The World’s Most Maverick Minds On Building Brands Through Disruption
THE RITZ Carlton Millenia in Singapore was home to the Global Brand Forum 2008 on 14 and 15 August. This distinguished forum was targeted at CEO’s, Marketing Directors, Brand Custodians, Creative Directors, Bureaucrats and entrepreneurs across Asia-Pacific who are concerned with creating, defending and growing their brands.
It was a not-to-be-missed opportunity to interact with, listen to and get practical brand ideas directly from the world’s most influential brand gurus and practitioners who have created and advised the world’s biggest brands. The forum is described as an “inspirational and transformative experience that will encourage debate, foster reflection and ultimately engineer change in the way companies in Asia manage their brands and business.”
The conference was a series of intellectually stimulating speeches, panel discussions, extended Q&A sessions and knowledge-sharing opportunities held over two invigorating days. Designed to add value beyond the traditional forum environment, there were also industry breakout sessions where participants could join in closed-door dialogues during which specific industry knowledge was freely shared.
Participants were given also ample opportunities to network and exchange ideas at the highest level with approximately 1000 business leaders from over 20 countries in Asia and around the world and they also enjoyed unprecedented Asia-wide media profiling.
Into its fifth successful year, Global Brand Forum unveiled yet another stellar line-up of the world’s leading brand and business icons to speak for the first time in Asia. This year’s theme – “The maverick approach to brand building” included Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia; Spike Lee, the avant-garde American filmmaker; Al Ries, marketing guru; Will Wright, creator of “The Sims” and more.
S. Karthik, the founding chairman of the Global Brand Forum, said, “In a world of manu”fake”ture, and low cost imitators, the only sustainable strategy for leadership is the maverick approach to brand building. That means having the courage to step outside one’s comfort zone and go against the grain. This is one of the reasons why the Global Brand Forum 2008 has chosen to bring to Singapore some of the world’s leading marketing mavericks.”
In his opening speech, Karthik also compared the number of Asian brands that were listed in Interbrand’s Top 100 World’s Most Valuable Brands. While Asia has many world-class companies, it has a relatively small amount of world-class brands. He pointed out, “Many Asian brands were grown from ‘Copy-cat Economics’, using Western benchmarks and paradigms. Most were driven by a three-fold strategy; Copy that, make it cheaply and make a lot of it. Though this may be sustainable in the coming 20 to 30 years, Asian brands must transition from being ‘Centres of Imitation’ to ‘Centres of Creation’ to succeed. Otherwise there will be little economic sustainability in the long run.” It was time that Asian brands learn from these mavericks just how to differentiate itself.
“That means having the courage to step outside one’s comfort zone and go against the grain,” he concluded.
The forum aims to be the world’s most inspirational and influential platform for ideas, dialogue and action in the area of brands, businesses and leadership. Some of the topics discussed were the new rules of brand leadership, authenticity as the new driver of brands and the role of brands in a wikinomy.
A lot of focus at this year’s forum was on Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. The charismatic man, who was named this year’s Global Brand Icon Award winner for his role in revolutionising free and open online content, says that he envisions a world with a free encyclopaedia for every person in his or her own language. But he goes on to note in his interview with Singapore’s Channel News Asia, that this can only be achieved if there is a global movement where online users actively contribute to the site.
As of May this year, Wikipedia has about 260 million users worldwide. That is approximately 31 percent of all Internet users, with China and Japan making up a large portion of users in Asia. Across the region, the site’s popularity varies widely from country to country. According to Jimmy, making sure the encyclopaedia is in as many languages as possible is paramount. It is currently available in 150 languages.
Jimmy told theSun’s Sivananthi Thanaenthiran: “I want 250,000 articles in every language that has at least one million native speakers. I think there are 351 languages that have one million speakers, so that sets a context for it. In the Thai language for example, Thai Wikipedia is still fairly small, with 60,000 articles, so obviously participation is lower there.”
He also emphasised that while errors and inaccuracies are sometimes inevitable, his ultimate goal is to help the site become a knowledge resource of the highest possible quality. Interestingly, scientific journal Nature found that Britannica, considered the gold standard by many, averages three errors per article while Wikipedia has four.
In proof of his commitment to free speech and people power on Wikipedia, the allegations that he “airbrushed” his biography have not been removed from the Jimmy Wales entry. “I think it’s best to have an open, democratic process,” he said to The Strait Times.
Celebrated marketing strategist Al Ries spoke on “Building Brands through Positioning”, a buzz word that he helped coin back in the 80s with his partner, Jack Trout. When BizWeek asked about the challenges facing Asian companies wanting to make it big in Western markets, he cited a lack of focus and a name that does not translate well in English. “You can’t build a brand if you try to market everything to everybody under a single brand name. This is the problem facing Sony and the other Japanese and Korean electronic companies,” Al says. Moreover, he says that to be a worldwide brand, an English speaking person has to be able to pronounce and spell your brand name.
These are just a handful of the insights gained at Global Brand Forum 2008. Certainly, everyone is anticipating the forum’s return next year, but let’s not forget that it will also be in Malaysia this December with the likes of Bill Clinton as speakers.