Sony has a soul. They proved with the opening of their PS4 announcement video that they know who they are and what they're doing.
While profits are important, because a business can't survive without them, staying true to the soul of your brand will keep the profits rolling in and make them grow - a lot.
Know what your company is about. What's your mission? Your vision? Your purpose? What do you represent? This is your brand's "soul". Knowing it, staying true and coordinating all of your marketing around it will build a company with staying power.
It has to be bigger than the "small stuff". That low level viewpoint of what you and your customers are doing day to day. It is the ESSENCE that you represent.
And it should weave throughout and permeate every message that comes from your company. Every promo piece, every email, every press release, every customer service call, internally and externally. It should be completely ubiquitous throughout your organization and be reflected, no matter how subtle or overt, in everything you do.
And a note on the song at the opening of this video: It took me a while to find it because there aren't many posts on it yet. But I did.
The song is called Monster Hospital by Metric and you can download it on iTunes.
Enjoy! -- Toli