Coming up soon on the DishyMix podcast, an interview with Dov Seidman. Here is the second question in a series (from Sarah to Dov) to whet your appetite. Here is the first, from Ian Schafer, Deep-Focus.

Q: Sarah Fay, President, Isobar USA I’d be interested to here what Dov says about tapping the voice of the consumer as brands build their positions and stories. So many things marketers do today feel old to me. Marketers work hard to develop slick and polished materials, while consumers are gravitating toward the more gritty, human and imperfect messaging around brands. Conventional wisdom says you need to boil down everything your brand stands for to a tagline, which just feels big and dumb. Brands and companies should aspire to stand for personal things to individual people…let the meaning of that emerge from what people say. How a brand behaves has amazing power to influence what people say. What people say has the power to create momentum for the brand.

A: Dov Seidman, Author of “HOW: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life)” I couldn’t agree with Sarah more. In our old world, we used to be able to control things. We created resumes for ourselves – meant to convey our entire life story in a single page. Companies also put out resumes – taglines, positioning statements, marketing materials, advertisements. All of this was done in a world where you could control the story. In today’s hyperconnected and hypertransparent world, the story is being told about us. We can no longer control the story. We can only control our conduct.

Connecting with the market is no longer about brand image or brand awareness; it’s about keeping brand promise, a direct relationship between business and the market. Everyone asserts brand promise, how is about living to and keeping brand promises. Brand promise is deeper than image, it encompasses what you stand for, the expectations you set for yourself, and how you honor that promise with action and behavior. Every experience is an opportunity to reinforce or erode a company’s brand promise.

Taglines are useless if you don’t live to them; positioning statements worthless if they don’t pass the smell test. In fact, the words that make up taglines, etc. may even be turned against you in a world where customers are empowered to share their stories with the world. In a hyperconnected and transparent world, it’s not what a company says it does or stands for – it’s how they do what they what they do, their behavior, that will set them apart.

In a world where everyone is a journalist, marketing is more personal than ever. I think the smart companies are using vocal consumers to their advantage, and its not just about creating platforms for happy customers to share their stories. The Internet and new forms of social media are great sources of market research. It’s a two-way street.