There are six fundamental question – Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? Some of these are obviously primary, meaning they don’t need a basis for a response like the Who? What? When? Where? How? But Why? is secondary, dependent on response to the first five to provide “meaning”.
Brands need to constantly ask these six fundamental questions to clarify their purpose for existence, the target market, and their consumption. The stronger the foundation and deeper the relevance the brand communicates the greater the success and resonance with the consumer and the market place.
With the amount of literature out there on the topic of self branding. I started to think of these questions with reference to myself.
In a real time world the GPS systems is able to answer “Where am I?” to a prospective employer the relevant question is “Where have I been?”, “When have I been there?” and “What sort of results did I deliver?” in ones resume. My style, my personality and my image is the “How do I perform?”.
Years ago when I was a student working on the UNIX servers I was spooked to ask “who am i” and response would be my login id and any additional information store in my “.whois” file (I hope this is not getting too technical). To a prospective employer it has more to do with “Who knows me?”, “Who do I know?”.
As for the secondary question, Why? The difference across all the elements of – Who? What? When? Where? How? Drives the basis for the final decision. We don’t just buy brands for the function but feeling it brings to us – Joy, Excitement, Comfort and Confidence!
