How to learn branding with Kanye’s tweets

How come Kanye west is so famous? There are already a lot of people who have tried to explain his success, but today I want to show you a new way to understand it. This way is called brand meaning resonance. According to Handbook on brand and experience management (2008) brand meaning resonance correspond to the intensity in which a brand is embedded in a culture coupled with how much people as individual feel connected to it. These two different elements are called cultural resonance and personal resonance. Let’s see how Kanye West respect those two principles.

Cultural resonance

« Fuck you and your corporation, Y’all niggas can’t control me ». New slaves

From his attempt to be a president to his countless scandal on Twitter, saying that Ye is uncontrollable is an euphemism. And this, undoubtedly prove that he’s crazy but It also shows that he is free from any outside constraint.

Cultural bedrock

Freedom is a value that is at the core of our democracies and, in general, in all western countries. Here is one reason why the craziness of Kanye may be a positive thing. Indeed, several categories are depicted by the handbook to understand what constitute cultural resonance and cultural bedrock is one of its components. Cultural bedrock is a set of values that are shared by a large amount of people.

Sometimes Ye goes too far, so far that he polarizes the public opinion. But instead penalizing him, it has brought him to his position of cultural figure.

Meaning contradiction

In Brand experience and management, it is also said that a company increases its cultural resonance by having a portfolio of brands which contain opposite market position or by defending controversial ideology. In the case of Kanye West, obvious narcissism and defending conservatist ideas places him has a controversial individual.

To sum up, Ye can be considered as a cultural figure because his actions reflect values rooted in our society even if they are pushed to the point of being controversial. In my opinion, his atypical personality is also the source of personal resonance. Indeed, I think that Kanye’s fans feel intimate with him and have a feeling of self-connection with the celebrity.

Personal resonance

For any person who follows a little bit Kanye’s career, this seems like a paradox. After the distrack “Facts” in which he clearly criticizes Nike*, prazing the swoosh brand doesn’t make any sense.

* Nike, Nike treat employees just like slaves » Fact

But if we look at the tweet he posted after we can read that he wants to collaborate with Nike when he will be one of Adidas’s chairman. This apparent ambiguity stays in fact coherent with one of Kanye’s most important values: bring communities together. For French speaker, I recommend you watch the YouTube video of Hyconiq Mag “parlons du cas Kanye” to know more about this characteristics of Kanye.

Intimacy

I think that this statement has polarized Ye’s audience between those who know him very well and those who don’t know him that deeply. According to Handbook on brand and experience management, doing things like giving privileges to people who knows well the brand create intimacy between the most engaged customer and the company.

The last thing that can make people feeling closer to Ye is that he can be considered has a role model. First known has a beatmaker, Ye managed to become a rapper and a designer despite all the obstacle he faced.

Self-connection

His career is a life lesson for those who don’t dare to follow their passion. In this sense we can speak of self-connection. Self-connection Is when a brand helps consumer to resolve their identity problems.

Le mot de la fin

I can totally understand if you think that this tweet analyse is far-fetched. However, this investigation aimed at explaining a model to understand what the origins of brand power are. There are other reasons that participate to brand meaning resonance but the I’ve written about those who were in my opinion the most interesting to explain Kanye’s influence. If you want to know what all the factors of brand meaning resonance are, you can find a scheme that resume it bellow.

Have a nice day 😉

Dylan