Goodbye global homogeneity?

David Goodhart’s ‘The Road to Somewhere’ is a brilliant articulation of the ultimate dividing line between people in the UK today. It goes a long way to explain why the EU referendum went the way it did. Goodhart describes the difference between the Anywheres and the Somewheres. The former being “a large minority group of the highly educated and mobile, who tend to value autonomy and openness and comfortably surf social change – a group that dominates our society and politics”. And the latter being those who “are more rooted and less well educated, who value security and familiarity and are more connected to group identities than Anywheres”. Guess which group voted which way in the referendum?

Goodhart’s analysis made me think about marketing and the “power” brands we all refer to as examples of how branding should be done. All of them stem from the “Anywhere” world view. In fact, even the marketing that talks “local” is targeting the Anywheres and their desire to mop up experiences as part of their mobile existence.

What if brands truly embraced difference, localness and community, insead of leveraging bits of these things to make their brand appear responsible, connected and modern-day. The beginning of the end for global brand homogeneity? Perhaps.