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The future of branding is community-born

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It was just over the weekend that Discord announced its new brand. A “Blurple” brand, not quite blue, not quite purple, re-envisioning the iconic mascot Clyde to render it more print-friendly and… well, cute.

Discord’s new brand was welcomed with mixed feelings by the community – some loved it, others not so much. Arguably, that happens with any rebrand; we know that people don’t love change, and when you have a community of over 150 million active users a month, someone is bound to throw some criticism at you. Yet, Discord’s new brand is incredibly consistent with its past, and one may even say that it’s a significant enhancement over the previous brand.

I will not bore you to death with an absolutely subjective review of the Discord brand now. It wouldn’t be interesting nor fun to read my ramblings on one of my most beloved platforms out there. But there is one element that is definitely valuable in Discord’s rebrand, one that the Discord blog mentioned almost on the background of the whole rebrand process: it was born from the community.

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Born from the community, for the community

It isn’t usual for brands to conduct consumer research before a rebrand – in fact, that should really be the norm. No brand should ever approach a change of identity before tapping into their consumer base first. Many of those brands, however, lose touch with their community shortly after, and do not follow up nor give much credit to the ones who helped build the new identity. This was not the case for Discord.

Since its inception in 2015, the instant messaging app has always been about creating communities. Its servers are a “place” for everybody to make friends, find connections and have some fun, with gaming or otherwise. It makes sense, then, that the Discord new brand remains loyal to its communities, simply enhancing colours and the Clyde mascot, but still keeping its core identity at heart.

Before rebranding, Discord gathered feedback from thousands of its most active users to learn what the platform meant to them. This is pretty standard practice. The brand, however, was then evolved by looking at all the fan arts online, discussing with the community and bringing it into the conversation, connecting the business side of Discord with its most affectionate users.

Despite all the controversies Discord has had to face since birth, it remains a highly human, personal and authentic brand. One only need read the post on the Discord blog to get an idea of their lovely, informal tone of voice. Clearly, the tone is appropriate with its most prominent target demographics – mostly younger people connecting online to play a game together. But the same could be said about Twitter’s new identity; and literally everybody is on Twitter these days.

The truth is that few brands are truly community-born like Discord. Twitter’s an obvious alternative, but a rare one nonetheless. These brands tap into their communities with the power of technology, reaching more people than ever before, doing research their own way to build something that truly resonates with their users. As a result, and paired with a pleasantly conversational tone of voice, they don’t appear to be broadcasting products or sales onto their customers; they appear as if they were part of the very community they’re trying to build.

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Twitter introduced a new identity in February ahead of its new community-focused features. It's glorious.

The future of branding is informal, authentic and human

The digital age has made us more connected, and the Covid crisis taught us the power of technology while apart. We are still emotionally closer, and as we all rush to hug our loved ones once again, we are bound to remember the worst of this past year and how deeply it changed our whole attitude to life.

Brands should not ignore this chance to connect with their audiences on a deeper level. It has been said far and wide on these pages, but the most powerful and future-proof brands will be the ones who don’t fear exposing their most human side. Brands that build communities around their identities, whether their services are about building communities (like Discord) or not, are the ones who will experience more growth in the years to come. Suits and ties may look professional, but they also have the potential to make anyone look incredibly dry, sometimes hardly approachable, and perhaps even entitled. You don’t want that as a brand. Not in the decade ahead, at least.

This doesn’t mean that Coca-Cola should build an instant-messaging platform tomorrow, nor that it should be slapping fan arts onto its cans of coke (though… why not?). But if you think that building a community around a food & drink brand makes no sense… just take a look at Oatly and Innocent on social media.


Header image: Discord Blog on Medium
 

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