I’ve been chewing on this idea of “Human Branding” and how corporate brands are simply extrapolations of human personalities. Nothing ground breaking there, but framing it in human terms makes it easier to have a common frame of reference for discussions about branding and its applications. Will be developing this thought further in the future posts.
Posted: October 31st, 2008 under Brand Inspiration, Branding Theory.
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Do you expect your physician to make you happy, or to keep you healthy? Your lawyer to make you feel comfortable or to protect your interests? In the relationship between agencies and their clients, the same dynamic should exist. As branders, our role is to use our talents to increase our clients’ revenue, not to keep them feeling unthreatened by our concepts. This requires that we frequently present challenging ideas, even ideas that scare us. In fact, true innovation demands it.
Posted: October 27th, 2008 under Brand Inspiration, Branding Theory, The Best of.
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Here’s a $766, 398.08 (formerly $1million) dollar idea that can make a profound difference in the way your brand assets perform. Apply it and prosper. Ignore it, and you’ll continue to wonder why, inspite of having spent lots of money, you’re still not moving your revenue needle.
The future belongs to the boldest brands. Step into the spotlight and own the stage.
Posted: October 21st, 2008 under Branding Theory, The Best of.
Comments: 4
Inspired by a post at Hugh Macleod’s Gaping Void blog about Mark Earls’ notion of a Purpose Idea: ” . . .the ‘What For?’ of a business, or any kind of community. What exists to change (or protect) in the world, why employees get out of bed in the morning, what difference the business seeks to make on behalf of customers and employees and everyone else?”
At QV, our Purpose Idea centers around the sacredness of profit in its many guises: for our clients, ourselves, and the people who are exposed to our work. What’s yours?
Posted: October 20th, 2008 under Branding Theory, The Best of.
Comments: 3
First, what is a brand anyway?Second, what are some of the best practices we can observe and implement from the oldest, most enduring brands in the world: religions? Here’s a quick examination of the role of community, iconography, language, music and sound, and architecture.(I think “powerful” was on my mind today, eh?)
Posted: October 15th, 2008 under Branding Theory.
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Thoughts on brand differentiation following Pilobolus’ opening night performance in New York. What does it mean to be different, and why is it important?
Posted: July 5th, 2008 under The Big Picture, Branding Theory.
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In engineering, the angle of repose is defined as “the maximum angle of slope (measured from horizontal plane) at which loose, cohesionless material will come to rest on a pile of similar material.” Put more simply, if you’ve ever slowly released a handful of sand from your hand into a pile, you’ve observed that the height of the sand pile continues to diminish until that moment when the grains stop sliding down from their apex, and the pile of sand comes to rest. 
The slope of that pile is its angle of repose. Out of the multiplicity of possible heights, this is those thousands of grains’ ideal height. Repeat this exercise a hundred times, and you’d, largely, get the same result.After reading an article in this months Harvard Business Review “Authenticity: Is it Real or Marketing” I returned to this ongoing dialogue I’ve had with myself about this idea, and how it applies to our clients’ brands.
We all have our ambitions, professionally and personally. I imagine those grains of sand do too–they’d probably like to stand much taller than they can– to be the biggest pile of sand on the block–the pile against which all other piles are measured! But, in fact, the pile can only be as tall as its physics will allow–the height at which it is naturally stable. So it is with brands. The sooner a brand comes to find and accept its angle of repose, the sooner it will become its most effective self. It’s most authentic self. Ultimately, where it, the company, the employees, and the people who purchase their goods and services will be most comfortable.
Apple is a brand that will soon test its angle of repose. Part of Apple’s cult like appeal has been the size of its market share. It was able to be the rebel precisely because it was not The Man. So now, as its market share grows and white earbuds fill sidewalks like iPhone commercials fill airwaves, Apple’s very essence: exclusivity, rarity, antiestablishmentarianism* is being threatened by its popularity. At a certain point, “The Computer for the Rest of Us” will be all of us. The company that urged us to “Think Different” may come to represent similarity.
In many respects this will be good. Apple makes beautiful products that perform beautifully, and having more people buy them and enjoy them will result in increased revenues, increased shareholder value, more products, more stores, more enterprise penetration . . . more, more, more. Until, more becomes less. Until the brand has found its apex, and its base can support no higher heights, and it comes to rest at its angle of repose. Beyond this angle, Apple’s brand equity will begin to erode, and will require a fairly radical repositioning.
Toyota seems to be respectfully approaching Scion’s ideal slope. Their conscious restraint of the brand’s ambition offers many lessons on how to create an authentic brand. Their patient optimizing for a loyal, niche, cult-like following has created admirable success achieved by minimizing mass media, and delivering unique, innovative brand experiences for owners and potential buyers. By slowly and patiently releasing the grains of their brand, observing what happens, and aiming only for their optimum height, they’ve built a brand foundation that can endure.
There are many other brand examples ranging from to Threadless.com to Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon: who understand that there is an inverse and proportional relationship between availability and devotion: more of one creates less of another. That creating scarcity through restraint of production, mass advertising . . .creates exclusivity, while ubiquity leads to disaffection. To my eyes they appear content with their angle of repose, find comfort in it, and in doing so create dividends for their brands and the people that love them.
In the end, few brands can grow to be mountains, and shouldn’t try to. Be true and authentic to the physics of your brand–aim not for height, but for greatness that resonates with your audience. There’s nothing wrong with being a most excellent hill.
*Oh God, why couldn’t we be playing Scrabble!
Posted: February 27th, 2008 under Branding Theory.
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What is a “Brand”? Some intangible abstraction? The ethereal composite of vision, sound, touch, and emotion? Brands are that, but they are more. Recent research in neurobiology suggests that ideas are more than vapor. They are tangible and have physical residence in our brains. And now, scientists (and you) are actually able to see what the physical structure of an idea is.
In layman’s terms, nerves are comprised of branch-like structures called dendrites. Each dendrite branches into twig-like protrusions called dendritic spines–up to 10,000 of them. These spines are formed by your real-life experiences, so that if one is consistently exposed to similar experiences they literally grow and take shape within our brains.For example, from the moment you were first born, you had millions of micro experiences you called “mother”: her touch, her voice, her eyes, her skin, her warmth, her spirit. . . everything good, bad, and indifferent that you have ever experienced about her resulted in a unique dendritic structure in your brain that is the repository of the idea, Mother. When you hear the word “mother”, your brain goes to that dendrite to retrieve “her”. So it is with “love”: a dendrite composed of your joys, your pain, your dreams, your disappointments . . . and, scientists postulate, all other ideas.Including brands.
Exactly how dendrites learn and memorize is still not clearly understood, but great progress is being made. Even at the relatively primitive level of our current understanding, we can apply two basic, yet profound principles to branding and marketing.
Just as we burn files onto CDs, memories are burned into our neurons. But these basic units of memory, “memes”, must be constantly recycled so that the memories remain there. Brand building and retention requires two primary components:
1. Consistent presentation of a branded experience: frequency over time.
2. A consistent experience of the brand: continuity.
Inconsistency in either component will lead to either memory decay, or cognitive dissonance: people will simply forget about your brand, or become too confused about what it means, resulting in dendritic atrophy. Essentially, use the dendrites (and use them well) or lose them.
Of all the brands with whom we’ve worked, none has ever practiced these principles more artfully, intelligently, and consistently than Coke. It is safe to assume that a significant portion of the world’s humanity has a dendrite parked in its collective brain called “Coke” whose branches represent the color red, the contour of the bottle, the burn at the back of the throat, the logo wave, and the emotion of “happiness”– sensory experiences their branding efforts have consistently recyled through our synapses over the course of our lives. I encourage you to practice this same wisdom in a way that is true and authentic to your brand.
Finally, while I’ve been writing here about branding, there is a much larger story being told. It’s the story of the mechanics of our humanity, the awareness of which must be accompanied by responsibility. As marketers and branders, our work does, in fact, truly live in the brains of its recipients. Let’s make the most of this opportunity by growing healthy and positive dendrites in the form of great ideas, imagery, sound, and experiences that feed and enrich–leading to profit for both our clients and their consumers.
p.s. Everything is everything.
Photo composite (L-R) : 1. Dendrite 2. Dendrite close-up 3. An elm tree in winter 4. A street map of San Francisco, 5. Satellite photograph of the Mississippi Delta.
Posted: February 19th, 2008 under The Big Picture, Branding Theory.
Comments: 10
With the goal of simplifying life’s quandaries, I’ve had a long-held belief that in order to understand the large, examine the small–that the universe is generally constructed and behaves as atoms do–that one can learn the fundamental skills necessary to swim the English Channel in a lap pool. So it is with understanding the nature and influence of brands: examine the nature of your personal brand, and the essence of corporate brand psychology, positioning, tonality, and the influence of complementary brands becomes more apparent.
“But I don’t have a brand!”
Au contraire, we all do, and to prove it I invite you to complete a profile on a social networking site like, say, Facebook. Observe yourself as you answer each individual field: Political Views, Religious Views, Interests, Activities, Favorite Music . . . to see just how your brand is constructed, and the energy you’re likely to devote to insuring that You™ is perceived by Me™ accurately, flatteringly, and with a level of complexity and nuance that is likely to leave you slightly anxious and fatigued in the process–at least until you reach the point when (after more revisions than you’ll ever admit) you finally exhale and say, “Yes, that’s Me™.”
So what can you as a branding professional take from this? Try this: create a profile page for your company’s brand, answering the questions as though your brand were a person. What music would your brand listen to? What television show would she watch? Her favorite quote? Her favorite activities? Then find a picture of her. Share this profile with your colleagues, and use it as a point of reference for discussions related to how your brand is constructed and perceived by people vs. how you want it to be perceived. The ensuing discussions will likely be far less abstract and jargon laden than usual, and more human, which, finally, is what the most effective brands are: just like Us™.
Posted: February 11th, 2008 under Branding Theory.
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