tweeted.

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Welcome everybody. Thanks for listening and good to have you here!

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The Future of Business podcast,

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where we take you to discuss with us today whether the diverse range of sectors and stories he and the Oxford MBA cohort,

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and how these people and stories will shape the future of business.

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My name is Andrea, and today it's my privilege to be hosting Bellevue and handle to discuss the future of branding.

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Hello. How are you doing today? Hi, Andrés, I'm great. Thank you for having me.

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It's my pleasure. Alejandro and I are both part of the current MBA cohort, and we are also both part of thanked Hughes College in Oxford.

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Why don't you briefly explain to people, what are colleges and what you like about you?

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Will a college is basically kind of like your residential hub, at least for us grad students.

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And I mean, it's I think the equivalent would be like a Harry Potter house, I'd say.

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But it's basically, you know, your family outside of the school, a place where you go to the dining hall,

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a place where you go to the library to meet people outside of of your discipline.

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And we are blessed with beautiful garden sets.

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And he's like probably one of the best gardens that are here in the university.

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Absolutely. Thank you. It's really cool gardens and also thank you.

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It's home to two cats called up about flapjack and prefers the biscuits.

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That's correct. Fat cats are very much a big part of my heart here in Oxford.

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But let's get away from cats. That's not why we're here to discuss today, but maybe instead of me talk about cats,

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you can talk a little bit about the work you're doing and why it matters to you.

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Right. So I well, I come from a from a branding background.

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And for those who don't know what brand is or have like a very ambiguous idea of my brand is basically branding is, you know, the soul of a company.

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You know, your brand is the soul of a company. It's not a logo. It's not just the name of a company.

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It's not just the colour palette and you know, things that look nice and shiny.

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It's much more than that. And it's the essence.

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It's the soul of a company and basically what differentiates you from your rivals or, you know, all their companies out there?

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You know, you already talked about how the brand is the heart, the soul of the company, really?

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And I feel like if I was an accountant a question, he would talk about how the balance sheets of the soul of the company.

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But clearly, there's more to this than and perfect personal likeness.

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And I think the good thing about Princess, the death so visible. So I think in theory, a brand of what a consumer makes out of a company.

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So you could even argue that the brand belongs much more to the people than it belongs to the company, because at the end of the day,

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they are the ones who kind of remember at a format or perceive it, and it's clearly something that's meant for the public rather than internally.

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And at the same time, what I sometimes struggle with a little bit of just like the difference between

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what is that a brand is compared to the product or the organisation behind it.

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Can you maybe very briefly kind of help us separate products on brand here?

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Absolutely. And I think. And let me start by saying that there are not different things and I'll tell you why.

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But first, I think it's funny that you mention accounting because I think that's one of the most difficult aspects of our brand.

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It's really how you quantify it. And it's been a challenge, right?

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Because there's no direct kind of measure or KPI about like, you know,

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how many brands tons you know, does your company have or, you know, reports every year.

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But one of the best ways to measure it, or at least kind of indirectly measure it,

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and you've mentioned that is will how visible they said, you know how relevant it is to consumers.

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Now I will say that yes, you know, consumers usually get the most out of the brand,

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but let's not forget, that's also for the employers and for people that work in the company.

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Right. So we when I, you know, I was lucky to work for a very great branding agencies and one of the phrases that we use to to use all the time is.

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Brown needs to help outsiders to buy and insiders to believe so you have to always pay attention to those two groups, right?

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Yes, consumers get most of it and they cherish it.

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But also employers, because at the end of the day, they're working for that brand.

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Let me let me just try to be kept this address as we the brand is supposed to help outsiders to buy and instead us to believe correct.

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That does sound like something I've had to see.

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But agency will tell their clients, but in a good way, the kind of thumbs up, the power and the relevance of this,

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and clearly the more competitive the market is looking for talent,

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especially we looked up like banking tech developers, the more relevant it gets added more.

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These companies are investing in talent in branding agencies to look after something like employer branding and personal branding.

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When you look at it, what branding does?

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So we discussed a little bit. While branding is important as some of the company,

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we talked about the differences it had to product and the role it plays for both internal relations and consumers, excellent people.

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Can you talk a little bit about where branding is heading?

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What is what is the meaning of branding today compared to, let's say, I don't know, 10 years ago?

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And what is the next big challenge that branding has to solve for companies worldwide?

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Sure. And I'll, you know,

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I think I'll start by talking about the difference between brand and product because it's really relevant to actually where brand is headed.

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Originally, you branded something because you wanted to distinguish the product from another product range.

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So, you know, for example, a brand that comes to mind that really started to do this was dive, you know?

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Yeah. Back in the day, you know, they wanted to show that their soap was way better than, you know,

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the soaped offered by the competitor because it was made with, you know, milk and nourishment and that so.

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But if you think about it, it was a one way thing, as in what I was just marking something as mine.

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It was a very kind of possessive type of brand and it evolved, you know, throughout the years that possession,

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you know, that or original meaning of brand evolved into a dialogue, you know, between the consumer and the company.

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And now more. It's more like a forum because you're not only having a discussion with the consumer.

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Yeah, it's important, but because we live in a super connected, hyperconnected,

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hyper visible world and brands need to be paying attention to many stakeholders.

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And that's why they're they need. They need to host a forum.

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And I think that's, you know, that's what that's something that it's going to keep evolving.

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You know, Brands doesn't matter what type, they need to be truly embedded into what's going on in the world.

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They need to be finally aware of the context of the social, political, economic status of the world and then react to it.

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Let's let's not be staved off for a moment and try to get more concrete about some of these ideas, some of these ideas.

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So we can kind of like the you touching on the which and the meaning of planning something where you mark your own position.

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But so people know like that it's called brand branding, because back in the days when people had sheep or cattle,

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they would take some sort of mark and heat it up and push it into the animal side to literally brand

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their name or their mark into them to make sure that people knew that was their cow or their sheep.

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I'm pretty sure it's not being done anymore, at least not by any of the brands we like.

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But I'm sure somewhere somebody with not caring about how the consumer perceives them, if they the marketing their animals, animals that way.

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And you talked a little bit about how how in the beginning it's quite easy to be like, I just want to present my soap.

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And I think that's something interesting talking about how and how now it's not only a dialogue, but it's even a forum.

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And that sounds quite abstract. And I wondered if you could help us kind of kind of drilled us down a little bit and be more concrete about this.

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So when I think of Dive. I had no idea it involved in these soaps,

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but I noticed brands so clearly in and out for these advertisements that are celebrating diversity and bigger woman and different skin colours.

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And I remember these campaigns where people are like throwing like a girl, and we're kind of celebrating what it means to be a woman.

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And I see how this is talking to us and to our society, but that I don't see the foam aspect of it.

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Can you try to kind of take this brand as an example dive and help us understand a little bit what it means to be a father?

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And maybe that's a concrete example of something to kind of pin this down to make it less abstract for us?

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Sure. I think I mean it dive is a great example because.

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Obviously. Well, I mean, it's it's a brand that's been around forever, right, and they've seen an evolution, you know, throughout the years.

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So yes, first it was about differentiation. And then, you know, establish a relationship with this customer is listening to them their needs.

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But it really became a forum when they started to really push the the essence of real beauty, which became their brand essence, right?

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Real beauty doesn't matter the way you look. It doesn't matter the colour of your skin, your curves, your shape, and you're beautiful.

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And they were in to break stereotypes or not, not stereotypes,

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but to kind of like break with the status quo of showing just like the perfect body type.

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Yeah, every time, right? Celebrating realness and it became a forum because it was not just the people buying the soap.

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They were like happy and felt identified with the brand with love.

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But it sparked a whole conversation around real bodies, real beauty about women empowerment.

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And that is why I truly believe that brands have a higher duty, if you will,

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to to make the world a better place to just the not just sell soap, but by spreading a message, spreading a purpose and acting on it.

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They can really make a difference in people's lives. Spreading a message influencing people, sparking a perception that is all still one way.

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How does this come back to the brand?

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Because what you describe, I think what you have in mind is some sort of interaction, some sort of multi multi side that process going on.

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Can you talk a little bit about how building a brand and being in dialogue with your consumers is then coming back to the company, to the product?

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Well, because social media has been, I think, the key to make that forum happen as well.

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Right. So it's not just broadcasting the message,

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but also paying attention to what the users and notice how I didn't say only the customer or the consumer, but users,

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because they can interact with the brand and not every brand is good at listening to, you know,

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what happens in social media, but the majority are had become very attuned to do it right.

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They listen, they take, you know, whatever they're saying on Twitter and Facebook or on Instagram, they take it into account.

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Like what? Like how? How like, for example, we were we were, you know, not long ago, Kentucky Fried Chicken,

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for example, had a really is a real issue with chicken in the United Kingdom.

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And obviously people were angry and they, you know, they took it to the social media to kind of like vent about how they,

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you know, chicken restaurant didn't have chicken, right? So Kentucky Fried Chicken, obviously aware of the disaster,

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embraced that conversation and launched a campaign that was incredibly successful in leading the scramble.

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The letters of the logo spelled something that, well, you know,

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kind of shows that they they they didn't do a good job, you know, with their logistics.

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But it was a genuine apology, and they were able to not only listen to the people but own that conversation and basically change,

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you know, change the topic into into,

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you know, into that saying to them, like more of a human situation where like, you know, like, yes, we made a mistake, but we're trying our best.

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Yeah. So Kentucky Fried Chicken, that seemed to have some delivery issues with chicken,

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I guess there was a supplier involved to cut will cut negotiations off at some point and stop delivering.

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So they ended up closing auto restaurants and then people complain and then they rebrand their logo to say, f c k.

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Yes, that is the word. So we'll be allowed to be on here.

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That's why I was the f c k, and then it became a huge thing and set about a huge media pass.

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And it's kind of clear how this branding exercise helped them reach more people and be very

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visible in the society and also probably which say and it was kind of clear the specific point.

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How did the initial spark of this campaign was not coming from the brand, but from the consumer?

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Exactly. I think that's something that I can kind of calibrate with quite easily.

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Can you maybe talk a little bit about how branding is going to evolve in the next couple of years and what kind of the future of branding it?

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Well, for four ones, I like to see the word brand almost disappear.

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I don't like the word brand, but instead I actually like the word identity.

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I know that the idea of identity of corporate identity was used in around the 60s, and it was a very.

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Additional way of brand testing, like I'm going to stick a logo everywhere.

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Stick a logo in the soap dispensers in the bathroom, right? And that, you know, that was basically the essence of corporate identity.

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You basically want to make sure that everybody is constantly aware that you are in a company's environment right now.

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Good. But I like the word identity.

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Perhaps you get rid of the corporate because I mean, you don't need to be a corporation to have a brand brand identity.

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You could be, you know, a small business, a large business. You know, it could be a personal identity, personal identity.

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And that is exactly why I think it's important because an identity is not just the way you look, but it's the way you behave.

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It's the way you interact with people. It's the way you react. You have a point of view.

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It is a whole package. So I like to see businesses more talk more about their identity as opposed to us, their brand, because brand still has that,

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you know, that kind of like legacy meaning of just, you know, marking your things with a hot iron, you know?

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So how would it look like if a company or an organisation is evolving their identity over the next couple of years?

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Right. So I think, first of all, I think they need to be real.

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I don't want to say, Well, yeah, let me let me one packet, you know, like and and not necessarily woke, right?

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Because and I'll talk, I'll talk. I'll tell you about the difference. I think they need to be aware of their capabilities.

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So for the longest time brands where they were only concerned about what they did and how they did it right, but not really about why they did it.

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We have a massive explosion of company purpose and purpose driven organisations, and some of them did very well.

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You know, Unilever was one of the first ones to kind of have a really strong purpose that to this day,

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you know, really distinguishes then from their competition from Nestle, for example, continue.

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And then and then, for example, Patagonia, another incredible, purpose driven organisation, right?

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Everybody kind of lives by that purpose, including the founder employees, even the customers.

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Right? Yeah. But I think it became like a trendy thing to just do.

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And if you were any company, they were just like, Oh, we're going to save the world.

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And he'd lost a little bit of authenticity, lost kind of like the genuine aspect of how to get it back.

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You know, that seems to be like a like a core issue here that that I feel like what you describing is a little bit saying that at the moment,

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we are in a moment of time where brands a purpose.

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A company has that somewhat linked to saving the world, and everybody is kind of doing the same thing with us.

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And I think we can see that. I think if we kind of reflect on the brands we know,

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I do think that there's a clear pattern emerging then on people using the same set of vision mission statements

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of the same sort of value to kind of empower people and save the environment and save the penguins and all.

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And I think what you're talking about is now that we need to get more authentic, that's more specific in forming our identity.

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Can you maybe try to try to kind of bundle up like one example of of a company that is or is

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about who has kind of come away from a purpose driven way to general brand to a more specific,

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authentic identity that is more sustainable and more doable in this next period of OK?

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The one that comes to mind, to be honest, is Spotify. I mean, they just really have like a good I mean, they are changing the world, right?

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I mean, for their purposes and does and doesn't really establish like we are changing the world by every song you listen because that's fluffy.

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And like, you know, like if you wear a massive energy corporation and you know,

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you actually have the power to change the world and change the world at large,

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the whole ecosystem, the whole environment, sure, you know, you can talk about it and hopefully act on it.

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But if you are Spotify or if you are, I don't know any other brand that does deodorant, right?

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It's like, stay true to what you do. And if you really want to inject a purpose, you know, really make it tangible to people, you know.

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You know, maybe, you know, if I'm going to listen to music, if I'm going to listen to music, I just want to have a good time.

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I just want to remember things. I just want to dream, right? So.

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And Spotify is very well, very, very well aware of the power of transportation in terms of listening to music takes you places, right?

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So the purpose is very small. And then you know about connecting with others through music.

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That's great. People believe that. But if suddenly you start solving the order and thinking that I'm going to fly or that I am going to suddenly,

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you know, cure every single possible disease with my deodorant, then yeah, sure.

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I mean, you're well-intentioned, but like, do I really believe that?

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So there needs to be a match between, you know, between what you are and what you.

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Do really and then also, you know why you really can accomplish it.

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Because otherwise it's just empty words and we see a lot of empty words these days.

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And yeah, and I think that Spotify is an incredibly powerful example because there's few

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brands out there right now who have as much power in raising prices as Spotify.

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If we were talk, I was running on the other day.

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If Spotify was to write that price for one year per month, would I leave for two years for three euro?

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And it's astonishing and frankly, that frightening of how far they could go.

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And if I if you also have to question who else has that strong impact of heard who has that strong of a connexion with us,

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that they're able to change the price point, they would still stick with them?

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Few things come to mind. Very few things, maybe a club stalwarts, but my dad doesn't.

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I can't get rid of it. But apparently I really think that Spotify is a really great example.

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Also, given the fact that now they are competing with major tech companies are doing, they're doing really, really quite well.

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I kind of want to stress test a little bit OK, because we talked a little bit about how product and brand are different and of Spotify.

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One could argue that it's not a brand of management, it's just the physical product trying to keep this brief.

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Can you can you talk a little bit? Let me let me put out like a comment, like on a confrontational statement and you debated.

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All right. Briefly, what a Spotify would be changing their brand identity next month to buy dance music, and it would still have on your playlist.

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It was really amazing product instead of recommendations of a wrap, you know the stuff they do every year, but it would be spared us anymore.

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It wouldn't be green anymore and wouldn't have a different name thinking why?

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Well, why is it not the same thing? Do you know something that we don't know and I don't know.

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Inside your book, but if I know that is, that is a that is a very, you know, that is a very powerful statement.

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I'm going to go ahead and say that people will complain. People adopt, you know, people adopt.

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I mean, and if I if I maybe go come back with something a little bit more controversial,

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but people were up in arms because Facebook changed their name.

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You know, the Facebook parent company changed their name to Metta, right? People were like, Well, that's not the solution.

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You know, that's true. Yeah, it's not the solution.

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But it eventually becomes effective because people have to get used to it just by the sheer act of that, they have to get used to it.

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They can complain, but they can't do anything about it. Will they be, you know, hard feelings around it?

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Yeah, sure.

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Now, obviously, that Facebook made a name change is trickier because of obviously all of the things that have happened around that company.

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But in terms of Spotify, if tomorrow you know, Spotify becomes, you know, I don't know if something random like music dot com,

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I don't know, you know, something silly, or perhaps people will be like, Whoa, and I don't see the point of that.

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But eventually they'll probably get used to it because it is a phenomenal service.

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But that's why I need to remind you that the brand is not just a name.

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It's the whole experience. Yeah, I agree. I feel like I feel like you made a good point here.

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I think it speaks to both the holistic ness of a brand as well as its limitations.

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Evolve Sean O brand is supposed to be much more than just a colour code,

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and it speaks much more to like how we perceive love holistically and at the same time,

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how our the end of the day what companies do is about how to improve allows us

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to resolve challenges that we are faced with independently from their name.

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And I do want to drop our funny, funny anecdote here with Facebook changing the name the fan,

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Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google became the manga. You guys can go through this by yourself.

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You've got to figure it out.

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Oh, Fang became manga and how you feel about that brand now, which is in some ways much more fitting than Fang, if you think.

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But you know, I'm not sure if manga fans would agree, but I do know what you mean.

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The point is, and you know, to reiterate, the brand is more than the name brand is more than the logo.

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You know, brand is much more than that. It's very holistic thing, you know, it touches upon the product in the service of,

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you know, the office space, the culture, the experience and even the innovation, right?

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And it's very holistic and that's how you need to think about it. We're looking at this big world of branding in your time here in Oxford.

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What is it you want to do with the MBA in this brand?

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And what can you? Talk a little bit about how the NBA fits into your career and what you're getting out from from this in the branding context.

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Well, you know, because I think brands are not created nor destroyed.

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And I am a brand. You are a brand, right? So I think right now I'm trying to rediscover what my brand is.

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You know, you can't invent yourself. You know, it's really difficult.

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And if I take that analogy to corporations like it's also really difficult to vent out of something off the air.

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So you just really need to discover what is it exactly that you want to do next?

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And I, for me in the NBA, I think I'm using kind of like my branding sensibilities to find my path.

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You know, talking to people listening, you know, having a forum, you know, with many inputs,

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many new experiences, and that's going to help me, you know, recheck, revamp.

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And hopefully, you know what my branding to where I need to be and where I want to be.

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That is nothing short, but a wonderful way to look at an NBA and opportunity it presents to you and your career you're doing.

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And with that, I'm left to thank you very much for taking the time out. Come.

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Thanks for sharing your wisdom and your and your brand with us and profiting from your

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likeness here and hopefully from your reach as well and to all of you for listening.

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Thank you so much for hanging out with us for about 25 minutes. And I hope you will hear us again at the Future of Business podcast.

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Thank you. Thank you. Lovely to be here.