As the one-time Chief Marketing Officer of a large global wealth management business with severe reputational issues during the 2007 financial crisis, I struggled mightily with how to engage with and use social media to help my brand.
Leading brands are always differentiated by their shared values. If the values your brand represents are not aligned to the values of your target customer, no amount of marketing will move them to your brand.
If I ever needed proof that our emotional response to the world around us is quicker than our ability to think, I got it a couple of weeks ago. Anticipating that I was about to hear another pseudo-science sales pitch, I cut off the speaker with an ill-considered outburst. In retrospect, I suspect that I did them an injustice. But the episode does highlight the powerful role that emotions play in shaping our behavior.
