If you HAVE to brand, use Lovemarks
Let me preface this one with a little rant:Branding and/or Lovemarks and/or anything else you want to call it is not an exercise in spinning, prettifying or creating some sort of utopic ideal of what you are going to pretend to be in order to sell lots of stuff. It has to be authentic. Branding/Lovemarking is taking a look at what you offer as a company and finding a way to articulate it. However, in the end, if the brand is truly authentic, your customers have already articulated it for you without any big boardroom session.
So, what's the point of branding? Exactly. LOL. Basically, the exercise of 'branding' is merely a beacon to tell executives and investors that marketing is doing their job. ;)
Now, that being said - if I said anything at all - one of my favourite spins on 'branding' is Saatchi & Saatchi's Lovemarks.
What are Lovemarks? (I already love the name, it makes me feel fuzzy)
Lovemarks are those things that cause people to be irrationally impassioned about stuff and services. iPod is a Lovemark. Mini Cooper is a Lovemark. Even Moleskine (a book cover) is a Lovemark.
Lovemarks are things you tell all of your friends and anyone else who will listen about. You want the whole world to throw themselves behind a Lovemark. 'Cause you love it.
Lovemarks have to be Loved and Respected, whereas Brands are just respected and Trends are just loved. Lovemarks have three distinct qualities: Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy. You can't be kind of one or the other. You have to have it all to be a true Lovemark.
In order to have Mystery, you have to have a story. Some Lovemarks tie into mythology. Some have icons. You definitely need to inspire and tie into people's hopes, dreams and ambitions.
By Sensuality, I mean the 5 senses. These aren't rational. These are purely emotional. Think about the first time you caressed the wheel of your new Nano or laid it out to see the reflection off of it's beautiful black body.
Then there is the loooooove of the Lovemark...the Intimacy. Do you feel loved by the Lovemark? This is where a good customer service team comes into play. When I met with Tim at Pandora, he told me that everyone in the office knew who I am...I felt totally loved by Pandora. It was an incredibly intimate moment for me. What have yours been?
Is Ojos a Lovemark?
I think it will be. Not because of the technology. Not because of a logo or a feature.
Ojos will be a Lovemark because it recovers your memories (mystery), displays them for you to reminisce (sensuality) and I know I work for a team of people who really care about your feedback (intimacy).
But that isn't for us to decide...I can just outline the 'goal' in the strategic plan...it is up to every one of you to decide...and your friends...and their friends...and other people you and I have never met...
After agreeing that we want Ojos to be a Lovemark and that we see it being one, Shel and I both came to this conclusion. (It's still my job to write it up, though, ;))
Until then, I encourage everyone to visit Lovemarks and enter their favorite Web 2.0 company or gadget or service or drugstore.
Tags: Lovemarks
3 Comments:
The list of lovemarks on the site has grown musty and strewn with dust-bunnies. The core lovemarks, imo, are those that I've promoted down here in our marketing dept as "identity brands" -- brands that customers associate with their OWN identity. There are many Mac people, but there are no Dell people. You can't really imagine a "typical" Suzuki owner in the way you can imagine a Harley guy. Note that such brands are rarely the market leaders -- their business advantage is mainly in terms of gross margin. They are niche, personalized markets.
The sesnuality aspect of brands like Harley, Leica, and Mac (the first macs were endearingly cute, like children -- hence Berke Breathed's Banana Jr) separate them from software, I'm afraid. I really can't think of a software brand that approaches it, save perhaps for linux (which has displaced sensuality, perhaps in the form of the penguin logo).
There are some dodgy choices in that book with no social responsibility—and when someone loves their Toyota Camry, I might consider taking back that comment. I respectfully disagree with you: for me, it was one scary book, designed to prop up Saatchi clients, with not much advancement on The Hidden Persuaders. The more I read, the more I get frightened—though my first impressions weren’t too bad with Kevin’s exercises at the end of each chapter. Now I ask: where’s the Fonz when you need him to shake Lovemarks’ 1950s society up a bit? ‘Ayyyyy.’
I totally agree with both of you on the points: 1. it was a Saatchi and Saatchi client prop thing, 2. the list of Lovemarks on the website is totally polluted and 3. Branding is dead dead dead....
I do like the concept, though. Storytelling, conversations, customer-centric models...blah blah blah.
And...it is basically why I started writing on the fact that I've become a marketing whore in the following week's posts...
Sigh...the more things change...
;)
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