Four Laws of Brand-Building in the Digital Age (Part 1 of 4)

Law 1: From Organizational Scale, to Functional Speed

“Is it possible to create a brand purely online?”

A marketing director of an international brand asked me not too long ago. More than ten years have passed since social media appeared, and the word Digital Transformation (DX) has finally taken root. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated digitization, and even countries that had been slow to adapt to the digital age like Japan, are finally beginning to change. For instance, the Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, after taking office proclaimed the need for the Department of Digital in his government. Data reveals that the US e-commerce industry has achieved more growth in the last ten weeks than it has in more than a decade.

Many companies against the backdrop of the pandemic have shifted their marketing budgets to digital. However, digital tends to skew towards performance marketing and it is difficult to create an emotional bond with the audience. The conventional method, i.e. storytelling that many marketers loved for so long, has been effective to some extent, so a lot of traditional marketers still doubt the power of digital, saying, “It must be physical.” Physical and tangible items will never disappear, but digital will continue to grow.

How can we win the hearts of people, build brands, and grow our business in…