I’ve been looking forward to writing this piece for a long time. Why? Because for the better part of the last decade, we haven’t actually seen a revolution in marketing. We’ve seen the steady, predictable evolution of existing phenomena—incremental gains in data tracking, the slow rise of short-form video, the gradual shift to mobile. But as we analyze the landscape of marketing trends 2026, it becomes clear that we were no longer rearranging the furniture in a house we already knew.
(more…)Category: Branding
Do you want to build a strong brand? Companies with strong brands score higher in customer satisfaction, they also earn more and invest less in advertising.
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Six Memetic Strategies To Make Your Product More Memorable
Every entrepreneur would love to see people standing in lines to buy his or her product. The first and obvious step towards this is, of course, offering a product or service people would love. Bear in mind that I did not write a high-quality product. Quality is a subjective term, it means different things to different people. A product people love simply keeps the promise of fulfilling one’s needs. The ice cream sold by a walking salesman at the beach doesn’t have to be top-notch — as long as they chill, people will stand in lines to buy them. There is one more thing company owners often forget. They think that having a great product and telling about it is enough. Yet there is something much stronger than advertising a product: it’s a product that advertises itself. The one that infects others with its mere existence. How do you make a product more memorable?
The first iPod ads featured a black silhouette on a colorful background, and… white earphones. I want that too!
The ice cream on the beach is a great example. You can, of course, see the seller from very far, you can hear him screaming “Cold ice cream!” but there is a greater chance that before he reaches you, you’ll see people eating ice cream. And when you do, you’ll want ice cream for yourself, too, right? When you walk through a park full of people, you might get infected by plenty of product-related ideas: frisbee, running, a new model of a bike… Such need creation is far more effective than traditional advertising. Especially in groups characterized by strong peer influence, such as teenagers. Producers have long been aware of that fact and have been modifying their products slightly so that everybody knows when someone is using their product. When Apple produced first iPods, they faced a problem: when you’re using your iPod, it stays in your pocket. But all it took was adding characteristic white ear-buds and you have yourself a viral idea. Nikon One or Beats use a similar strategy.
Ideas like viruses
Fashion or trend is an idea that spreads. It’s a dream of nearly all producers: to create a fashionable product increases the number of customers exponentially. But how do you go about it? Can you program fashionable? The science behind infectious ideas is called memetics.
The term meme describing an idea that replicates itself by infecting others was coined by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University. In 1976 his book, The Selfish Gene popularized memetics. Just like genes store the information on our appearance, eye color, height and so on, the memes store cultural information: behaviors, fashion, clothes… And just like we are trying to modify genes in order to achieve certain goals, we can also try to modify memes to influence behaviors. The latter is especially interesting for marketers.
Memetics claims that different memes compete for the finite amount of our attention, there are only so many ideas we can consume. The fashion is created from the strongest memes, the ones that won the race for attention. This means there’s no definite way of creating a successful meme, as its success depends not only on its strength but is also dependent on the strength of competition. Though we can take some measures to ensure our meme is stronger. What can we do?
Show, teach, connect
In his book Virus of the Mind the author, Richard Brodie, defines three kinds of memes. If you’re doing any kind of marketing, you should familiarize yourself with them.
- Distinction — when you teach a person to tell a difference between one earphone and the other, he will be more likely to notice what he’s learned to distinct. Sociologists are perfectly aware of this phenomenon: a pregnant woman starts seeing other pregnant women around her. The owners of Alfa Romeo start to realize the streets are full of similar cars. Advertising explains to the masses, why a product is better, but the product should be easy to recognize by itself.
- Strategy — a strategic meme programs us to take a certain action. We keep quiet when in a library, we buy popcorn when in a movie theater, we wear a baseball cap to the stadium. When building a brand, we program things we call brand rituals — like wearing Beats around your neck and not in the bag when you’re not listening to them. Earphones are treated as an element of clothing, thus becoming more visible.
- Association — an association meme binds two things creating something new. When you put two known, positive ideas in close proximity and then put another, unfamiliar idea next to them, proximity association is formed. If I had a photo with George W. Bush and Barack Obama in my Facebook profile you would assume I mingle in American politics. We create similar associations by placing a product next to an attractive person or a star. Beats by Dr Dre, right?
Memetic products and services
If you start looking at your products using memetic point of view you’ll soon realize you can make them better by trying to win the attention race. Advertising and marketing strategists are aware of this fact. So next time you plan a product or service, consider using one of those winning strategies:
One of the first Coca-Cola ads targetting African American consumers, directed by Moss Kendrix, the first African American marketing specialist hired by Coca-Cola in 1948. - Tradition — if a product or service has always been around, there’s a greater chance people will try to promote this tradition. That’s why Coca-Cola tries to convince us that even your grandfather had it at his dinner table.
- Evangelism – a product that creates a ritual of inviting others to join stands a much better chance of prevailing on the market. That’s why most social networks begin with invite your friends or see who’s already here ritual.
- Familiarity — products that are compatible with what’s already in your head, wallet or house. The language barrier is a great example of overcoming this barrier. If you’re reading this but English is not your mother tongue, the same content would stand a better chance of going viral if it was translated into your own language.
- Explanation — products that explain the way they work in a meaningful way sell better than the ones full of abstract or technobabble. The explanation does not have to be precise, it just has to make sense. That’s why stories or spatial metaphors are so powerful. See the painkillers that precisely target the source of your pain. It’s not how painkillers work, but it’s easy to believe in a targeting pill.
Memetics will not replace traditional marketing or brand building strategy, but adding this knowledge to your arsenal will let you take over the competition. Because the brand happens in the head. Well? Will you share this post now? Even your grandparents knew that Facebook and Twitter have always been the best way of spreading knowledge.
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The Psychology of… Your Name
Your first name and second name have a certain power. In fact, they affect you and those around you more than you might think. They can make a difference to which job you choose, where you choose to live and… which type of marketing works on you. In this article, I will write about what psychology tells us about your relationship with your name.
How Did Your Parents Come Up With Your Name?
Firstly, in the absence of any better criterion, your name is a label which the world judges you by. We all do it. Who’s more likely to have a mustache: Chris or Harry? You chose “Chris”, right?
The story behind a name is often related to the story of a famous person with that name — thanks to certain German and Austrian leaders, the name “Adolf” was quite common up to the end of the first half of the 20th century, but this name practically disappeared after the II World War. In Poland, the same thing happened with the name “Joseph” (this time, thanks to Stalin). For this to happen, the particular name doesn’t even have to belong to a real person – Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” made the name Ebenezer rather unpopular…
If you can’t decide on a name for your newborn child, I’ve got you. Names tell you something about how old someone is and which social stratum that person hails from. A name (let’s say, Julia) often starts to be more common as a result of influences from popular culture, for example, thanks to a TV series; and that names tend to move down from a society’s upper strata to its lower strata. First, the aristocracy (or celebrities) choose an unusual name for one of their children and then this name becomes more and more widely accepted. Interestingly, such unusual names are taken up most quickly by people in society’s lowest strata. This is confirmed in the writings of, for example, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.
Here’s a little task for you: find out the names of Kanye West’s child and Jamie Oliver’s children. And then think if you actually know someone who is called, for example, „North”.
Does Your Name Influence Your Career? You Bet!
In order to be invited to a job interview, how many CVs does a David have to send? Does a person named Marianne with the exact same CV have to send more of them to get an interview? Two researchers from MIT and Chicago University, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhill Mullainathan, claim that the answer is yes. Of course, they didn’t investigate the names Marianne and David — they did their research on American names from which it was possible to guess at the ethnicity of the holder of that name. It turns out that someone with the name Greg (which is the most popular name associated with white guys) has to send 10 CVs in order to be invited to a job interview, whereas Jamal (whose name is popular amongst African-Americans) must send a further five CVs just to get a job interview (even though the two CVs are otherwise identical).
But the conscious pinning of a “label” to your name (and thereby pinning the “label’s” story to you as a person) is not the only thing that happens with names. Your name also has an unconscious effect on others. For example, how easy it is to pronounce a name makes a difference.
Which Names Get Promoted Quicker?
Simon Laham and Peter Koval from Melbourne University carried out a very interesting analysis of lawyers’ names and their careers. It turns out that, if someone’s name is easy to pronounce (and to remember), that person’s chances of becoming a partner in a law firm within the first 4-8 years of being employed in that firm increase by 10%. That positive effect continues for about 15 years and then it seems to disappear, which the researchers think is based on the fact that, by that time, the career of a given lawyer is based purely on his or her reputation. So, if your name is Paweł Tkaczyk and you’re looking for work in Ireland, it could be a good idea to use an alias instead… Believe me, I know.
George, Where Do You Want To Live?
On the question of where we choose to live, more people with the name “George” live in the US state of Georgia than one would expect. Sociologists from New York University ploughed through large quantities of statistical data and came to the conclusion that we are unconsciously attracted to places which have names which are similar to our own name (the names don’t have to be exactly the same — it’s enough if our initials or some of the letters in our name appear in the name of the place).
Lauren, Who Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
The same researchers claim that a given name may affect the job you choose to do. They tested that theory on dentists and lawyers: they found the position of the name “Dennis” in the list of most popular names and then found which name was above and which name was below “Dennis” in the list. Next, they took the register of dentists and they checked to see if more dentists had the name “Dennis” than the statistical average. And what did they find? The probability that a little Dennis will become a dentist is almost twice as likely as the probability that someone with a different name will become a dentist (1.83 times more likely to be precise). It’s the same for Lawrences and Laurens, who are more likely to choose a career as lawyers. This is known as implicit egotism.
Have a go at this: what would be a good name for a child if you want to increase the chances of him or her becoming a doctor? And how about if you want him or her to be a blogger?
The Last Name Effect
Here’s one more interesting phenomenon, this time not related to your first name, but related to the effect that your surname has on… how you react to sales promotions. In 2011, Kurt Carlson and Jacqueline Conrad published their paper called The Last Name Effect in which they claim that, according to their research, people who have surnames which start with letters towards the end of the alphabet react much more quickly and more positively to sales offers which are open for a limited time period only. In brief: if you send a newsletter in which you write that a promotion for product X will end in two days, then it is probable that people with surnames beginning with the letters N to Z will answer more quickly than other people.
They explain this phenomenon in an interesting way. Carlson and Conrad (both names start with the letter “C”, which we’ll come to later) claim that this is a reaction to children being put on all sorts of lists and also being lined up in alphabetical order. People with surnames which start with letters in the second half of the alphabet “spent quite a lot of time at the end of the queue” and, as a result, have learned to react quickly to what’s going on — they know the feeling when there isn’t enough of something to go round and they are at the end of the queue. And what happens when a woman marries a man and then changes her name? In fact, the effect remains the same because the effect relates to the name which someone had when they were a child, and that habitual way of thinking has become part of that person from then on.
Researchers found something similar in the way that those who gained a Ph.D. subsequently looked for work. Those with surnames starting with any of the letters from “N” to “Z” put their CV online much more quickly than those whose surnames started with letters from the beginning of the alphabet. So, if you’re looking for an employee who will be very competitive, someone with the name “Anna Anderson” may not be a good choice.
Ignore Those Findings. Here’s How.
One important comment at the end. Remember that your destiny is not ruled by your name — you decide what happens in your life. The research mentioned above only indicates that there is a higher probability of something occurring by proving some kind of correlation between (on the one hand) someone’s name and (on the other hand) some kind of life-decision. If you would rather ignore those findings, I will help you to do that too. A very similar statistical analysis has proven that people whose names begin with letters at the start of the alphabet have more chance of publishing their research than people with names starting with the letters from “N” to “Z”. So the fact that Carlson and Conrad have already published their findings does not mean that there isn’t somewhere a Zych and a Yanecky who have come to completely the opposite conclusions but haven’t yet managed to get their research published.
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Persona — A Tool For Building Your Brand
If you want your message to spread, if you want your brand to be a topic of many conversations, you have three platforms you can use to distribute your content. First, you can pay for advertising (paid media is the name we use). Second, you can do something awesome so the media and consumers will talk about that (we call this earned media, the buzz you deserve). Third, you have your own channels at your disposal: your website, blog, your newsletter or Facebook fanpage — if you manage to gather the audience this may be an efficient and cost effective way to get your message across (we call this owned media).
But in order to succeed in using any of these platforms some strategic work is needed. You have to decide which you are going to use and what to write about. Creating a persona helps a lot with making these decisions. A persona is a list of information about a certain member of your audience. No matter if you are in B2B marketing or B2C, there’s always human buying from you in the end. So getting the characteristics of persona right makes it easy to reach this human with an interesting message.
Learn more about personas in marketing from this short & sweet video The danger with creating a persona is filling it with a meaningless content. So here’s a list of questions that help you get it right.
- Demography. Who is your audience? Age, sex, location or education allow you to tailor your message. You will use one set of arguments when writing to a young woman from a small town, and another one when persuading a fifty-year-old university professor. And remember you have to choose only one version. You can’t be Jack of all trades.
- Work. What does he or she do? Position, job description, how large is the company (corporations tend to have a different set of values than mom and pop’s stores), what’t the industry (the slang they use will give you authority).
- Rituals. What does his or her day look like? What time does he get up? What does she read when eating breakfast? How does he spend his free time? This part will allow you to define the perfect brand touch points. If your customer spends half an hour on the bus on his way to work, you can decide to record a 20-minute podcast or serve him a longer text to read on his phone.
- Pain. What problems can you help to solve? These problems can only loosely relate to what you have to offer. It’s hard to imagine them reading your advert every single day. But if you manage to identify their problems, you have their attention.
- Values. What he or she values? What ambitions does he have? You can buy a product either to impress your boss, or to have no worries at work. If you identify the carrot, the prize they’re after, it’s much easier from there.
- Fear. What are they afraid of? When there’s a carrot, there’s usually a stick as well. If you want them to act on something, a fear serves as a great motivator. What is your customer afraid of? Which of his fears is the strongest?
Answering these questions will give you a scope of topics you can use to have a conversation with your customer. Remember: a good brand is a great conversation starter.
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Creating a Digital Strategy? Try This Template
My customers, who start a new company or begin their blogging adventure often ask me: how do I start? There are many advertising possibilities. How do you make sure you did not miss anything?
I want to show you a scaffolding that I use. It consists of two main parts: a digital strategy skeleton, and something called “the pirate metrics” (a popular tool in the startup world). But it’s their unique combination that creates a perfect tool for building your digital promotion strategy.
A skeleton of the digital strategy
What should your digital marketing strategy contain? The right answer is different things for different businesses. So, how does the skeleton below help you? First, it allows you to choose the elements you need to focus on. You don’t like the video? No problem. Your customers don’t enjoy social media? Don’t worry. Just pick and choose what’s valuable for you and your customers. Second, prioritize the components of the digital skeleton. It will tame the chaos that is ever-present in your day to day business activities.
Website
Use ThemeForest to find a great template It’s the central information hub for your brand. It’s what people find when they google your name. Make sure it contains only the necessary information, and it has a clearly stated goal — what do you want from your visitors? What do you consider to be a conversion? Is the path to the goal clear? Are your texts understandable?
Decide if you want your website to be more original or more functional. I know, it would be best to combine both but most companies don’t have the luxury of paying for the great design that has also been extensively tested towards UX. The most popular website engine, WordPress, plus a properly customized template from ThemeForest may address most of your needs.
Email marketing
Email is still one of the most engaging forms of communication — even in today’s world of messengers and bots. Your email strategy should not be limited to sending newsletters. I would start with designing your business email templates: how are you going to thank the customer for his buy? What offers are you going to send out? Making money first, marketing later.
Save these email templates in free Google Docs or Dropbox Paper — then you can share them with the rest of your team.
Content marketing
If your company is not known, you can’t count on your customers rushing to your website to buy things after they’d read your cold email. You have to show your knowledge, prove your authority. Writing articles for your blog or educating your customers via newsletter courses, even answering questions via LiveChat or on Quora — all those are the elements of your content marketing strategy.
Creating content is complicated and I can’t describe this process in a single paragraph. But long story short: create personas to tailor your content. Make a list of general topics you are going to build your authority upon. Search for places you are going to be heard at (using only your blog that has little or no traffic is not the best idea). Talk to a content marketing expert. And familiarize yourself with tools such as BuzzSumo or Google Trends — they allow you to check what’s the most shared content at the moment. Can you ride those trends?
Take 10 minutes to learn what Google Trends can do for you Search engine marketing & SEO
When you’ve set up your website, it would be nice to see Google drive some traffic there. The first thing you should do is to connect your website to Google Search Console. It’s a simple tool that will tell you whether your site has some serious errors that can get you banned from Google. It will also provide you with some simple tricks (such as creating a sitemap) to boost your website’s position. If you use WordPress you’ll get your basic SEO audit from plugins such as Yoast or All-In-One SEO Pack.
Further steps are not that easy so you’ll have to either learn your SEO or talk to an expert. But at the beginning just make sure there are no serious errors on your website and you’re good to go.
Social media presence
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter — these are the four most popular social networks in the world. There are plenty of others: depending on where you live and what your audience likes you may want to tap into Reddit, Pinterest, Snapchat or Vkontakte. Do you have to be present in all of them? Of course not. Social media presence strategy answers this very question: which channels are you going to appear? What is the character of your presence? Remember: on Facebook, most people look for entertainment or treat it as a customer service channel. Your all-serious content does not always belong there.
Paid advertising, PPC
Your first customers will not appear out of thin air. But inviting your Facebook friends to your fan page is not a good strategy either. People who like your fan page should be the ones who are going to buy from you, not your relatives. Thus, you need paid advertising. There are plenty of choices: Google AdWords, Facebook ads, sponsored posts on Instagram, directed content on LinkedIn… It is important to know what you are going to achieve (set goals and KPIs, define conversions) and measure the results. Without measuring you’ll end up throwing the money away.
Lead nurturing
Paid ads and social media presence brought a user to your website, she signed up for your newsletter, and she’s potentially interested in buying from you. What can you do to increase your chances? No, we’re not talking about giving away discounts (you can do that but it’s not the only method). This is a job for your content strategy! Good thing we’ve prepared it in advance. But, this is also a job for your creativity. Just remember: a user must come across the brand’s message 4-7 times before she trusts you enough to buy.
Think: what can you give to your users so that they remember you? You have the knowledge, exceptional materials, or perhaps you can… make them laugh? Don’t underestimate the power of emotions in lead nurturing!
Marketing automation
Probably my favourite email automation software In the previous paragraph, we were wondering what to give to your consumers for them to remember you. An equally important question is how to deliver it so that you don’t spend too much time or money doing it. Here’s where marketing automation tools come in handy. Some of them allow you to send automated emails (I recommend GetResponse or MailChimp for that) others enable your visitors to talk to you on your website (check out LiveChat or UserEngage).
Remember though: marketing automation is not about the tools. Plan your marketing knowing that there’s a real person on the other side of the communication channel. Plan not only the transfer of knowledge but also the transfer of emotions!
Video marketing
Your users spend more and more time watching videos. I even heard the saying “stories are the new wall”. If the attention of your users is drifting in that direction, you have to be there, too. I would consider three basic video formats:
- Classic video — shot and edited, shared via YouTube, embedded on your website, posted on Facebook. My advice? Avoid “music videos”. It’s what I call these movie clips shot at conferences and events — they last three minutes, there’s music in the background and… nobody needs them. Tell a story instead!
- Live — shot live, contain interactions with your audience and gain popularity fast. You can re-purpose them and use them as classic videos afterward.
- Ephemeral (like Instagram Stories) — short clips that disappear after 24 hours. You can use them in a totally different context than classic videos — you can give your audience secret codes that are valid only throughout a certain day.
Analytics
Designing a strategy can be compared to planning a trip. You want to get from where you are to where you want to be using the means available to you at the moment. But even the best trip plan will fail if you… don’t know whether you’re moving in the right direction. That’s why you need analytics.
The bad news is in digital marketing you can measure everything. So marketers either drown in the data and decide they won’t be measuring anything or choose the wrong KPIs to measure. What good is the crowd of people on your fan page if nobody is buying from you?
When you have designed the important goals for your business, make friends with a Googe Analytics or a Google Data Studio expert.
I would definitely recommend HubSpot from experience Sales tools, sales funnels
The sales process itself, realizing orders on time, answering your emails, and sending the offers — all those are the elements of your strategy, too. What good are the perfect ads that bring people to your perfect website if they get no answer after they’ve sent you an inquiry by email? Get a CRM and use it from the day one: PipeDrive, HubSpot or ZOHO — choose the one that suits your needs.
Pirate metrics
The other element of the puzzle is called “the pirate metrics”. Why that name? The first letters of the metrics (acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and recommendation) make an AARRR!
When measuring your business, you should be thinking about four measurements categories:
- qualitative — observing your users, their behaviors on small samples, deeper analysis, searching for problems;
- quantitative — simple tests of certain behaviors on large samples (or representative samples);
- comparisons — all kinds of A/B testing (different email headers, different layouts of landing pages);
- benchmarks — is comparing yourself to your competition (who has more Facebook likes, how big is their email database).
Pirate metrics are applied to simple things: quantitative measurements and comparisons. Here’s how we stack them:
Acquisition — how do users find you
You can measure your website traffic here, different ways of acquiring that traffic, the effectiveness of paid campaigns or the effectiveness of your landing pages (how many people who started reading dropped off after a couple of seconds).
Activation — how do you engage your audience?
We’ve said that people will not buy from you during their first visit. So what else can they do? You measure the number of newsletter signups, Facebook comments (if you can turn them into further engagement), likes… You check how many decided to create an account (if you offer online services).
Retention — how good are you in bringing them back?
I told you that your user has to see your message 4-7 times before she’s ready to buy, remember? Throw here all the metrics on the returning users. How many returning users do you have on your website? How many clicks do the links in your newsletters generate? How many returned to fill in their profile after signing up? If your first contact was to send an offer — how many replies did you get?
Revenue — how do you make them pay you?
These are the metrics crucial to the health of your business. What percentage of those who created free accounts became paying customers? How many buy after receiving a discount coupon? How many of those with whom you’re negotiating decided to hire you? What is the average cost of customer acquisition? What percentage of your customers brings you profit?
Referral — do your customers recommend you?
From simple KPIs such as NPS (Net Promoter Score) through measuring the satisfaction levels in different stages of the sales cycle. How many of those who received recommendation coupons passed them to their friends?
Digital Strategy Matrix
Imagine a great table. Columns are marked with different elements of the digital strategy skeleton — you have a “website” column, an “email” column and so on.
Rows are marked with pirate metrics: there’s an “acquisition” row, an “activation” row — you understand, don’t you? The matrix you’ve just created is one of the most effective tools when creating a digital promotion strategy. Each field contains a set of ideas to implement and to optimize. Imagine the field “acquisition/video” — it naturally generates questions: how to get more people to my webinars, how to drive traffic to my YouTube channel? Or think of the “activation/email” field: these are ideas for increasing the number of clicks or replies to the messages you send.
You can place this table on one of the walls in your office. Fill it with color post-it notes and assign them as tasks to the members of your team. And if you don’t want to clutter the wall, you can use an online tool such as Trello.
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I’m an introvert. How do I build my personal brand?
You’re looking for work, but you’re an introvert? In a culture which is obsessed with the idea that every team must be “young and dynamic”, it can be difficult to build your personal brand on the basis that you prefer to do your own thing and be on your own. So you have to pretend to not be introverted, at least at job interviews. But does it have to be like that? People who are introverted actually have more going for them than one might think.
It’s important to understand what it means to be introverted
“Quiet” by Susan Cain Contrary to popular opinion, being introverted doesn’t mean “not liking other people”. Although it’s true that introverts like to “get their energy” far from the madding crowd, this doesn’t mean that they are loners. An introvert who doesn’t have any contact with other people over a long period of time will get depressed in the same way as other people. On the other hand, a shy person feels uncomfortable in situations which require some form of interaction with others. So what really is the difference between an introvert and other personality types? In her book Quiet, Susan Cain describes introversion as being more sensitive to external stimuli. That’s why introverts are regarded as being quiet people; whereas extraverts need a lot of stimuli, for example, music which is turned up loud, in order to have something to react to, the same stimulus in a much smaller quantity is enough for an introvert. The interesting thing is that we are born with a certain level of tolerance; it is already possible to test whether a child will be an extrovert or an introvert when the child is only four months old. And, contrary to appearances, children who are introverted are the ones who make… more noise. When they experience any kind of unpleasant stimulus (for example, loud music or being touched with an ice-cube), they start crying much sooner than other children because they are less tolerant of external stimuli.
Watch Susan Cain speak about introverts during her TED talk What’s good about being introverted
Following on from Jung, psychology defines introverts as people who “focus more on what’s happening inside themselves”. But that’s not the whole truth. Introverts are excellent at observing what’s going on around them. They are more aware of subtle signs than their extrovert counterparts. And they value quality over quantity in terms of interpersonal relationships (whereas extroverts function best in a crowd), so introverts are excellent listeners.
All of that means that introverts are… excellent at selling. In today’s world, where we are allergic to aggressive selling, someone who actually listens to you is a real treasure. And this is confirmed by the available research. When it comes to complex sales (those in which the keys to success are the relationship between buyer and seller as well as matching the product to the client’s needs), introverts get much better results than extroverts who focus on what is superficial and spinning a yarn.
What should introverts put in their CV?
I agree that being good at listening and selling is a bit general, so what should you write in your CV if you want to be the “introvert” on the team? Actually there a few things which could convince your potential boss of your value. Just tell the right real-life story.
- Introverts come better prepared. On the way to every meeting, extroverts just take a quick look at their notes (because they were busy with other things), and say to themselves: “I’ll just wing it”. Introverts know that that strategy doesn’t work for them, so they’re always prepared.
- Introverts look at the bigger picture. In today’s “multi-screen” world, it can be difficult to hold the attention of the person you’re talking to when he or she is constantly distracted by incoming text messages or tweets. An introvert will not only listen to you but will give you his or her complete attention.
- Introverts learn to be someone they are not. When a child spends his or her recess reading a book, his or her teacher will write that the child “has problems functioning with his or her contemporaries”. That means that quite a lot of introverts have learned to be pseudo-extroverts. And that is something which one has to work really hard at, constantly pushing oneself. Introverts know the value of practicing before any event and will always make appropriate preparations.
- Introverts communicate slowly and precisely. Just think of any politician who said something on the spur of the moment without thinking it through (often in public or on the Internet), and was later made to look silly. None of those politicians were introverts. In today’s world, well thought out communication has a great deal of value.
- Introverts are better at working in groups. It’s true that they don’t like the noise emanating from the “open space” at the company where they work, but, as Corinne Bendersky and Neha Shah discovered, introverts are much better at finding the right balance in terms of the time they spend working on their own compared to communicating with others. If you give the right tools to a team made up of introverts, they will achieve more than a team of extroverts.
Where is a good place for introverts to work?
Do introverts make good leaders or CEOs? You bet! Bill Gates is one of the best examples. It would be better to ask where is not a good place. It’s easy to imagine an introvert writing (being a copywriter, editor or blogger), programming (being a programmer or tester) and counting (being an accountant). They are also outstanding managers and… leaders. As they are very precise in their thinking, it’s difficult to beat them. Mahatma Gandhi was an introvert and Bill Gates is an introvert. But an introvert as a public speaker or actor? Those are also good career options because introverts are skilled at pretending and passionate about being prepared. And let’s not forget about being sales-people. Especially when it comes to selling an idea. Given that they are capable of listening carefully and picking up on the tiny signals sent out by the person they are talking to, they can be better salespeople than merely superficial extroverts.
What can introverts do to build their personal brand?
Introverts are patient by nature and more inclined to focus on one task than extroverts. What’s more, they are often good at writing and can be highly observant. So what’s my advice to them?
- Help other people by answering questions on a variety of internet forums, for example, LinkedIn or Quora. It will demonstrate your experience and expertise in the area of work that you’re interested in. What you write will say more about you than anything you could say at an interview.
- Think about setting up a blog. A blog is a long-term investment, but this will give your readers the chance to see how good you are at understanding your expert area and writing about it. And, again, what you write will say more about you than any other actions.
- Try to arrange for good references, preferably from several extroverts. They will do your talking for you, so arrange for it to be possible for you to give your referees’ telephone numbers to any potential employer.
- At the interview itself, be better than the rest of the candidates put together thanks to being well prepared and knowing your subject. But I didn’t need to tell you to do that, did I?
Good luck! 🙂
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Six Types of Ads To Include When Designing an Advertising Campaign
Do you want to design an online advertising campaign? Here’s what you need to know
Did you know that the customer has to see your brand’s message 4-6 times before they are ready to trust you enough to buy something from you? Therefore campaigns with ads that focus solely on the “buy” call to action will not work. Even if your customers register the ads, they still will not trust you enough to buy from you on the spot. Fortunately, when designing an advertising campaign, you can use a template that increases the effectiveness of your ads by incorporating the psychology of decision-making. How does it work?
Building awareness
The first stage of a good advertising campaign is called “building awareness.” Facebook even allows you to choose this as a goal for your campaign in the Ads Manager. What it does not tell you is what to include in those ads.
Meanwhile, the answer is simple: the customer has to get used to the fact that you exist. Don’t try to sell yet! You don’t know one another well enough, the time will come. Instead, show your logo, your product, your company name. That’s it. Why only this? Because your brand has not yet earned more attention.
If you’ve ever wondered why companies pay for big signboards or neon signs at the tops of buildings, then you have your answer. A neon sign with the name of the company doesn’t sell anything, it merely builds so-called aided brand awareness. A customer who is asked, “Do you know the brand X?” will answer “yes.” And this is the first step to selling.
A logo (or a face in case of a personal brand) and a brand name. That’s all. The goal is the maximum reach. Assigning to a category
When you’re building your brand, there are two basic measurement dimensions you should pay attention to. We covered aided brand awareness in the previous paragraphs. In addition to that, there is also a dimension called spontaneous brand awareness. How do we measure it? We ask the customer, “Name products in X category.” Try it on yourself: digital cameras, gaming consoles, elegant shoes. The brands that come to your mind spontaneously are called “top of mind” brands. It is imperative that your customers can assign your product to a specific category.
How to design an advertising campaign at this stage? Think. Why do people go to McDonald’s? To eat something (cheap and consistent quality). We go to IKEA to buy furniture. You’ll reach for Dan Brown’s book when you’re looking for a holiday read, and Jimmy Fallon will make you laugh (the process works the same whether you’re building a personal brand or a product brand). Your audience thinks in categories before they start thinking about individual brands.
So if you want to sell, you need a message that will assign your brand to the category that is present in the mind of your client. Remember one thing: the category should be useful. If you help solve a real — and frequent, if possible — problem, you are golden. BMW’s “Designed for Driving Pleasure” ads are an example of such a campaign.
So, find a category and attach yourself to it. But watch out for category names that are too professional (hence not commonly used) — your clients who want to “have a website” can’t really tell the difference between a front-end developer, a programmer, and a UX specialist. It’s like with doctors: more people know they have the cough, they don’t know they want to see the pulmonologist.
A familiar key visual (colors, image, fonts, logo) and assigning to a category. This is a typical ad for the second step of the ad campaign. This one is also aimed at maximum reach. Look at the picture in this article. Graphics and fonts are the same as in the first stage. Thanks to this, the “familiarity effect” is activated in your client’s mind — he’s ready to devote more attention to something he has encountered before. That’s why we needed the first stage: to increase the effectiveness of the ads displayed in the second one.
Liking
Many companies think that proving their product is better than the competition’s is enough for the customer to choose them. And you know what? They are right. If your customer is convinced that your product is better, he will buy from you. However, consider the following scenarios:
- You sell the exact same thing as your competition. Apples, hammers, English classes, or chips. Your product is easy to understand, or the consumer doesn’t care much about differences.
- You sell a complicated product that isn’t necessarily better than the competition, though it is definitely different. And the consumer cannot compare one with the other. Cars, bank accounts, trips to Scandinavia — they all have a lot of parameters, and everyone will value something else in them.
- You sell a product significantly better than the competition, but understanding this difference requires a lot of attention from the consumer.
The consumer who doesn’t see or understand the difference will choose the product… which he likes more. The one which made him laugh, feel better, more appreciated… A consumer who feels that is willing to devote time to understanding the differences between you and the competition. Therefore, “liking” is a kind of emotional foundation for the next stage of your campaign — building preferences.
Duplicate or similar image? Check. Joke? Check (though it’s a groaner). This is the stage at which you build an emotional bond with the client. Show these ads only to people who saw the first and the second one. Building preference
One definition of loyalty in marketing says that it is a “lasting preference.” Therefore, your ad must first build preference and then maintain it. How?
First, understand that preference is always based on a comparison. I choose X instead of Y — awareness of X’s existence, even the perception of X’s individual features won’t help you if the customer is unable to say how it differs from Y. So are we doomed to comparative advertising? At this stage of the campaign… yes. Although you can cheat a little. How? We will come back to that in a moment.
Secondly, understand that our brain has an enormous problem with processing numbers. They are perceived as abstract values. The brain desperately wants to put them in context, which gives room for some manipulation.
- Sentences like “Works twice as fast” or “Hits the source of pain more precisely” create an imaginary context (you don’t have to say that your product works faster compared to X, the customer will fill it in himself).
- Anchoring is placing product features (such as price) near other numbers (for example a higher price crossed out). The brain combines these numbers and builds relationships between them — and we remember those relationships (cheaper, faster, brighter) much better than the numbers themselves.
- Authority transfer is “borrowing” authority from something that the customer already knows and respects. Esteemed clients for whom your company has worked or the awards it has won.
Transfer of authority from an award I received. Thanks to that, your consumers are convinced of the superiority of your product over others. This ad should be seen by those who have already gone through the previous stages of the campaign. Purchase
At this point in our campaign, the customer knows you. He knows what you do. He likes you and can see the differences between what you offer and competitive products. It’s probably high time to start selling.
Advertisements at this stage should have a clearly defined call to action (buy now, visit the site, register) — remember that “sale” doesn’t necessarily mean spending money. The customer can pay with his attention, personal data, opening a new communication channel… In the end, you must, of course, earn, but look at the “purchase” in a broader meaning.
What helps at this stage? “Spurs” and deadlines.
- Spur is a short-term stimulus, often negative, which you emphasize in your advertisement and which is meant to force the customer to act. “Only two tickets left,” “three people are watching this product at the moment” — if you choose them wisely, you will push an indecisive customer towards the purchase.
- Deadline is exactly what you think it is: “the discount is valid for 30 minutes” or “if you subscribe to the newsletter within an hour you’ll receive…”
Call to action? Check. Limited places and dates? Check. Typical sales ad. It works better if your customer knows what to buy and why it’s worth it (and this was said in the previous stage of the campaign). If you want to know more about this step in designing an advertising campaign, read the article on the psychology of pricing.
There’s an entire book on building a recommendation engine. Recommendation
What if you sell products that the customer rarely buys and you can’t speed up the process? Imagine you’re selling wedding dresses (driving lessons or apartments). If the customer isn’t getting married, they won’t need your product. And what about the customers who just passed their driving license exam? You put a lot of money into convincing them to buy from you. And now they’re not coming back. What then?
You can design a campaign in such a way that clients who don’t necessarily have the need or opportunity to use your services (but know you, like you, and appreciate you) recommend you and your services. Launching the “recommendation engine” using an extensive advertising campaign (for example, on Facebook) is often much more effective than a tedious hunt for customers who are ready to buy from you. Let your would-be and former customers be your advertising media.
Have your customers already bought from you? Or they are not ready to buy yet? Convince them to do something else! The question of how to design an advertising campaign is — I hope — already behind us. The campaign created according to the above six steps will be much more profitable than even the best-constructed sales creations. Good luck!
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Six marketing lessons. A tribute to Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs played a great role in shaping how I view brands and marketing today. His return to Apple coincided with the beginning of my fascination with what I do nowadays. He was one of those people who made you think once you began observing him. Why was he successful? Why don’t others act the same way?
I originally wrote this article some years ago, when I heard Steve Jobs had resigned from his role as the CEO of Apple. At that point, he had been fighting a terminal illness for years and had a few victorious battles behind him. I’m far from sentimental, but one can’t just pass by Job’s achievements without a moment of reflection. Hence, here is my little tribute to the man, who – to some degree – helped shape me, marketing lessons, which I “picked up”, observing him through the years. Lessons, which I try to employ in my own company, despite some of them needing an iron will – a trait quite hard to copy. I hope, that what I offer will be of use to you.
Act and don’t worry about what others might think.
One of Job’s unique abilities as a manager was his courage to act without paying much attention to what others might say. People who can pull this off are called visionaries. Jobs wasn’t the first one. Henry Ford, when he launched the mass assembly of his cars, was allegedly asked if he listened to his customer’s opinions. He is said to have replied: If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’ Jobs held consumer research in similar regard. When back in 1988 he was introducing the NeXT OS computer to the market, he said:
You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. Therefore, if you think, that you have an idea for something truly innovative, do it.
Steve JobsDon’t look at others, don’t ask “can I do it?” or “what do you think?”. People who you ask, don’t know half of what you do. Show it to them and they’ll understand.
Do things to the best of your abilities, so that you can sleep soundly.
In 1985 Mac was on a roll. The first computer with a graphic interface, it sold like hot buns. It was expensive, but it owed its success to the fact, that in spite of being mass-produced, it was crafted with an almost artisan attention to details. In an interview he did for Playboy in 1985, Jobs explained his product philosophy:
When you’re a carpenter, making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night…
Steve JobsIf you run a company, you don’t have to look back at your competition. Do what you’re good at to the best of your ability. You can choose to believe it or not, but everybody expects… less of you. Hence, you’ll give them quite a surprise, giving every endeavor all that you’ve got. Especially, since “doing it the best you can”, will never be above you, right?
Real artists ship!
I have a friend who paints. She finished just a few pictures in her lifetime because… she keeps correcting them. I’m sure that she threw out more of her pieces than she has sold. Even the ones that she did sell, almost had to be taken from her by force. She paints with a sense of piety because she is a true-blue artisan, she wants her pieces to be perfect. The problem is, each day brings new things to correct. All artists are like that. Only a handful of them can muster the will to say “stop” and show their latest masterpiece to the world. Andy Hertzfeld, who worked for Apple in 1984 (the year in which the first Mac hit the shelves) describes the emotions that accompanied him during the last few days before the grand premiere. The team of programmers was convinced, that the operating system needed tweaking, hence they asked Jobs to delay the date of its release. Jobs refused. He was to say:
Real artists ship!
If I were to analyze the phenomenon of Steve Job’s success as a manager and visionary, I would bet my money on the unique blend of two key traits: an obsessive attention to details (something connected to art and craftsmanship) as well as a firm ability to cut himself off from his word and show it to the world (which, in turn, is something attributed to accountants and managers with their ever-pressing budgets and deadlines).
A visionary surrounded by pragmatists
Unfortunately, the combination of the aforementioned traits is incredibly rare. I don’t think even Jobs himself could truly cut away from his obsessive attention to details. He could, however, surround himself with people that were able to convince him otherwise. Simon Sinek, in his book Start With Why, tries to convince us that there are two types of managers. On one hand, you have the visionaries who inspire, not because they tell others what to do but because they can present why something has to be done.
Jobs was exactly that kind of visionary. In 1984 he was able to convince people to lock themselves in a separate building, hoisting a pirate banner above the entrance and work restlessly on the new Macintosh. But Steve Jobs would be nobody without Steve Wozniak. That’s because the other kind of managers are people who know how something has to be done. They have the technical knowledge, they navigate among budgets, deadlines, and boundaries. They aren’t visionaries, but without them, the visions would never come true. Jonathan Ive (responsible for such revolutionary products as the iMac or iPhone) and Tim Cook (a capable manager, who took over as the head of Apple after Jobs’ resignation) are examples of people who are a necessary balance for the visionary.
What about you? Which type are you? If you are more of an artist and visionary, make sure to have someone nearby who will keep your feet on the ground. Or perhaps, you prefer to forge visions into action? In that case, you need some creative counterbalance, otherwise – in solitude – your business will fall into the routine.
A brand is a grand idea.
Marketers worldwide for the last three decades have been reaching a conclusion which Steve Jobs sensed all the way in the ’80s. Said conclusion being, that people buy products not for their functionality (let’s be honest here, each computer will let you check your mail and each car will drive you to work) but for their emotional values, for the greater idea behind the brand. Apple’s vision was, that back in 1984… they treated the computer market as a mature market. They didn’t sell a computer – they sold an idea.
Ridley Scott’s famous commercial “1984” never even mentioned what computer it was promoting. It focused solely on why you had to have it.
Ridley Scott’s Apple 1984 commercial The idea behind the Apple brand being a “revolution” let them expand their product offer with MP3 players, phones and tablets. All because people never bought their “products” but rather their “idea”.
Watch the following commercial. Made back in 1997 by the TBWA/Chiat/Day agency, it comes from a time when Apple produced only computers. Nevertheless, it could easily be used to advertise the whole range of their products these days. That’s because it sells an idea.
Apple’s commercial narrated by Steve Jobs. It was never aired with his voice, they decided to change it in the last minute. What about you? What idea does your brand sell? Why should people care about it?
A brand is a focus.
One last thing, and one of my favorites too. Do you know what Steve Jobs did when in 1998 he returned to Apple in order to save the company from a collapse? He got rid of most of the products in its catalog. In the ’90s, Apple sold more than just the Macintosh (which came in various models under meaningless names like the LC 550 or LC 575). It also sold the Quadra (610, 630, 650), Performa (5200, 5300, etc.), PowerBooks (190, 1400) and the Power Macintosh series (4400, 5500, 6500, 7300).
The simple product matrix that helped to save Apple Jobs crossed out the matrix on which one axis divided the products into stationary and portable, and the second axis into professional and casual products. In those four spots, he wrote in the Power Macintosh (professional, stationary), PowerBook (professional, portable), Macintosh (casual, stationary) and… he left the fourth segment empty. Later on, the Macintosh was replaced with an iMac and the empty space was filled by the iBook. Thus, everybody knew which computer suited them the best. This was the exact same way Apple had been selling iPods (iPod Touch – offers different storage space and color), iPhones (two models per generation: regular screen or large screen, plus the standard variety of storage space) or iPads (the iPad and iPad Pro).
Your brand doesn’t have to be for everyone. The greater the discipline you follow in your focus, the more you will earn solely thanks to your loyal customers. Apple earns more by selling one phone model than Nokia ever did on all their models combined. Porsche has better a better profit from selling just a few models than Fiat or Toyota with its wide array of cars.
And since we’re on the topic of Porsche. One last Steve Jobs quote. When asked about his thoughts on the fact, that Apple had a small presence on the computer market, he said:
Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s, or Mercedes’s or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?
What about you? Would you rather have your company be the Mercedes or Fiat of your market?
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Designing The “First Day At Work” Experience
Try to remember your first day at work. Can you recall the accompanying emotions? It was probably preceded by some stress during the interviews and the recruitment process; then – hopefully – joy when you received the information that you got in. When you’re eventually outside of your new workplace and are ready to go in, what do you feel? Excitement, anxiousness, sense of anticipation…
What emotions did your employer create for you on that first day? The employer’s brand will be harmed if they mess this up.
Your first day at work
We’ve all been there: you enter the building and introduce yourself to the receptionist who then summons your contact person. Or, if you’re less fortunate, they’ll just point into the general direction of the office of that person and it is up to you track it down yourself. The unluckiest will spend quite a bit of time looking for the right door, accompanied by suspicious looks from the people on the floor.
You get your own (hot) desk and – at least theoretically – your own PC, but guess what: the IT crowd did not manage to set it up on time and you can’t do any proper work. So you get some riveting reading material instead – the company brochure, a once-in-a-blue-moon used mission statement along with the values, some standard operating procedures… You begin reading.
Finally, the PC arrives (it would be great if it happened on day 1 – however, it’s not unheard of to be waiting for it for a week). Your supervisor comes along and assigns a task to you and you start getting into the actual job. Slowly you also get involved in the informal structures of the team, although no one is making that easy for you – you’ve got to initiate all of the chats in the kitchen or at the water cooler by yourself. What’s your emotional balance at the end of the day? The anxiousness probably trumped the initial excitement.
Let’s have a look at how they do it in Asia, in the Chinese HQ of the American company John Deere. The legendary agricultural machines manufacturer has never had a problem with building their brand as an employer on the American soil – almost every American had a farmer in their family at some point, and that farmer most likely owned a John Deere machine. That advantage did not exist in Asia; on top of that, the job market was highly competitive. To tackle this, the board hired a team of specialists to design an unforgettable first-day-at-work experience. What did they come up with?
The perfect first day at work
John Deere designed the perfect
first day at work experienceA few days before your first day, you receive an email from your ‘John Deere friend’ (I know, I know but it works). Apart from her name and her photo, you are also supplied with some handy tips – how to get to the office, what to wear, what time to show up… as well as the information that your Friend will be waiting for you at the reception.
You enter the building and there she is! And next to her, just above the reception, you see a flat-screen TV that says ‘Welcome, Paul!’ (fine, it would actually say your name). Your Friend accompanies you to your desk, which is signposted by a huge, few-meters-big welcome banner. It can be seen from every corner of the open space, which makes the other employees approach you to say ‘hi’ and make you feel at ease.
Your computer is already there, waiting for you. You turn it on and are faced with a wallpaper: the iconic John Deere tractor shining in a sunset, with a subtitle ‘Welcome to the most important job you’ll ever do in your life’. And there is also an email waiting for you – its sender is Sam Allen, the CEO of John Deere himself. In a short video he introduces you to the mission of the company that you’re now a part of – to provide nutrition, shelter and infrastructure for the growing world’s population. You have to admit, this sounds a lot more interesting than browsing through manuals and procedures… Sam Allen ends the video by saying ‘Have fun during your first day at work. I hope that you’ll have a long, successful career as a member of the John Deere team’.
During the break, your Friend is back and she takes you out for lunch with a few other colleagues who are genuinely interested in you, ask you multiple questions and tell you all about the projects they are currently working on. After lunch you find a gift on your desk – a miniature self-cleaning plow, designed by John Deere in 1837. There’s also a card outlining the designer’s motivation and inspirations, as well as explaining why farmers instantly fell in love with this machine. You start to understand and feel the legend.
At the end of the day the Department Director (the boss of your boss – a big fish) approaches your desk and makes a lunch appointment with you for next week to get to know you better. You finish your day with a feeling that your work will be significant. You feel part of a team – a team that is interested in you and for which you are someone important.
The employer’s brand is well-designed emotions
Sounds a lot better, doesn’t it? Obviously, if you’re building an employer’s brand at your company, you can’t just copy the entire John Deere experience (however, some of the elements like e.g. an email before the first day or welcoming your new employee at reception can be implemented in any company). But there are some key emotions that you should take into considerations when building the process:
- Profoundness – a sense that something important is happening. Profoundness is a complicated emotion, combining positive (the joy of anticipation of something new) and negative elements (anxiousness, the feeling that something’s ending). These are emotions usually found during endings (or rather transitions, because e.g. the end of high school signifies the beginning of university and the end of university means the beginning of work). It’s crucial to celebrate this transformation, to ensure it’s treated with the right magnitude. Think graduation ceremony or the medal ceremony at the Olympics. Notice how the sportsmen and sportswomen are celebrated. Try to mimic that in the first-day-at-work experience design.
- Sense of belonging – we are and we will be herd beings. So even if you think that you’re managing a team of introverts, let them do something together. And if you’re onboarding a new team member, include them in the ritual, even if you have to force them a little bit. A joint meal, a game of football or foosball – plan something in that will encourage cooperation and not competition.
- Gratitude – it’s one of the best ways of building strong relationships. Research shows that it is also highly effective when it comes to motivation. Ensure that your new employee has reasons to be grateful from day one. How do you do that? The easiest way is to put Robert Cialdini’s reciprocity rule into action. Give your employee something without asking for anything in return… and voila, you’ve created gratitude. Gifts, the interest exhibited by colleagues, time invested into the new employee – all those things are something you can start with.
Remember that the first day at work is one of the most powerful memories we can have. Therefore, it’s paramount that we spend even a disproportionately significant amount of time on designing it and making it right. If the employer’s brand is something that you want to seriously consider – you cannot disregard this opportunity at making an impact on your new employee.
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What is “a strong brand”
One of my favorite expressions regarding the brand is “brand is like the weather”. Because the weather always is… somewhat. The phrase “strong brand” is the same as “good weather” and you cannot have “no weather” just the same as you can’t have “no brand”. But what does “strong brand” mean exactly?
David Aaker’s 3A scale
The strength of the brand can be measured in various aspects. David Aaker, a professor at the University of California defines “3A” of the brand. If we assume the brand to be “a shortcut in the consumer’s mind” (Aaker speaks of “a box”), we can speak of:
- Awareness – how many people know your brand and can tell exactly how are you different from the competition? Brand awareness is then divided into unaided (name three companies producing digital cameras) and aided (do you know company X? do you know what they produce?). The most preferable situation, of course, is to have high aided and unaided awareness. This is the point we should strive to achieve.
- Associations & beliefs — what people know or think they know about your brand? Brands that are strong in this aspect are characterized by something called brand depth — the associations are built with multiple touch points instead of just one or a few. Red Bull, for instance, has a very simple product, but builds associations with sponsored sports events, extreme games or jumps from the edge of space… On the other end of the spectrum, we have “shallow” brands, their only touch point is the website.
- Attitudes are the emotional skew of our brand. The customers might like it, admire it or hate it, but they also can be indifferent (which is the opposite of “strong brand”).
“Lovemarks” by Kevin Roberts Kevin Roberts’ Lovemarks
And since we’re talking about emotions: Kevin Roberts, the president of Saatchi & Saatchi agency describes a concept that goes beyond having a good or a bad brand. Lovemarks (that’s the name of the concept and the title of the book) builds upon two sets of values: respect and love towards products or services. If we combine them, we get four segments that are named:
- Commodities – low on respect and love. We use them but pay no attention to them. Public transportation or postal service fall into this category.
- Fads attract love, but there’s little or no respect involved. The newest Rihana haircut (that you’ll change in two months) is a great example.
- Brands in Roberts’ view are half-solutions: they command high respect but score low on love index. SONY in TVs or Toyota in cars are representatives of this category.
- Lovemarks are supposed to be more than just brands. High love, high respect — consumers are willing to do much for them. Apple, Playstation, Tesla… Though for you they may be completely different.
You will not know unless you measure
Brands, strong brands, love marks – call them whatever you want, two things are very important when trying to create them. First: measure the results of your actions. Half of the marketers researched in 2015 stated they did not measure the results of their marketing campaigns. This is why I showed you the above indexes: they’re relatively easy to measure (aided, unaided awareness), so if you are going to spend money on marketing, ask yourself this: how are we going to measure it?
The other thing is integrity and consequence. Strong brands take years to build and having a long-term strategy gives you the advantage of not chasing ephemeral fads, trends, and fashions (yes, we have fads in marketing as well). Stick to the plan, modify it when it’s necessary and you have yourself a strong brand in the making.
Good luck!
