From the dashboard to the couch

"It is a melancholy truth that the more expert I have become, the less my expertise is valued."

So laments Jim Carroll of BBH in an article which questions what brand planning should be about.

It's a good article and argues that planners should be strategic psychoanalysts rather than merely strategic doctors, looking for meaning rather than simply gathering information about symptoms and prescribing a likely cure.

I'd go one step further.

Psychoanalysis, in the Freudian sense, is still about illness. Illness of the mind, but still a "non-well" state. It's about going from a problem (ill) to a solution (well).

Analytical Psychology, in the Jungian sense, is about more than that. It is about human potential and development. It's about going from OK/goodish to The Best you can possibly be.

Surely this is a more inspiring way to look at brands.

We can search for meaning, of course, but that's not the whole story. "Thinking" - relating to meaning is only one of the four modes of perception that Jung outlined. In addition there are sensing, feeling and intuiting.

A brand dashboard is all very well but it doesn't tell you about your potential, or where you are heading.