Brands are the shorthand people use to build trust and expectations. And behind trust and expectations, you can always count on feelings and emotions associated with brands.
Trust and positive expectations often mean ease, confidence, satisfaction, and warmth. Distrust means anxiety, stress, furiousness, and other disconnected feelings.
Because feelings are an essential reason for people to build trust and expectations, caring about audiences' feelings is necessary to work for businesses and organizations.
Hence the need for empathy. Empathy is how we serve people whom we care about. It is the work that allows us to exist and sustain.
When we lose practice or misunderstand empathy, there is hardly any brand for us to build.
There is a clear distinction between conducting a business transaction and building a brand. While anyone can complete a transaction, it takes understanding and a set of skills to create a brand.
