The Mindset of Brand

Your personal brand as well as the brand you slap on a product are the same. Let’s say you’re thirsty and you’d love to get a soda. You now decide between two different soda brands of the same flavor. Which did you choose? Why? Did you pick one similar brand flavor over another?

See, for me a brand lives in the mind. They live in our perception rooted in experience. The brand experience people live is more profound than any high-level build quality or ability of mass production. You can have the strongest equipment on the planet or the most readily available product on the planet but that’s not what makes people fall in love with your brand. For some, those may be true. Shallow love for convince and so-so quality. ??

What happens when supply and demand shifts out of your favor? When someone makes more of something than you.? When someone makes a better quality than you?

Well, good luck with that level of loyalty . . . ??

Here’s my point, when I think of a brand, I think of the experience. Let’s take the most iconic battle of them all Coke VS Pepsi. I’d pick Pepsi. No, I didn't choose it because of the fact that it can’t hold fizz longer than the second you open it. I picked it because of my experiences growing up. When I see Pepsi, I think of my dad. I think of him working for Pepsi in the 90’s. I think of him drinking Pepsi 24/7 and chain smoking cigarettes in the garage. I think of him blasting AC/DC and Def Leopard. I also vividly recalling him using half full Pepsi cans as ash trays… a lesson I learned the hard way. A lesson about never drinking from a random open Pepsi can laying around the house.

When I see Pepsi, I feel the memories of how my experiences were shaped around that product. When I see Coke, I think of a soda that can hold its fizz for 80 years after you open it. I think of a classic well known product that is seen everywhere all around the world and a logo that can transcend spoken language. I don’t relate to Coke personally no matter how popular it is. To be fair, I don’t drink much soda in general anymore and would pick a Hint water over both of them any day. That’s just my personal taste.

When it comes to brands, I subconsciously and consciously think of the experiences that shaped my view around that product. If it’s a new product that I’ve never had before, well then I take the chance on the new experience. I’ll know one way or the other how I feel.

Keith Hawkins

Co-Founder of CaratX

Founding Creative Artist of The L.S.H.O. Art gallery