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Oh No! The Marketers Have Gotten Shakespeare!
[UPDATED - Sorry if you saw the original, blank, post. ]
At a recent marketing and branding conference, "Chief Content Officer -- and Shakespearean scholar" Brad Berens got up to speak about Shakespeare and branding:
Aside from all the obvious and enduring cultural references and adaptations of Shakespeare's work over the centuries, we don’t typically think of Shakespeare as a successful brand story. But we should, Berens said, because the way he created, bonded with, and nurtured his customer base has valuable and highly applicable lessons for marketers today. In essence what he did back in The Globe Theater in the 1500s, Berens said, is move from meaning transmission to environment cultivation.I'm curious whether others find deeper meaning in the examples the article provides, or if this is just another case of people using the magic word Shakespeare to make their point. Do we think that Shakespeare was at all interested in "brand", the way we know it today? Do we think that he was pursuing it without ever realizing it? Surely there was name recognition, at least. But being recognized as good at your job, versus actively pursuing a strategy of getting your name recognized, are two very different things.
3 comments:
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Son of a .... I HATE it when that happens! Thanks, Alexi.
Hah! This article is full of amazing jargon. Well, surely Shakespeare couldn't have known what his name would become after his death, but I think it might benefit people to view Shakespeare as an expert marketer. Otherwise individuals sometimes see him as too highfalutin and Godlike. I think that his business side makes him even more interesting, and is one of the reasons why his views are so difficult to find in his plays. He had a clever way of pleasing all parties.
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