It's a lonely time for the brand.
In a world where clutter is increasing by the day a lot of marketers are focusing on call to action driven marketing. With the knowledge that a consumer's attention span is decreasing more marketers are trying to bombard consumers with messages that have a clear call to action i.e. "Come try my brand (as soon as possible)". Even more visible are conversations where practitioners try to distinguish between marketing activities as branding activities and sales activities. Why? Do strong brands don't sell? Why would a strong brand not sell? If the objective of your business is sale and revenue, why invest at all in a branding activity?
The increasing cost of getting mind-share of a consumer is leading to marketers focusing too much on media and too little on content. The focus on medium has become so high that it has made most campaigns a media management and optimization exercise. Most marketers tend to be trying to answer one question - How can I reach the consumer more times in the most cost efficient manner?
The media management exercise is leading to fewer people recalling the message for the amount of money spent or in short making the campaign an in-effective/expensive campaign. Social Media is not spared either. I've observed a lot of practitioners trying to identify ways to promote a campaign on social media or extend it on social media. The fundamental question we need to be asking ourselves is - What's the story we are trying to tell here?
The protagonist of your story need NOT be your brand. A Brand tends to be the center of the universe for a marketer (and rightly so). However your brand is not the center of the universe for the consumer. At times beautiful stories get corrupted with the brand acting more like the intruder. Audition your brand for a great story. Show it the love of a great narrative. Seduce your consumers with a great story.