Geoffrey Colon Explains The Importance of Transparent Brand Management

Geoffrey is the Head of Brand Studio at Microsoft Advertising, which can mean a lot of things in this day and age. Geoffery’s team develops a number of advertising solutions in search, native, and display that they offer to their business partners at all sizes. Geoffrey has been at Microsoft for 7 years, and before that was working in the agency and tech sectors. He enjoys this line of work because it's constantly changing and evolving, keeping him on his toes. Geoffrey mentions that it’s more than just working on the specific Microsoft area’s, they own Minecraft as well as LinkedIn and he works with the people at the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions for thought leadership and ad solutions. They are still mostly separate so they can continue to be their own brand outside of Microsoft.

Geoffrey is really excited about brand purpose and marketing with purpose. He see a lot of businesses who write off this way of thinking as irrelevant or a waste of time, but with a lot of higher cost products it is a very important piece to think about. Consumers are more interested in purchasing or using products that are sustainable, and they wonder how the company is run or if the employees are treated well. He has noticed this trend of consumers asking deeper questions growing significantly since COVID-19 hit the world, as well as the Black Lives matter movement gaining a following. “Managing a brand in this day in age, in 2020, is probably the hardest thing to do because it’s not about just the four P’s anymore. It's about that fifth P which is, ‘Hey what is the purpose of this brand?’” A lot of people are looking for this extra enrichment and nod to social justice and with this comes a greater need for band marketers and directors to manage this need.

Geoffrey sees the connection between the B-Corporation successful businesses and the right practices that people are starting to look for. Having the B-Corp certification shows the public and potential employees that this is a safe and sustainable place of work so you don’t have to take their word for it. With this new social movement, comes a different way of thinking about investment, Geoffrey argues. A “new social investment movement” that is picking up speed that allows investors to decide to take larger sums of their revenue and put it into societal impact. It’s okay to not make so much money in your investments, but rather provide good sustainability to later generations and be transparent about what they do with their revenue. Geoffrey mentions you may lose customers by working this way, some people might not agree with this way of thinking, but a lot of reasons some companies work this way is because they gain more die hard customers that fit more with their brand.

Looking for a better way to communicate with your following and get your message out there? There are lots of tools anybody can use, Geoffrey says. Canva, the tool that allows anyone to design content quickly and easily, has been a liberation for many. Along with website builders like Squarespace and Wix, you don’t have an excuse to get yourself out there anymore. You put all of these elements together, and you have elevated your brand.

Geoffrey gets inspiration from:

• Meeting interesting people through work & social media
• Watching live streams of different creatives
• Meditation apps for confidence

Written by Darian Kovacs, host of the Marketing News Canada News Show and founder of Jelly Digital Marketing and PR.