Tribal Management

My mom always use to tell me it takes a village to raise a child. But lately I am beginning to think she was using the wrong 5-letter word.

The latest craze/idea in brand management is to manage a tribe than are the brand managers of the world acknowledging the fact that brands are more like children than design elements? Do they have personalities? Do they have dreams? Can you really manage a multi-person tribe? Because by definition tribes are led, not managed, by some key people in very key spots. So who is driving who? Who can drive who?

A good company has a good brand but a great company has a better relationship. Brands are not a products, brands are subjects in a sentence. Brands are the conduit by which people can carry on conversations. The consumers want to feel involved and they want to feel a part of your "tribe".

Apple, In-and-Out Burger, Grey's Anatomy, Armani, BMW, Fantasy Football (NFL) these are the companies that drive my conversations on a daily basis. I am only a customer of one of these brands but I talk about each company all the time and,if I was so inclined to buy a premium computer or get a great burger in California, these brands would be the first companies I would hunt down.

My wallet aspires to be in these tribes and to have knowledge of them and their stories empowers me to feel a little better about myself and my little world.

I am waiting to see how this "tribe management" turns out but I am very intrigue by it because if companies can start realizing they are merely facilitators to allow people to talk comfortably with each other than branding could have a pretty cool future.