Can awesomeness be a brand differentiator?
Let’s first discuss etymology. According to the built-in dictionary widget on my MacBook and contrary to the popular belief that the term was coined solely for Chuck Norris, awesome made its debut sometime in the late 16th century to describe something awe inspiring. Makes sense. Flash forward a few hundred years, sometime around the filming of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and the word is now a part of the pop culture vernacular. See also excellent, killer, rad, wicked and way cool.
Awesomeness, then, is something that exhibits the qualities of being awesome. At Red Square Agency, we believe that awesomeness, while ethereal and certainly intangible, is a very real brand differentiator.
A couple of weeks ago, over at the Harvard Business blog, Umair Haque posted The Awesomeness Manifesto. Fascinating stuff.
What is awesomeness? Awesomeness happens when thick — real, meaningful — value is created by people who love what they do, added to insanely great stuff, and multiplied by communities who are delighted and inspired because they are authentically better off. That’s a better kind of innovation, built for 21st century economics.
Beancounters feel challenged and threatened by it, because it feels fuzzy and imprecise. Yet, it’s anything but. Gen M knows “awesomeness” when we see it — that’s why it’s part of our vernacular. It’s a precise concept, with meaning, depth, and resonance.
Whether you think Haque has only jumbled around some conventional wisdom on brand authenticity and given birth to some new buzzwords or not, the bigger point is this: people know awesomeness when they see it. And they love it.
Awesomeness is hard to fake. Passion is palpable. Your stuff is either great or it isn’t.
This again brings us to the rare air a brand finds when it gains fans rather than “customers.” Think about your brand in this context. Re-read Haque’s definition of awesomeness and ask yourself, seriously, “is this us?”
By Rich Sullivan
Tags: awesomeness
In one sense I think he’s definitely just jumbling around some conventional wisdom — awesome is identifiable. On the other hand, just because we know it when we see it, doesn’t mean it’s not intangible. There’s no recipe for awesome. The procedure he outlines (people who love their work + great stuff + communities who authentically benefit) is full of big ideas that are hard to execute. Hiring people who love what they do. Making great stuff. Benefiting communities. Those are all difficult to do, and any company that finds itself blatantly unawesome will find little help in Umair’s manifesto — probably just a guilty feeling in the the pit of their stomach.
That being said, here’s to awesome.
No question. There’s no hard and fast recipe. The manifesto itself is fluffy, but still super interesting to me. As a follow-up to the piece, Haque has issued a call to open-source the manifesto: http://bit.ly/ApICO
nice. I just might take the time to send in some thoughts, glad to see he’s trying to make it more concrete.
Great post Rich. I too believe that “awesomeness” can be a brand differentiator but only when the “fans” deem the brand such. A brand that claims that they are awesome is the same as one that claims to be the best. Both are simply platitudes and ignored by consumers. However, if a relevant brand sincerely portrays awesomeness in all that it does, it will easily convert consumers to fans who will evangelistically sing their praises.