• Brand New, Friday, July 18, 2008 9:30 AM

Gareth Kay, chief planner at Modernista, wonders on his blog if agencies should be more worried about the sociability of a brand before worrying if it should be using social media. "Perhaps we are looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope, focusing on the delivery mechanism not the underlying spirit."

Rather than trying to use communications to cover fundamental issues a business faces, the communications "force us to confront what it is that we need to do at a fundamental level," which is to build social brands. These are brands that are inherently open, generous and want to include people--with communications that let consumers join the dots.

Thinking about social brands, not social media. makes us think about a fundamentally different outcome, he says. "And this may hopefully stop the industry slipping back in to some of its bad habits of the past."

Read the whole story at Brand New »