As I thumb through all the articles on New Year’s predictions, I think to myself, “didn’t I read this same thing last year?” and “is this really what to do to make it in the new year?”

Articles such as, Eight for ‘08: Brand and Marketing Trends, give us the typical list of brand and marketing musts for the new year: more personalization, more sustainability, more mobile and portable channels, more measurability…and how to exploit all of these in order to succeed in the new year. While all of this may be true, it feels just a little superficial to say that if you do all of these things, your brand will be successful in 2008. People are smart, and nowadays, don’t believe everything they are told.

What consumers want is more honesty, more integrity and more showing instead of telling. We want to feel and experience the greatness of a brand more than hear about how great it is from the horse’s mouth. Brand is really the emotional and intellectual bond you have with your customers. So, I think, the ’show don’t tell’ method of branding is really the key to owning the hearts and minds of more of your customers in ‘08. If more companies did this, we wouldn’t be so distrustful of corporate America and its marketing hype. We would connect as consumers on another level and stop looking at ’stuff’ as just ’stuff’ to see the real value in it. We would engage more with those around us and with companies based on their values, instead of looking at everything as a commodity and trying desperately to find the lowest price. In other words, we would care more about the brands we choose, and tell others about how much we care.

How will your brand be more of what it wants to be in 2008?

Happy holidays and best of luck for the new year!

- Jen Travis