Why Future Superbrands Will Be Virtual Town Squares

Will there be super­brands also in the future?

Will we see “Facebooks”, “Amazons”, “Apples”, or “Googles” in a future where the total brand exper­i­ence will be more per­son­al and digit­al than ever before? 

The scope of the hori­zont­al con­ver­sa­tions and the speed of group form­a­tion are unpre­ced­en­ted in human his­tory. Everything becomes indi­vidu­al­ized, per­son­al­ized, diver­si­fied, dis­trib­uted, and disrupted.

At the same time, we look upon the giants. Honestly, do we see Apple or Google par­ti­cip­at­ing in the online con­ver­sa­tion? Well, we don’t. 

One might argue that con­ver­sa­tion­al mar­ket­ing is noth­ing but cos­met­ics, and when push comes to shove, it’s all about the products and the ser­vices provided. 

Others might argue that these super­nova brands don’t have to state their case — their ambas­sad­ors are doing it for them.

I would argue that it comes nat­ur­ally for us humans to state our inde­pend­ence and unique­ness as indi­vidu­als, but we’re just creatures of habit when it comes to our every­day lives and day-to-day existence.

Google is a fant­ast­ic com­pany and super­brand, but what would it be without the mil­lions of people using its search engine? Every innov­a­tion and long-tail line exten­sion of the Google brand is part of a con­tinu­ous for­ward motion, mainly because it rein­forces our habitu­al usage.

Tell me, how often do you google some­thing?

You and I and every­one are creatures of habit, mainly because not everything can be a ration­al decision. And that’s also why we’ll have super­brands in the future. They might not be par­ti­cip­at­ing in the con­ver­sa­tion because of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Instead, they provide aren­as, digit­al hab­it­ats, for talks between online citizens.

Or put anoth­er way: Our men­tal band­width is lim­ited, so there will still be a small num­ber of brands we can relate to. 

Future super­brands will gain and main­tain such priv­ileged pos­i­tions by trans­form­ing into vir­tu­al town squares.