Photo Credit: Vale Zmeykov on Unsplash

The hill I’ll die on is the fact that people, places, organisations, countries, brands, nations, companies, even ideas – any kind of entity or artefact – are one and the same thing to our brain and it’s processing system. Our brains are designed to categorise, recognise patterns, and relationally place us against these mental representations we call our neighbour, our favourite brand, our country.

Constructivism and Symbolic Interactionism, for example, both argue that we interact with our social and physical environment with the help of symbols and mental constructs that help us make sense of the world – and co-create it. It’s through the complex imagery, emotions, and thoughts crafted by our brains when exposed to mental representations, that we understand our position in relation to these various entities and artefacts, and make our way in the world.

So why does this matter in the context of branding and marketing? Why should you care if you want your business to thrive? Both, marketing and branding can be considered methods and tactics, but they are also strategies and philosophies. For me and my business, the idea that marketing is a philosophy of business that puts people at its core. Our success in business and life is inherently social, no matter how much we introverts might want it otherwise. We exchange and interact, consume, make and gift to, for, from, and with people. Marketing listens, marketing understands, marketing designs for. Marketing makes money, sure, but only because it helps the business craft something that people actually want, need, and desire. In a way, the function of marketing is to make the company indirectly selfish and directly in service. The truly successful companies know how to build a product that people want to wait in line for upon launching. They know how to listen, how to test, how to reiterate based on what their customers want – before sending it for mass production. Good marketing happens before branding, sales, and communications. Good marketing is a process of discovery, empathy, designing with and for your customer. We can go into the ethics and broader societal implications of that at some other time, if you will.

But for now, let me share my 15+ years of experience working in marketing – and studying marketing. When done for the right reasons and when done right, marketing becomes a tool for good. And like any tool, it can also be abused to sway votes and get people to smoke cigarettes. Why I think you should be excited about marketing and its manifestation in the world of senses – branding – is that it teaches us how to be better humans and better businesspeople. And how to be humbled. Here’s an example:

It’s a mistake I’ve done myself numerous times before correcting this following mindset. It’s a mistake we tend to make when excited about our idea or business. Namely, we have no actual clue who our customers are, beyond dry statistics, Google Analytics, and our lofty ideals. And I’m talking about everyone, myself included, from global marketing managers of Fortune 500 companies to someone just getting into the business, and everyone in between. My clients (and myself) are surprisingly often shocked to discover the actual person behind the buyer persona. The mom that navigates a job, three kids, and her diet. We as service providers know that, but do we truly know that? Do we understand her better than she understands herself? Ethically. So we can help her out? Can we create around her idea of what she needs and wants, or are we sticking to our idea of what she needs and wants. She, too, is our mental representation as much as our brand is for her. What is our relation to her?

That is why Atlasea goes beyond “marketing consulting” or “brand identity”. I want this business to help everyone – people, organisations, groups, and brands in classical sense – to get where they want to go in a way that honours their individuality, pays close attention to those in relation to them, and co-create and co-exist in a way that is prosperous for all in the sense of finances, identity, and individuality. How else are we going to bring value to the world automated with AI? The soul in the machine is what truly matters. Because underlying current of anything you have set yourself to do as a team or as a creative or an NGO runs the same. It’s people creating for people. And that’s where the tools and methods in marketing and branding shine. I want you to use it for good. In your life, in your customer’s lives, your employees’ lives, and the life of this planet.

Atlasea’s purpose is to give teams and individuals access to the principles, methods and tools used by Fortune 500 companies to address the market in a way that it speaks to the market naturally. Where Atlasea’s methodology goes beyond these effective tools, is it builds on this well known knowledge, expands it based on proprietary research, and introduces a comprehensive system that gets businesses and individuals shine bright for those who are naturally inclined and drawn to their services, ideas, products, and – identity.

What Atlasea methodology does, it effectively integrates internal with the external, either in an individual or in a company. It aligns the two – internal perception of the self with the external perception of the self along with internal perception of the external (customers, competition, environments) so that the relationship between the “buyer” and “seller” goes beyond mere transaction. It transmutes into a relationship where two come together to make an exchange that honour of each other’s individuality. In the tightly and ever so exceedingly connected world, it’s easier to reach out with your offer and find people who resonate with it instantaneously. That’s where our authentic selves come in.

Atlasea Methodology challenges to get clarity on who you are as a team, an organisation, or an individual, that you don’t need to go to the market, the market comes to them. The segment of the market that is actually willing and able to understand your offerings, pay for them, and resonates with your identity on a deep level – naturally.

The work my clients do in the sessions and workshops are far from easy. They take guts. They take realness. That’s what, ultimately, reels people in. We want to be a part of something that feels true. Something that reflects our own face, but enhanced. Something that makes us feel seen and less isolated. A community that can only be build with true connection. And for that, we need to get vulnerable. Yes, also in a business meeting, also during negotiations, and especially when creating for other people.