Agile brands have the agile methodology to thank for their philosophy and approach. Agile’s rise in popularity and subsequent contributions to the world of software and the Web at large are wide-reaching and have changed the way we create and market products and services. The agile approach can be applied to many things other than software development, including marketing, and branding.

It is well understood that the better the data you have, the better the decisions you can make. For larger organizations with a lot of legacy infrastructure, this can require a lot of integration between systems and creating feedback mechanisms that tie everything together. The benefits of this can be dramatic, however. Or, as David Linthicum, chief cloud strategy officer at Deloitte Consulting, puts it in an article on Informatica, the value of data integration is “access to near perfect information,” since you finally have a full view of what is happening across the landscape of your customer experience.

Once when I was speaking on the topic of agile marketing at a conference, someone asked a question that should be addressed here: Doesn’t it go against the fundamentals of branding to be so agile, and adapt to change so easily? What about the core things that make up a brand? For this reason, we need to think of the Agile Brand as being nuanced.

As branding has evolved, the need for brands to tell unique and authentic stories that portray their mission and values has grown continually stronger. Jay Baer says, “If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.”

Banking trends have evolved rapidly over the past two decades. As a result, banks are working harder than ever to keep up with the demands and preferences of their customers. These advancements include offerings that make banking more accessible, create the ability to bank more freely, and have a more tailored experience that is personalized to their needs. It is difficult to say what new developments will occur in the decades to come that will continue to shape the optimal customer experience. What is known, however, is that these advancements have changed the banking customer experience forever.

There has never been more pressure for organizations to differentiate themselves and create loyal customers. With a growing desire by consumers to both have increasingly personalized experiences, and to share the values and culture of the companies they both buy from and work for, brands need to evolve in order to thrive. Agile brands will balance the need for control over their messaging, products and services with the need to connect with their customers in more meaningful ways.

In most professions, being “busy” is actually a good thing, because it means you are needed, and there are enough customers or clients to keep the lights on. But there’s a more toxic form of busy that keeps great work from happening, deadlines from being met, and work relationships from thriving. To help, let’s define a vocabulary that makes this easier. Being busy means that you’re running around from task to task, continually feeling overwhelmed, late to meetings, and overdue on assignments and tasks. Let’s treat that as the negative way of looking at things.

Jeff Bezos famously said, “your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” It’s true that a company or organization cannot control people’s opinions, feelings, perceptions or reactions to everything it does. A strong brand can help provide a common way for people to think and talk about your company, product, or services. Let’s explore a few ways that your brand is more than the sum of its parts.

I wrote my new book, The Agile Brand, based on the idea that modern brands need a more fluid and two-way relationship with their customers. In order to do this, however, it requires that organizations adopt an agile mindset. 

Playing a piece of music well takes a lot of coordination, skill at playing the instruments involved and an underlying sense of rhythm to tie it all together. Richard Wagner, the famous conductor and composer, once said, “The whole duty of a conductor is comprised in his ability always to indicate the right tempo.” While the conductor can’t play all the instruments in a symphony themselves, they are critical to making sure the right notes are played at the right time.