Kraft and Co-creation

Stop the presses!  Kraft has just unveiled a rebranding for their corporate brand.  The headline?  Kraft credits their new branding to a process that includes “co-creation”!  In case you missed the story, it is on AdAge.com.  

In truth, the headline was about the reporter’s seeing a smile in the new logo.  But that’s not the only thing that AdAge missed.  

Promise is the UK branding company that worked with Kraft on this program, along with Nitro.  Now, AdAge missed a little something in their story.  They didn’t know who or what is Promise.  Here’s what AdAge had to say about Promise:

“… and another shop, Promise, whose location couldn’t immediately be identified.”

For the folks at AdAge, I would like to provide some background.  Promise was founding by  three very bright, charming and experienced people, Charles Trevail, Roy Langmaid and Clare Fuller.  They are easily found online.  

It is good to see that companies such as Kraft are beginning to understand and adopt the ideas of co-creation.  

Co-creation is pretty much what is sounds like.  It is a fancy name for the mental process that you and I have when we share our stories.  When I hear your story, I co-create meaning in my mind.  I bring my personal experiences, past associations, my own stories to how I understand and interpret your story.  What is in my mind is co-created by combining your story with my own stories.  That is how meaning is created.

The meaning of a brand will therefore be different in each of us.  Each of us brings our individual life stories, so we co-create meaning with a brand in a way that is unlike the person sitting next to you.  

Co-creation and brand positioning are two conflicting views of branding.  Brand positioning states that a brand can stand for one thing and one thing only in our minds.  Brand positioning says that a brand will stand for exactly the same thing in my mind as in your mind as in the mind of the person who lives down the street or across the country or around the world.

Just think about it for a bit.  You and friend go to a movie together.  You come out and talk about the movie.  How often do you and your friend completely agree on the movie?  How often do you both understand and react to all of the characters in exactly the same way?  No very often.  That is co-creation in action.

So which fits better with your observations of how people react — co-creation or brand positioning?

Now I need to get back to the Oscars!