Because people treat brands like personalities, some companies think that brands are singular. They are talking about brands as an entity, which should express its personality with a single voice, across all media.

Of course they're right about the expression part. But like personalities, brands have a certain type of character. If your brand isn't extrovert, your communication shouldn't be extrovert either. If your brand stands for innovation, more than your advertising should speak about it.

Brand personality

Your entire brand strategy should be laid out to express the personality of your brand, which you identified during a process of collecting your brand assets. And your brand assets should reflect your corporate culture, your company's perception as well as its policy and behavior. This is exactly where the personality of a brand is measured: in genuine behavior.

Brands are summaries of a lot of things. A lot of people confuse brands with branding, with advertising, marketing or corporate design. All these things should follow brand principles and express the values of your brand, but they are not the brand itself. They are representers.

Brand advocats

Psychologically, a brand may be perceived like a person: identity, character, personality and values are all there. But that doesn't mean brands have singular personalities. They consist of a hive of personalities: your company's employees, your marketing and communications division, your products and what people expect from them.

This is what brands are all about: the people. Without their perception, without their image of your products, your entire output, your brand wouldn't even exist. So how come advertising companies, marketing specialists and brand consultants still assume it is one brand?

If it was one brand, the power of communication over this brand would be entirely in their hands. But it isn't. In fact, more and more part of your brand are shaped, influenced and even defined by the people using them. The Internet has empowered the people to have a share in brand identification. They're no longer just recipients, like they were with traditional advertising. With or without your marketing and your brand messages, people will always say what they're thinking. They will express themselves too, and if you are not careful, their voice might be more powerful than yours.

Sure, brands can benefit from brand advocats&emdash;people who are feeling they're part of your brand will passionately defend it and convert more people to believe in your brand's qualities. However, those voices are not the broad mass. And they are not driven by introvert people&emdash;to the contrary.

People shift your brand

A Brand Stream is a continues flow of information about your brand, from sources like your company, your marketing team or&emdash;you may have guessed it&emdash;the people.

Look at the technology sector, mainly handheld devices, a market that exploded in the last five years. Blogs are reviewing those gadgets, and their reviews rank on top of the lists of technology product reviews, even higher than those of traditional media, such as the New York times.

People who buy these products and test them, admittedly mostly geeks, post comments on those blogs. The majority of people visiting those blogs are not geeks, they are the people who love gadgets, and they admire geeks for testing those products at first hand. They can't afford visiting every technology trade show there is, but they are eager to learn about those products.

What you are perceiving on blogs like Engadget is a Brand Stream. A brand's identity is not only shaped by the manufacturer and vendor of a product, but largely also by the people. This may sound terrifying to most traditional marketing expert, but it cannot be denied that this is happening right now.

The next generation of branding: Brand Streams

This is not only a phenomenon, not just a trend. It is the way branding will pursue from now on. It is out of question that of course, as the originating source of your brand, you are its owner. So you should make the best of that and promote its true, honest qualities. However, it would be a mistake to assume that you'll be the only one maintaining power over your brand.

The brand's life is largely dependent on your output, your products, your company's public and internal behavior. The larger your company is, the tougher it is to maintain that single voice-feeling in the perception field of your audience. But never the less, you will always be the owner of your brand.

The difference in branding

The difference is, you will have to adjust your behavior accordingly to the Brand Stream's flow. Ignoring trends, tendencies, swirls if you will, may disturb your brand stream and give it a different direction than you may have intended. It's quite dangerous to keep a Brand Stream unattended.

Don't make the mistake to look at your own output only. And don't try to cut off or censor the people's voice. This would backfire on your brand even more. The best you can do is to look at what people are saying about your brand and learn from it. There is an enormous amount of data out there, and you just have to read it and make logical conclusions.

The future of your brand is in the hands of the people you made it for, and it is up to you to fulfill their expectations. And if that means you need to change your product- or marketing strategy, then it means just that, but you can't avoid following up on it.