So much of today’s focus for marketers revolves around building a brand, creating brand loyalty with consumers, and finding ways to leverage customer touch points into more tangible social ROI and sales.

This weekend I curled up with Aaker on Branding, a new book by David Aaker, who is regularly commended for his ‘collective genius in the critical discipline of brand management.’ Aaker is a well-known marketing expert, professor, and Vice Chairman at Prophet, a leading brand and marketing consultancy. He is the creator of the Aaker Model, and an expert on building brands through brand equity.

In reading Aaker on Brands it only re-affirmed for me how much, and how fast the marketing world is evolving and how Pixlee will play a critical role. Throughout the book, I ear-marked places where Pixlee helps solve the demands and problems of 21st-century marketers:Customer’s Sweet Spots: Aaker talks about looking for a customer “sweet spot” and finding a “shared interest” idea or program that will involve connecting the brand with that sweet spot. As Aaker says in the book, “to connect with a customer sweet spot provides avenues to a relationship much richer than that of an offering based relationship that, for most brands, is driven by a functional benefit and is relatively shallow and vulnerable.” Pixlee’s ability to identify sweet spots and create engaging experiences around them, enable brands to build equity through a shared interest with their customers.

‍Find and Leverage Customer Stories for Branding Ideas: In today’s digital age, I fully believe this is one of the most powerful ways to build a brand. One of the largest strengths of Pixlee’s platform is the ability to find those individual stories online, spotlight those most passionate about a brand, and identify the brand’s most engaging content.

‍Digital is a Crucial Brand-Building Tool: The growth of digital is one of the major market and consumer trends that is enabling Pixlee to provide value to our customers. The need for a strong digital component of your brand is essential, and photos play an important role in the digital messaging of your brand. Pixlee makes it easy for brands to leverage the voice of their own consumers by identifying and connecting with individuals throughout the brand’s digital ecosystem at a 1:1 level.