The Death of Identity

An introduction to Interactionist Branding

author:
Haydn Sweterlitsch
VP, Creative Director
RTCRM, a Wunderman Network Agency
Washington, DC
February 2009

contact:
hsweterlitsch@gmail.com
Twitter: Haydn_S
202.299.7496
 The Death of Identity
An introduction to Interactionist Branding
by Haydn Sweterlitsch
As the landscape of communications continues
to undergo tectonic shifts, so also do the rules
of our industry. The trend of customers shifting
from passively experiencing brand signals to
actively engaging and interacting with brands
has steepened and accelerated, with no terminal
point in sight.

Managing a brand’s meaning is no longer

a challenge of steering perception with
proclamations and expressions of who/what
a brand is, the values it stands for and what it
looks like. It hasn’t been for a long time. And
simple awareness has never been a valid
all-purpose indicator of a brand’s health and
actualization with regards to performance,
power and place in the life of customers.

The next school of meaning management

Now more than ever, the meaning of a brand is
defined by the role it plays in its relationships with
customers. The sum of the interactions a customer
has with a brand not only defines the role this brand
plays in the customer’s life, but also provides an
actionable guide for how the brand needs to treat
that customer. To successfully manage the role of a
brand (and thus its meaning), you must manage the
relationships it has with customers.
This is the basis of the theory of Interactionist
Branding and the Brand Role System of meaning
management. It was developed by re-examining
how to effectively manage a brand’s meaning in
an ever-changing communications milieu where
customer-initiated brand interactions continue to
grow in volume and consequence. Interactionist
Branding and the Brand Role System point to the
next edge of communications: a true synthesis of
branding and customer relationship management
(CRM).
The academic groundwork for this approach
to meaning management occurs in the work of
sociologist Herbert Blumer, and is crystallized in his
essay “The Methodological Position of Symbolic
Interactionism.”1
One basic premise of Symbolic Interactionism is that
humans act toward other people, objects, etc., on
the basis of the meanings those people and things
have for them. A second one is that the meaning of a
thing is derived from the social interaction a person
has with that thing. Third, the meanings we ascribe
to things are modified via an interpretive, iterative
process we employ in our interactions with those
things.
We can logically extend Blumer’s premises of
Symbolic Interactionism to describe our approach to
managing the meaning of a brand. To be precise, you
act toward a brand based on the meaning that brand
has for you, which in turn comes from the interactions
you have with that brand. The meaning of a brand
can and will continue to change as you continue to
have interactions with that brand.
next>role is the new identity

The Death of Identity ©2009, Haydn Sweterlitsch 2

Role is the new identity
Before we proceed, let us be clear: When we refer to “identity,” we do not refer to the “visual and verbal
expression of a brand.”2 We refer to the concept of “identity” defined as an enduring personality or collection
of persisting qualities and characteristics that determine the nature of a thing. This is a static concept. And it is
the enduring, persistent nature of this very idea that renders “identity” an outdated construct for the purposes of
creating, managing and optimizing brand meaning.

Unlike an “identity,” a “role” is capable of shifting, evolving and reacting appropriately to fulfill the changing
needs of a relationship.

Before you accuse Interactionist Branding of being nothing more than a new term for old thinking—and think
we’ve simply switched the word “identity” out for the word “role”—consider this: A role needs its counterpart
to exist, while an identity may exist in a vacuum. One’s identity, in both theory and practice, endures even in
the absence of interaction with others. One’s role, on the other hand, ceases to exist when not engaged in
interaction with a counterpart. In fact, a role can only come into being through interaction. For it to exist, a role
must be fulfilled.

Relationships define meaning

For example, if a teacher has no students to teach,
the teacher cannot fulfill the role of teacher and
will, in fact, cease to be a teacher. It is only when
the exchange of instruction and learning occurs
between two participants that those participants
assume the roles of “teacher” and “student” and
take on the meanings inherent in those roles. The
teacher may think of herself as a teacher; she may
even stand in front of a classroom looking, acting
and behaving like a teacher. If the classroom is
empty, though, she is not teaching (and so she is
not a teacher).
Now fill the empty classroom. Even with people
at desks watching and listening to her act, look
and sound like she is teaching, she may not be a
teacher. Unless these people actually “learn” during
their interaction with her, she is not fulfilling the role
of teacher (nor are they students).
To fulfill the role of teacher, she needs to interact
with students, and they need to learn as a result of
this interaction. What is exchanged between them
when they interact—the learning—makes up the
economy of meaning in their relationship. And it is
this meaning in their relationship that defines their
roles.
The same holds true within the Brand Role
System. Whatever is exchanged between brand
and customer when they interact defines their
relationship. As this relationship occurs, the roles
that brand and customer fulfill for each other are
defined. Many things are inherent in those defined
relationship roles: how they treat each other; the
proper tone, style and content of their interactions;
what they get from each other; how they present
themselves to each other, etc. In short, meaning
is inherent in these relationship roles. So, if you
successfully manage the relationship between
brand and customer, you’re successfully managing
the meaning of that brand to that customer.
next>non-permanence is a brand virtue

The Death of Identity ©2009, Haydn Sweterlitsch 3

Non-permanence is a brand virtue
To drive a relationship between brand and customer that
is as sustained, deep, loyal and mutually beneficial as
possible, the brand must have the flexibility to shift roles
over the course of the relationship. To remain relevant, a
brand must be able to change what it is to the customer. It
must embrace a state of non-permanence—and be able
to successfully fulfill different roles.
This is not brand blasphemy. It is the reality of what
effective brands must evolve into. Different customers
want to interact with the same brand in their own ways.
The Death of Identity ©2009, Haydn Sweterlitsch
A single brand must be able to fulfill different roles
seamlessly, fluidly and effectively. Furthermore, the
same customer may want to interact with the same
brand in different ways over the course of his or
her relationship with that brand. Their relationship
may deepen or shift—and the meaning of the brand
will need to change if it is to remain relevant and
engaging to that customer. The brand will have to
fulfill a different role, because the meaning of what
is exchanged between brand and customer has
changed.
Consider Barry Kessel
Barry is the CEO of RTC Relationship Marketing. He
is also a husband and a father. These are just three
roles he fulfills—shifting naturally from one to the
next, often in the course of a single day. In each role,
a different economy/exchange occurs (emotional,
psychological, social, etc.).
How Barry acts and communicates in his different
roles—as well as the content, tone and manner of
each interaction—is dictated by the relationship
in question. How Barry interacts with his wife is
certainly different from how he interacts with his
children or his professional peers, and so on.
Different relationships define different roles based
on the meaning of what is exchanged in those
relationships. The more effective Barry is in fulfilling
his different roles, the more effective and beneficial
his relationships will be.
The flexibility and non-permanence any person
embraces in fulfilling his or her different roles is not
uncommon, abnormal or superhuman. It is simply
a part of being a healthy, well-rounded, actualized
person. Why should we expect anything different
from the brands we create and manage? If anything,
a healthy brand should imitate Barry. If a brand’s
meaning is defined by what is exchanged between
it and the customer, then its ability to effectively fulfill
its role in a customer relationship will determine
the long-term viability, relevance and power of that
brand.
next>new rules, a new system and greater potential
4
New rules, a new system and greater potential
When fully realized and validated, Interactionist Branding and the Brand Role
System make up a new and actionable approach to meaning management.
The approach can be utilized to complement and optimize communications
for an actualized, healthy and robust brand. Likewise, it can be employed in
the creation (or re-ignition) of a brand.

While the Brand Role System itself depends on paradigmatic roles (teacher,
student, coach, etc.), it is a far more accessible and actionable system than
existing archetypal systems of meaning management. This is because the
roles of both brand and customer are defined by the meaning that arises
from their interactions and relationship. Again, to manage the relationship’s
interactions means 1) to ensure the defined role is fulfilled, and 2) to manage
the meaning of a brand.

Customers are not the passive audience they were when the rules were
originally written. In point of fact, customers continue to be more actively
engaged with brands on ever-shifting communications platforms with new
rules of engagement written almost daily, often by the customers themselves.
More customer interaction gives us more opportunities for success—along
with more risks.

The new system of meaning management introduced here synthesizes the

best practices of brand advertising and CRM as never before, and provides
a leading edge for more effective brand meaning management—even in the
trickiest and most accelerated communications landscapes—so that brand/
customer relationships can be deeper and more sustained, loyal and mutually
beneficial than ever before.

1
Blumer, Herbert. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (1969).
2Wheeler, Alina.Designing Brand Identity, 2nd ed. (2006).

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