8 Reasons Misery Loves Your Non-Human Company

If you read this blog on occasion, chances are you have read me ramble on human companies. With so much interesting thinking on this subject, I want to try to collect some good soundbites here. Please feel free to share your own submissions as I think I’ll continue to update this post. For now, though, here are 8 reasons why human companies are winning today:

1. People are more conscious than companies

‘Brands will be built on cultural and social missions, not commercial propositions. What actually matters to people is having a point of view on the world, a cultural mission to rally around.’ (Kay)

‘What would your brand do if diagnosed with just one year to live?’ (King)

2. People are more generous than companies

‘Until brands push past messaging and start more consistently providing people with ideas, emotions, actions [and utility], they should expect the consumer to avoid eye contact and walk right by’ (King)

Tom is a generous human

3. People have better stories than companies

Whereas corporate communications typically come in sporadic, repetitive campaigns, we tend to prefer ongoing stories with depth and complexity. People’s stories are more coherent and compelling – they’re made up of related smaller accounts that form an evolving narrative. (Isakson, Grant, Kay)

‘Brands live in a cultural space, and culture is far richer, deeper, complex and nuanced than 99.9% of marketing. Therefore, marketing will be more culturally interesting if it is made up of lots of coherent ideas vs consistently repeating one idea.’ (Kay)

‘If you are going to invite yourself into someone’s living room you have a duty not to shout at them or bore them or insult their intelligence. On the other hand, if you are a charming guest and you entertain them or amuse them or tell them something interesting, then they may like you a bit better and then they may be more inclined to invite you over again. (Fedwick)

4. People are smaller than companies

‘We used to rely on the security of big companies. That’s why we worked for them. And hired them. And put our money in them. But with the recent collapse all that’s changed. Now it’s a risk to do business with the big ones. We simply don’t trust companies anymore. We trust people. Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth. Trust is the new competitive advantage.’ (Bregman)

5. People are more accountable than companies

Sincerity and accountability are crucial when facing tough times:

“I know that many tears were shed today, both by laid-off and non-laid-off employees alike. Given our family culture, our layoffs are much tougher emotionally than they would be at many other companies. I’ve been asked by some employees whether it’s okay to twitter about what’s going on. Our Twitter policy remains the same as it’s always been: just be real, and use your best judgement.” – Tony Hsieh of Zappos

JetBlue

Maple Leaf Foods

6. People are nicer than companies

Companies are not social. Companies are commercial. They have explicitly commercial objectives… This is possibly why companies find it so hard to act socially and, by extension, in social media. They have to act without any thought to immediate financial return. (Yakob)

Frank is a real, caring, person from Comcast

7. People are quicker than companies

It’s hard for big companies (and agencies) to compete with the speed of inspired individuals. It’s hard to be nimble. It’s scary to launch and learn. It takes a lot of constant monitoring and hands on responding. (Gaffney)

Tiger Fan Commercial uploaded shortly after this unbelievable moment:

8. People are more foolish than companies

‘Without a few scatterbrains on the payroll, innovation would never happen. New ideas come from divergent thinking, not convergent thinking.’ (Neumeier)

‘The new kinds of successful mass brand do what luxury brands have done previously: give you little bits of magic that nobody will probably ever see.’ (Earls)