Your climate is your culture is your brand
I’ve encountered several articles recently which espouse the notion that brand and culture are connected. Some connect the two loosely, while others, like this one from Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh, go as far as to say that “your culture is your brand.” I agree with Tony! Culture and brand have slowly become one and the same as the digital age has brought about transparency.
The consequences of having divergent culture and brand can be catastrophic, as witnessed by JP Morgan’s epic Twitter fail. In a transparent world, there is no sense in businesses pretending to be something they are not.
With this in mind, how do we create the kind of culture that will make for a great brand? More importantly, can culture be “created” in the first place? The residents of Seattle never assembled to put any rules in place saying that they would all meet at coffee shops in rain gear. Instead, the Seattle culture developed because of the cool, rainy climate.
People reflect cultures reflect climate, and not the other way around. In fact, when we see cultures trying to influence their climate, we call it a rain dance.
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