Stay True To the Core Brand Idea

Today I had the opportunity, at the AdAge Digital Conference, to watch the premier of the Google Project Re:Brief documentary film. It was inspiring and I can't wait for everyone I know in this business to watch it. But, the value of watching at the conference was the discussion with the people behind the movie after it showed.

{Again, the crux of the conversation was about finding an idea true to the brand and figuring out how best to execute that through channels that are best for the brand's consumers.}

The stray away from this as a strategic approach to communications is apparently rampant given the frequency of the discussions among marketing professionals.At a glance, here are some of the highlights from the post-film discussion:

"Technology is an enabler to the story. It is not the story itself.""It is the story. We all know this, we've just been ignoring it. We are all so distracted by the technology.""Digital is the layer that connects everything together. It is not a channel." {my favorite}"The problem is that people are afraid to take risks on the web. They are being way too conservative. That is why Google did this experiment. To show it can be done."

Note: The film was shown for the first time at our conference (they said they literally finished editing it late last night in LA and ran to the airport to make the flight to NYC for the showing at our conference; true or not, it makes for a good story and made us feel special). It is supposed to be available to the public in the next few months (they claim to have not this far in advance yet, so they are not sure how and where and when it will be available).