Perfect World

A few reminders that powerful organizations build powerful brands when they fabricate a complete, seamless "world" for you, me, our friends and relations — independent of media.

Thanks to Michigan illustrator/designer/composer/editor/artsy culture dandy Brian Knapp, who creates a coupla pretty seamless worlds of his own, for these wicked links — each examples of a complete world in the interactive medium:

http://www.sonystyle.com.mx/lounge/#
http://www.vodafone.com/flash/futures
http://www.hummer.com

Of course, the real measure of these brands is how well everything else in their organization integrates with these sites — a point hammered painfully home in this month's Fast Company by columnist Lucas Conley. My favorite of Conley's points is one we trumpet day and night around here: "brand" is not a verb, not a means; it's a result.

The term, then, is obsolete. It's like saying "dial this phone number." I dunno about you, but I haven't dialed a phone since like 1985. Same with brand. It used to be something applied externally (to cows, then businesses). Now a brand is something  that comes from the inside out -- for better or worse -- like music through a horn (the term "branding,' by the way, is prohibitied at BKG.) If the composition and performance are perfect, you take your audiences someplace distinct and transcendent.

Brand is what you get from the fit in everything within and without your company. Nevermind whether the fit is good or not — you've got a brand, friend, for better or worse.

Maybe the most succinct explanation of why a great brand is about the perfection of a complete world comes from Ernie Mosteller's post, "Everything Matters."

The good news: you don't have to be Apple or Target to create a complete, perfect world for your organization. Nor do you have to advertise at all. Just ask these guys.