What's Branding? But Really.

Branding.

The big craze these days.

But, correct me if I’m wrong. Doesn’t it seem like everyone and their cat has become a “branding expert” all of a sudden?

Unfortunately, I have yet to find even one of these “Cracker Jack experts” who has the slightest idea of how branding is accomplished in the mind.

Actually, that’s a lie.

I’ve met a few; true genius scientific minds. However, they are the needles in the ocean.

Truth is, 99.9% of info on branding is wrong. It’s time to demystify this simple yet seemingly scarce wisdom so you can avoid all those “branding landmines” for good.

Pavlov. The originator. He won a noble prize for his ground breaking research into branding in 1904.

You know the story?

Day in day out, Pavlov would rub the meat paste in the dogs mouth as he simultaneously rang the bell. Each day, the sound of the bell became deeply anchored to the taste of the meat.

Soon, no more meat was needed to get the dog salivating to the ring of the bell alone.

Branding is the implanting of an associative memory.

Problem is, most people have no clue how to accomplish this in the mind.

But it’s really easy to do, and it happens to you every single day.

The 3 simple steps to implanting an associative memory into the human mind are:

#1- Consistency

What did Pavlov do? He stayed consistent by associating the meat paste and the sound of the bell together everyday. He knew exactly what he was trying to anchor and he never strayed until the associative memory was installed and completed.

#2- Frequency

Pavlov associated the meat paste to the bell day after day. Every. Single. Day. How can this be related to society?

Think Sunday afternoon football, Sunday morning church, 10 o’clock news, the invention of the 9–5 Monday to Friday J.O.B.

What do they have uncommon? You got it.

They are consistent and frequent. They have consistently dominated those time slots in the minds of the masses. (They are branded in your mind).

#3- Anchoring

The first two are easy.

It’s this 3rd one that requires the deep research and lazer-sharp focus.

Frequency and consistency only create branding when they are connected to an established emotional anchor.

Hun?

“Dumb it down please Gavin.”

You must anchor your logo/message/imagery to the established emotional desire of your perfect buyer you are targeting.

Here are some questions to get your juices flowing:

• What is the emotion you want your customer to feel every time they see your brands logo?
• What do you want their mind to associate with your frequent and consistent message?
• How can you get them to automatically and unconsciously feel exactly how you want them to feel, time and time again?
• How can you dominate a slot in their mind, like coke dominates the soft drink market with the “happiness” anchor, and Harley Davidson does with “Freedom.”

Pavlov’s branding campaign was anchored to the dogs established love for meat. If the dog hated meat, the campaign would have created a negative association, or what I call “backfire branding” and the dog would have been terrified or annoyed when he heard the sound of the bell.

Those are the positive and negative poles of associative branding. Both are rarities.

What’s not rare?

For commercial and personal brands to frequently and consistently deliver a bunch of random messages that anchor nothing but confusion and distrust into the brand logo, tagline or desired identity.

It’s a mess out there… Watch yourself.

To make branding work, start by implanting the associative memory you want your customers to unconsciously accept at an emotional level.

Then take the new and unknown element (the bell) and associate it with a powerful memory that’s already anchored in the mind (taste of juicy meat).

Metaphorically, your target audience is your dog. If you desire a positive response from them, you must glue your identity to a pre-existing emotional anchor that has been proven to elicit the compelling response you want.

When you make this association consistently and frequency, branding will be the effect.

This is a psychological law. Just don’t expect too much too soon. It takes many-a-repetition to get your hungry audience to salivate at the sound of your name.