Why an Aversion to Conflict Creates Mediocre Brands
Sep 1st, 2009 by David Svet
Mom was wrong. Conflict is good. No, I‚m not giving you permission to hit your sister. We‚re talking about your brand. Conflict is the essential element in creating a compelling story about your brand. Without conflict, your brand is listless, drifting in a sea of mediocrity. Without conflict you lack focus. You can pay attention to all of the little annoyances that distract you. Conflict grabs your attention — all of it. The conflict your brand faces is the tension between the solution you offer and the problem you solve. If you can’t identify your struggle between good and evil then you don’t have much of a position in the market. Any attempt to articulate your position will be tepid, at best. That’s why most brands go unnoticed. They shout, “We’re pretty good at some things.” Boo-yeah, that stirs the soul!
If you want to be noticed you need a great story, and any great story involves a compelling conflict. In an earlier blog post, I wrote about using storytelling to re-examine your business plan. If you try this, I strongly recommend getting a copy of Storytelling Branding in Practice, originally a Danish book by Klaus Fog, Christian Budtz, and Baris Yakaboylu. You can’t beat the Danes at storytelling — they have Hans Christian Anderson, the Lance Armstrong of fairytale authors (The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Little Match Girl, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling, etc.). Storytelling is a beautifully simple book that walks you through building the story of your brand in a light hearted and compelling manner.
One of the tools used in the book is the Conflict Barometer — a tool for measuring the viability of the conflict in your brand’s story. To use it you need to determine if you have a conflict at all. If not, you don’t have a story. If you do have a conflict, how will it be resolved? Is it a single conflict or one of many? Can you identify a hero and a villain? How are their strengths matched? Once you’ve defined your conflict you can then use the Conflict Barometer to evaluate where your conflict stands between two poles — harmony and chaos. Harmony is great for feel good brands — think puppies, kitties, or babies. But most brands rely on conflict in chaos where more is better. As you evaluate the conflict in your organization’s story you choose how it would rank on the Conflict Barometer. It gives you a point of comparison for re-working your story to find the most focused source of conflict in your brand.
I think it’s also a great way to evaluate the focus your brand has in the market. As you hone your story to maximize the conflict you eliminate superfluous distractions. In a fairytale these are unnecessary subplots. In your organization they are the unessential services and sacred cows that keep you from being the best at one thing. By focusing your story you focus your role in the market you serve. By being the champion organization you can be bold and claim your place in the market with authority. That makes you look pretty remarkable when everyone else is yelling, “We’re pretty good at some things.” Yes, conflict is good.
I have to agree. How else can you better a product or service if you don’t know what is wrong? No one is perfect and products and services can be improved all the time.
If you have constructive criticism then it is the best. I mean you can say something is bad but offer ways to fix it. That way you are learning from your mistakes and creating a better story.