What You Can Learn About Brand at a High School Reunion

It's a funny thing, going to a high school reunion.  You take all this baggage with you - stuff you didn't realize, until the moment before you walk through the reunion party door, that you had been hauling around all these years.  Or maybe you did realize it... and thought you had "dealt" with it... well, the real test of that comes at that awkward moment when you pass through that reunion party door and make your presence - your new, grown up brand - known to the room.

In that moment, we have a tendency to forget about our new grown up brand.  In that moment we revert to that awkward teen brand that never felt smart enough, pretty enough or interesting enough... (wait, is that just me?  Somehow, I don't think so).

As marketers, we are sometimes so steeped in our brand history, that we forget to look outside at how our customers, our partners and even our competition define us today.  We slip into that mode without even realizing it... you can have all the right feedback tools in place to "hear" from your customers and prospects, to share with partners and to track your competition and their positioning... and yet be so set in your brand identity that you forget to really listen. To stop, think and decide.  Actively.  Who do you want to be when you grow up?  Are you grown up yet?

This is a dangerous trap.  More dangerous now, certainly, than when I was in high school oh-so-long-ago.  The advent of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+ and myriad other communications channels, not to mention the mobility of ipads and smartphones, means the feedback loop is constant and immediate.  Your brand will change without you if you aren't monitoring it and very quickly your message and your goals will misalign with your market.  Then you are trapped in Reactive mode, not Active mode.  A much more difficult market position to manage.

What you quickly learn at a high school reunion is not just how old everyone got, who's divorced, who's rich and who's still a player... if you listen, you can learn a lot about your own brand.  And it might surprise you to learn how people remember you, what they remember about you, and how they perceive you now.  Layers of yourself you never paid much attention to because you were so busy tending your own teenage angst and baggage.  What happens when you acknowledge these new insights?

The opportunity here is immense.  To see your brand in a new light offers the potential of adding rich new layers to your brand personality.  You can explore new facets of not just your  message, but identify new markets and opportunities in places you might not have considered - but your customers have.  Think about those brands who listen well... Starbucks started serving hot breakfast sandwiches when they realized that after getting coffee from them, their customers were still going to McDonalds.  A Bain & Company survey last year spelled it out beautifully... 80% of surveyed organizations felt that they had solid customer feedback systems in place and responded well to customers.  8% of their customers agreed.  Ouch.

The real fun of high school reunions is discovering who everyone is today... what really did happen to that athlete, that class clown and that prom queen?  Are those high school brands you remember the same today?  If we don't stop, think and decide, actively and deliberately, we become that one person at the high school reunion who didn't change... at all... and if you didn't like her then, you're sure as hell not going to like her now.