Boring people make boring brands that die

Brand Love is the new currency in this new new economy
Branding of the 20th century was about logos, advertising and retail stores. But in this new 21st century economy, they are shifting to ideas, experiences and ubiquitous purchase moments. Brand Love is the new currency as ideas create a bond, power and profit, beyond what the product itself could achieve. The most modern brands like Starbucks, Whole Foods, Facebook, Beats by Dre, Tesla, Uber and Netflix have captured the imagination of the modern consumer. Each has a clearly defined brand idea that consumers could likely explain, but there is no real advertising we can remember, no tag line we can even recite and yet consumers are big fans of each brand. These brands combine big ideas and amazing experiences to create a feeling, they find new ways to tell their brand story that has spread like wildfire. The culture has become the product, the values have become the brand claims and the new story telling has become the most outspoken consumers influencing their friends and families.

You have to love WHAT you do and live WHY you do it.

Being boring will kill your brand. Not just boring people, but boring minds. Marketers in the new world need to be fueled by their passion and put everything they have into their work. They need to be guided by an underlying purpose for why they do what they do. Brand Leaders need to learn how to be a visionary, creative, emotional, demanding brand driven leader, and avoid being a boring, rational, product driven manager. Everyday, you need to get to the point where you say “I love it”, which is the best bar for making great work. If you don’t love what you do, how do you expect your consumer to love your brand. Where passion meets purpose, you will find that passion is dialed up to new level when you know why you do what you do. It will consume you, energize you, fuel you and push you to go from good to great.

Brand Love is the new currency.

The more LOVED a brand is by consumers, the more POWERFUL and PROFITABLE that brand will be. Brands move along the BRAND LOVE CURVE, increasing the bond they have with consumers as they move from ‘Indifferent’ to ‘Like It’ to ‘Love It’ and finally to the ‘Beloved Brand’ stage. Boring brands get stuck at 'Indifferent' or 'Like It', while the most beloved brands are interesting, engaging and break through the clutter. The tight bond beloved brands create with consumers becomes a source of power that makes your brand more powerful in every point of negotiation, whether that is with the very consumers that love you, who feel more and think less, with competitors who can’t figure out how to duplicate the emotional bond you have created, with suppliers just dying to be part of your team, with any form of media who want to showcase your story and with any key influencer that wants to spread your story. Once you have power, and win every negotiation point, the money will flow in, with higher price points, lower costs, more share and an easy entry into new categories.

Consumers love Ideas. They like products.

In a crowded branded marketplace, where we see 5000 brand messages a day, consumers connect with BIG IDEAS that help simplify brand messages in ways that is easily understood and remembered. Boring brands sell products, while beloved brands create big idea that are own-able in the consumers’ mind and heart and served up in a motivating enough message that changes consumer beliefs and behaviors. The role of the BIG IDEA is to simplify the brand message with an outward expression of the BRAND SOUL, which is a collection why you do what you do (purpose) what is important to you (values) and how you can help consumers (role).

Consumers love brands who love them

For beloved brands, everything has to start and end with the consumer in mind. Boring brands get stuck talking about themselves all the time, almost forgetting about the consumer. They talk endlessly about features and claims. Boring brands try to be everything to everyone, and end up nothing to anyone. Beloved brands get in the shoes of your consumer and speak in their voice. You need to define a very focused target market, and using consumer insights and consumer enemy to connect with consumers. Boring brands are consumed while beloved brands are experienced. When consumers experience the brand, they either accept or reject it based on how it matches up to the Big Idea. Consumers who are continually satisfied become loyal and develop a bond with brand. Consumers transform this bond into a reputation they spread. The idealized state for a brand is when the brand reputation perfectly matches up to the brand soul. To ensure delivery of the brand’s Soul, you need to line up all 5 consumer touch points underneath simple Big Idea. Create a simple brand promise that separates your brand from competitors, based on being better, different or cheaper. Use your brand story to motivate consumers to think, feel or act, while beginning to own a reputation in the mind and hearts of consumers. A fundamentally sound product, staying at the forefront of trends and using technology to deliver on your brand promise. The moment of truth as consumers move through the purchase cycle and use channels, messaging, processes to make the final decision. Turn the usage of your product into an experience that becomes a ritual and favorite part of their day.

The desire to be loved guides your brand’s strategy and execution

Boring brand leaders get stuck in the analytics, but a good brand funnel system should allow you to measure and track brand love. Brand funnel becomes thicker as the brand becomes more loved. It’s not just about driving particular numbers but about moving them from one stage to the next. To drive TRIAL you need to gain CONSIDERATION first (the brain) and then you need to move the consumer towards purchase and through the experience. To drive LOYALTY (the heart) you need to create experiences that deliver the promise and use tools to create an emotional bond with the consumer. AWARENESS is never enough, anyone can get that. But consideration is the point you start to see that your brand idea starts to connect and move the consumer. We can see below how you can use voice of consumer and market indicators to determine where you are on the brand love curve.

We use where you are on the Brand Love Curve to focus your brand on what strategy to guide your next move. This can help provide your overall focus of the strategy. Brands at the Indifferent stage should be trying to establish the brand in the consumers mind, but those at the Like It stage that want to go to the next stage have to create a bigger following by trying find a way to separate your brand from others. Brands at the Love It stage should tug at heartstrings of their consumers to tighten bond with your most loyal. And those brands at the Beloved stage should be trying to continue the magic and get loyalists to speak on your behalf. We've mapped out 16 core brand strategies to help guide your brand plans.

Once you know the overall strategy, you can begin mapping where your consumer stands on the Brand Love Curve and begin layering in the execution. We use a consumer buying system that reflects the brand funnel and provide executional options to power each part of the buying system. Brands at the indifferent stage should focus on managing the awareness-consideration-search, while brands at the Like It stage should be looking to separate your brand from others and close the deal at the purchase moment. As it moves to the Love It stage, it becomes about turning satisfied consumers into repeating and loyal, while the Beloved stage turns loyalty into outspoken fans that then drive awareness for other consumers. We see the power of the most beloved brands using social media as a tool for influencing awareness among new potential users. I'm still in shock when I see loved brands continue to spend 100% of their money on awareness driving TV ads with a basic product message. WE KNOW WHAT YOU DO--YOU HAVE TOLD US FOR 40 YEARS!!!

When judging execution, you should THINK with strategy and GO with your instincts. Great marketing should attract attention, be about the brand, communicate the story, and stick in the consumers mind. Boring brand leaders get stuck over thinking things and forget their instincts. Or they think about what others will think. The best brand leaders find ways to balance their thinking and instincts, to follow their passion. When thinking, we recommend you ask two questions: Is it on strategy and does it have long-term potential to help the brand? When going with instincts, you should ask "do you love it and try to assess your gut feel for if it's good. Strategy is based on slow reflective thinking and instincts are fast responsive thinking. Learn to do both.

We hope we've shown you how brand love can carry throughout every part of running your brand. Follow your passion by loving everything you do. Let your purpose guide your energy every day by living why you do it.

Stop being boring. Get people to fall in love with your brand

We offer brand coaching, where we promise to make your brand better by listening to the issues, providing advice that challenges you, and coaching you along a strategic pathway to reaching your brand’s full potential.

For our brand leader training, we promise to make your team of brand leaders better, by teaching sound marketing fundamentals and challenging to push for greatness so that they can unleash their full potential. Feel free to add me on Linked In, or follow me on Twitter at @belovedbrands If you need to contact me, email me at [email protected] or phone me at 416 885 3911