Fingerspitze
I clicked on a post about branding as I am apt to do. Suddenly the algorithm kicked in & I was bombarded with offers for fill-in-the-blank branding, do-it-yourself strategy & storytelling how-tos that followed me from platform to platform.
By agencies I admire. Yikes.
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The sheer volume made me wonder: Is this some agency PR stunt? A new revenue stream? Am I missing something? Or is it a ploy to reveal “it’s not so easy after all-better hire that pricey branding agency.”
Whatever the objective, I object.
Whether you’re a CPG or B2B, insurgent or incumbent, Brand is your organization’s most valuable asset. The business driver & strategic advantage that differentiates a company from its competition, delivers market value. Creates passion, loyalty & longevity.
It can’t be manufactured like some widget. Or trivialized by some fantastical formula.
It can’t be generated & spit out in seconds despite the dazzling abilities of GPT-5’s & its bold leap forward in creativity.
What these shortcuts fail to acknowledge is an intangible called “Fingerspitzengefuhl” a.k.a. Fingerspitze.
Fingerspitze is a German word that literally means “fingertip feeling”. An intuitive flair or instinct. Someone who has their finger on the pulse of the market and the audience.
Fingerspitze is intuition, emotional resonance & sense of timing that separates memorable brands from forgettable ones. It’s that “je ne sais quoi” that defies logic & conventional wisdom.
Your Spidey-sense. A nose for detecting or understanding something ineffable, yet impactful without needing explicit instructions or prior knowledge.
Great Brands, CEO’s, leaders, artists & yes, even political candidates can have Fingerspitze.
Those with Fingerspitze can pick up on subtle cues in culture. Emerging values & anxieties. Aspirations no focus group or market research can identify, lest articulate. In the famous words of Henry Ford : “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
Algorithmic approaches can mimic what they’ve seen or what’s been fed into their data sets. They can offer speed & accuracy. They can generate plausible, even creative solutions. But, so far, they can’t feel or interpret the human experience with empathy or emotional resonance.
Fingerspitze enables visionary brands, founders & individuals to anticipate future needs & trends that transform the marketplace, fulfill audience desires & introduce innovations that revolutionize how people live, work & behave.
People weren’t clamoring for touchscreen smartphone.
Or asking to sleep in a stranger’s house instead of a hotel.
They didn’t say “Gee, I’d love to drive around in someone’s personal car instead of a taxi."
But Steve Jobs, Brian Chesky & Joe Gebbia, Travis Kalanick & Garrett Camp had Fingerspitze.
Fingerspitze is a competitive advantage. Fingerspitze recognizes the difference between edgy and excessive. Between precise & pitch perfect.
Fashion icon Diana Vreeland once declared: “Give them what they never knew they wanted." That’s true innovation. That’s Fingerspitze.
Sure, follow those formulaic frameworks if you want. They offer a nice set of rules. But those with Fingerspitze defy the rules, play their own game. Succeed by pushing boundaries, embracing contradictions logic can’t comprehend.
Okay, I confess, curiosity got the better of me. And so, I coughed up $39 to give one a whirl. Spoiler alert: It was exactly what I expected. Generic structures, predictable exercises, paint-by-number recipes that produce paint-by-numbers brands.
The irony? By democratizing branding, these templates prove great branding is an art, not a science. Fingerspitze develops through immersion in culture. By studying failure rather than mimicking success. By authentically listening to stories – not statistics. Template sellers want to skip the messy, uncertain process. They are promoting the outcome without the journey.
In the haste to crank out ROI guarantees & steer clear of any risk whatsoever… as AI LLMs fill the world with SLOP, the importance & value of Fingerspitze has never been greater. Don’t get me wrong, I love & use AI all the time, but as far as I can see, it can’t replace the intuitive talent of Fingerspitze.
As we confront the chaos, complexity & uncertainty of our world, we need to better respect & trust our Fingerspitze.