Are Brands Becoming Our New Best Friends?

When I think about communication these days, I wonder whether any of us have the time, or the inclination to look after our friendships with real, live people the way we look after our relationships with the brands that surround us. We talk about posting things to Facebook or to Twitter, but never dwell on how the recipients of our posts or messages have reacted or responded to them. The whole relationship seems to be with Facebook and not with the friends that are supposedly behind the brand name. When we decide to meet someone for a conversation, we talk to them about 'getting together for a Starbucks' rather than 'getting together to catch up on each other's lives'. It would almost seem as if the brand that is facilitating our meeting is a more important part of validating our reason for getting together, than the exchange of information about our lives that will take place. This trend towards brands becoming 'go betweens' between us and other people in our social and professional circles gives them a tremendously powerful role in our lives. Perhaps people wouldn't even bother to get together with a colleague to discuss their vision for their business if their only option was to go to Joe's Coffee Shack? It would appear that in today's commercial environment, we need to feel that our lives, our friendships and our business decisions are validated by the brands through which we choose to conduct our social and business transactions. So what does that mean for how we choose to talk about the role of brands to the audience's that they are trying to appeal to? It would indicate that brands that can insert themselves in people's lives in a way that they become necessary and universally accepted facilitators of the things that we do on a daily basis are going to be the ones that win. It is no longer about providing a simple service or product benefit at a single point in time; it is about being a continuous and consist part of our daily actions and conversations.