Branding.

17
ability of the individual and on the other hand converts the particular contributions
to the benefit of the overall goals of the organisation.
The most adaptable companies have succeeded in this. However, a number
of employees still feel discontent with their work because their workplace
hasn't managed to struggle free of historically-determined principles of
organisation and development, including the idea of time as a measure of
the amount of work. The most dynamic employees solve the problem by
starting their own company or becoming free agents - the fastest growing
group on the Scandinavian labour markets. Others instead use their energy
on family life and association activities, where the opportunity for personal
expression is far greater, or they periodically take on dull work in order to
finance more pleasurable work that isn't profitable here and now - but
always is con amore. Working life today has thus become polarised between
dynamic, networking single-person companies - or larger companies that
emulate this structure - and the more sluggish traditional companies.
Branding in 'Create and Brand Yourself'
The monolithic corporate branding (page 6) was around the turn of the millennium
implemented in many companies. The inspiration came from the
really big and global companies that long had used this tactic successfully.
These megacorporations have continued to grow. The thesis that we one day
would have between 500 and 1000 big and dominant commercial stories
held true, and the logic from the book about the Dream Society can thus be
said to have been implemented.
The struggle for market shares has for these conglomerates become a
struggle for stories. The megastories that have won are those that support
the idea of the emotional individualist, and these have become carriers of
culture. Many are stories that already at the turn of the millennium were
favourite examples of management books, e.g. Nike (personal faith in progress),
Marlboro (the personal outsider and rebellion against authorities) and
Harley Davidson (freedom).
"The perspective we see outlined
is thus a future with perhaps 500
or 1000 global suppliers, each
with its own 'country' of stories.
The strong stories can easily
defend their borders while the
weaker ones succumb. They get
'invaded' and conquered by the
stronger stories. The struggle for
market shares becomes a struggle
for stories."
Rolf Jensen in The Dream Society
The Copenhagen Institute for
Futures Studies
The big corporate story has lost
But the big corporate story has still lost over a wide front, especially among
the small and medium-sized companies, which on an international scale
means most Scandinavian companies. The megastories are too strong. Only
companies that have their alliances in place, their megaphones up and charged,
and money enough to do the work properly, have a chance of getting
into the struggle at the top.
The situation is aggravated by the paradox that along with our propensity
for megastories, we increasingly focus on our personal tale and our personal
emotions, which over the years have made everything in between fairly
uninteresting. The emotional and the immaterial may well be a strong driving
force in society, but individualisation is stronger. Life isn't a theme park
that we walk through as passive observers; life is an emotional and personal
development that we like to influence ourselves.
This means that the prefabricated dream, communicated by professional
storytellers, will lose out to the individual's need to tell its own story through
active contribution. The little emotional story wins.
At the same time many companies experience that their values increasingly
are seen as inconsequential. They have too high a level of abstraction and far
too few common denominators to embrace and interest employees and other
stakeholders. CSR (see page 7) is much less a topic than it used to be.
Corporate branding is dying
The idea of the all-embracing corporate brand has thus suffered serious damage