What does a brand curator do?
A premise
Try this first: type the term Brand Curator into Google and see what happens.
I thought that before dealing with the role and meaning that I attribute to my profession, it would be interesting to start with this bit of research: What does the Google community, which we users comprise, know of brand curation and how do we understand its application?
Results: In Italian and in Italy: “Nothing found.”
The term
Brand curation: To exercise care for, devote attention to a project, a text, a brand, its language, and the relationship that is formed with its appropriate community.
This can serve as a useful place to start. The words curate, curator, and curation belong to the world of art: Think of the curator of an exhibition, be it art, photography…
In the communications sphere, content curation is the responsibility for text in the widest meaning of the term. It implies strategic choice, applied through a specific register to an editorial plan and vision that take into account both the content source as well as the strategy and methodology of sharing it with the target community.
The term brand brings us back full turn to the subject of brand and of the business at its most essential—it’s core identity and the set of values with which it approaches the market.
Brand curator… what?
This term was introduced for the first time by Jonathan Mildenhall, creator of the Coca-Cola company’s Coke’s Content2020 strategy, who explained the shifting of attention from creativity to content https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=LerdMmWjU_E&feature=emb_logo, understood as values content for the community in question and for the brand.
Brand curation
To start defining some key concepts that can serve to delineate the “field” of this profession, we can start with some points that suggest a hybridization and shared zone between the activities of brand manager, brand strategist, and content curator. These three responsibilities can together include the profession of brand curator.
Simon Graj authored an interesting article in Forbes magazine, https://www.forbes.com/sites/simongraj/2012/04/16/skill-set-of-a-brand-curator/#7583b9395ee1 that laid out all the characteristics of the brand curator.
“The brand managers of today have to be exceptional curators of the values and identity of the brand.”
In particular:
* Know the DNA of the brand and defend its essence.
* Keep the brand authentic. Strongly resist the temptation of compromising the value of the brand in order to exploit short-term opportunities.
* Discover how the brand connects effectively to its target market and how it embodies the values that make it stand out as something precious. (And embrace those customers who personalise the brand in a constructive way.)
* Find out how the brand satisfies the eternal desire of every customer for “moments of the good life.”
* Establish a dynamic of practices that positively involve the company in the target community.
(And I myself would add:).
* Continuously “dust off” the merchandise to give lustre to the brand and keep the spotlight on it and its aura bright.
* Keep abreast of the desires and tastes of the brand fans and its promoters on the social networks, because they, as “celebrators” of the brand, are its real owners. Any problems they have with the brand require speedy attention.
* When a brand is licensed, consider the license s an act of faith, akin to an exhibit “lent” to a great museum.
* Immerse yourself in the brand experience of your competitors’ products to see where they might excel in areas where you are merely dabbling.
I add a terrific piece that will provide inspiration for a new way of approaching text and business strategy. Paolo Iabichino puts himself in the shoes of those who must write promotional copy every day and underscores how important it is to find the precisely appropriate register for each target audience.
Scripta volant. A news alphabet for writing (and reading) advertising today.
Those are the principles that start me off every day. And then I try to improve, every day.
