Back to the future. Is it easier or harder to build brands from now on?

Back to the future. Is it easier or harder to build brands from now on?

HackTown is a festival that takes place annually in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, Minas Gerais, designed to positively impact people's lives through the sharing of experiences and information. A lot of interesting people, current content, different formats to exchange about #technology , #entrepreneurship , #creativity . This year it happened from the 15th to the 18th of September and it was my fourth time!

Certainly the greatest of all time and what an amazing experience!

I participated in the closing session of the event, discussing main themes and their impacts for brands with André Foresti (TroubleMakers @somostroublemakers), Paula Rizzo (Globo), Levis Novaes (MOOC), Rafa Castro (Meta), Caio Del Manto (Media.Monks) ) and Cleber Paradela (Together - Shared Energy) and Karan Novas (Tulom).

Entitled "Hack Final Session: Back to the future. Is it easier or harder to build brands from now on?", it yielded a good conversation!

Here are the main topics that caught my attention:

1. Expansion of operations as an opportunity to increase relevance

Branding goes far beyond communication and storytelling. If we want to increase the relevance of the brands we work with, we need to connect them to societal issues such as Sustainability, Education and Diversity, some of the most discussed at the event this year. Doing is far more important than talking.

2. Ecosystem challenge and more conversation possibilities

It is undeniable that the conversation ecosystem for brands is more complex. There are many new formats, platforms and channels. The challenge is to understand the roles and even create a collaboration between them. Instead of always competing, we can think more between clients, agencies and platforms to create new joint solutions to maximize impact on what matters.

3. The Influencers / Creators landscape is the new frontier

The subject heated up when we started talking about the role of brands for the Creators landscape. We recognize that it is still an immature market and brands have great responsibility in this maturing with education and formalization initiatives so that it is more structured and long-term, not overloading those who create content to the point of exhausting these people as we have seen happen. It is the responsibility of everyone involved that we have quality entertainment and information.

4. Constant focus on people and problem solving

In the midst of all this, if there is one thing that does not change in the work with Strategy and Brands, it is the focus on people and the search for solving their problems. Before discussing any possibility of technology or channels, this is the central discussion of our work, the rest is in the service of creating better solutions and cannot dazzle us to the point that we lose this focus.

For me, the summary is that, yes, it's harder to build brands from now on, but that's not why we're going to stop doing what matters. It takes work to do the right thing and that is our job as strategists.

We will need to deepen these conversations with more time next year, you see. It's just the beginning and I'm glad we're having these discussions.

Thank you for organizing the initiative, André Foresti, and for opening the doors to this wonderful event, Carlos Henrique Vilela.

See you at HackTown 2023!