Harvard famously conducted a study where they discovered that talking about yourself stimulates the same parts of the brain as sex, heroin and cocaine.

When I first read this it made me laugh, but then more worryingly I had the sudden realisation that as someone who's in the realm of branding, talking about yourself is something I actively promote and help clients to do. More to the point, isn't what I'm doing now, sitting down to write this entirely self-gratifying? Are blogs, podcasts prime examples of hogging the mic?

Most brands will typically have conversations with themselves. Marketing teaches about the importance of communication as part of a brand strategy but it's typically a very interior dialogue. The emphasis is entirely reflected on their brand, their values, products, services, everything they're told their customers 'want' to hear. So it is then entirely self-gratifying.

So do brands need to learn better conversations skills as opposed to communication skills?

Talking separates us from the animals

It's sort of an obvious statement, sure but if you consider that we managed to evolve purely through our ability to communicate with each other. OK, it may have been a mouthful of grunts at first, but over time (a lot of time) we forced our bodies to significantly change. Speech became so important to us that the position of our voice boxes actually shifted to allow us to speak and at the same time also made it possible for us to be choked to death. That's quite a trade-off.

Tech is not connecting us. Not really.

These days brand agencies talk endlessly a lot about customer engagement, but it's mostly in the context of digital connections. 

Since the year 2000 and the introduction of the smartphone, we've been brought app after app from developers claiming to bring us closer together, but none of these have provided a platform for actual conversation. And by 'conversation' I don't mean leaving a comment or reply on someone's blog, youtube channel or Facebook page. 

The only thing tech has enabled us to do is help avoid having conversations. And most of us like that, because conversations can be awkward.

Tech helps us to avoid looking awkward and unprepared. Social media allows us to edit ourselves, delete and remedy the occasional faux pas. Let's face it, conversations are messy, demanding and require too much of our attention. You can't script or edit on the fly and it's exhausting. When it comes to conversation, brands are really bad at it.

Conversation is a skill

If our youth are sending on average 100 text messages a day, with their heads in social apps 4 hours a day, it means they're not having actual conversations. Conversation as any reporter, podcaster or talkshow host will tell you is a skill that has to be learned and earned.

Understanding how to think, reason and engage during a conversation while remaining present in the conversation isn't easy. We're all guilty of tuning out of what someone is saying and into our own thoughts on what's being said, waiting for them to stop talking about the man they met with two heads so we can tell them about the man we met who had three.

Conversations can easily turn into one-upmanship and we seldom actually just listen to what the other person has to say. As active as a brand can be on social media, there's very little dialogue actually going on.

Even the stupidest person in the world knows something you don't.

Information, skills, experiences have been shared and passed down through our ability to listen and understand each other. If your mouth is open, you're not learning.

It's easy for a brand to forget that their customers are people. Marketing and ad agencies have everyone assigned to specific audiences, made up of sub-dividing categories, specifics and tags and that make us all feel less categorically human. It's unflattering to see yourself depicted as a 'target audience' in a brands marketing strategy, but that's the reality. Brands get to know us through measurement alone, by recording unique web hits, keyword searches, purchase history, the comments we leave, the posts we 'thumbs up' and the people we follow.

Brands need to check in once in a while

From a marketing perspective, it's far easier, quicker and convenient for a brand to accept the cold data. If there were a worldwide report on the question 'How are you feeling today?', then the marketing answer would come back in the form of percentage splits. If you stopped someone in the street and asked them the same question, then the answer would be in the form of a meaningful, genuine conversation, richer in content, and more personal to the individual. And that's why conversations matter.

Find your driveway moment

Brands must stimulate conversation. If a brand is to excel then it needs to become a person that its customers can identify with, relate to and listen to intently. People love stories, and so if a brand demands the attention of everyone in the room, then it should at least have a good story to tell. Having a story to tell is essential for a brand and every successful brand has one. If your brand honestly doesn't have a story that fully justifies what you do, why you do it, your whole purpose for being, then you arguably shouldn't exsit.

Your customers don't just want to buy your products or use your services, they want to feel connected, engaged and invested in your story and what you're saying.

A brand story should have a real 'driveway moment'. It's a US term that relates to a moment when you're in your car listening to a story on the radio that's so interesting, as you pull up to your house you remain sat in your driveway because you have to hear the end of the story. If your brand has anything packed away in its brand strategy backpack, it should be a great story, with a great beginning, middle and an end. They call it the 'story arc', and you can Google that when I'm done talking.

So what potentially can a brand learn by listening? The same things I expect a chef could learn by dining among guests in his own restaurant. This article was intended to be about having conversations from a brand perspective as I figure that most brands have never actually get to know their customers other than through a report. But essentially we need all could benefit from having better conversations in our lives. Sure it takes time and practice and being able to just sit and listen is the hardest skill to master. So let's have more conversations. Genuinely ask people how they are, and be fully prepared to hear their life story. Pick up the phone and have all those awkward conversations you've been avoiding. 

Engage in conversations with people who don't agree with you because who knows, you may find they're right.