Ideas that engage, inform and inspire.

brand attraction

Attraction Is a Beautiful Thing

Whether you operate a business or a non-profit, your goal

as a leader is to build, transform, and elevate your brand—

so that you can attract attention, create buzz, nurture a

preference, generate leads, and engender loyalty.

To do that, you need to understand the essential truths

about your organization, interlace them with your audiences’

perspectives, and use that knowledge to create a smart and

fearless presence that changes minds and inspires action.

Through strategy, positioning, messaging, identity

development, social media, interactive design, and more,

you can establish and expand your reach through what

we call brand attraction. On the following pages, we

discuss what this means.

Emotional Branding

Emotional branding taps into the true power behind human emotions

and connecting with people on a deeply personal level. It’s based on

establishing a level of trust that resonates beyond a purchase transac-

tion; it takes brand engagement to the realm of desire.

A prime example of this is what was beautifully brought to life by Steve Jobs at Apple (more on

this later). He understood the desire people have for technology to be simple and intuitive to use.

Jobs always knew that Apple wasn’t about a laundry list of computer features and benefits.

He understood the “One Thing” about his products—user-friendly technology that could be

an essential part of everyday life. Jobs’ vision, while simple, was unique and powerful—and

resulted in the creation of the world’s most valuable brand with millions of not just loyal but

fanatical followers. Apple customers have more than a preference; they have a love affair.

Of course, there are other great brands that recognize the power of emotional branding. Tiffany,

for example, understands what it means to people who won’t settle for anything less than the

ultimate in quality and prestige. Disney continues to be the first and last word in family entertain-

ment and has been so for decades. And Chik-fil-A delivers what fast food dining was originally

meant to be—tasty, simple offerings that come with a healthy side of friendly service.

Brand attraction is about making the kind of emotional connections with people that speak to

deeply rooted values or principles and can’t be easily explained by research data. It’s about creat-

ing a feeling of “wow, this brand GETS me.”

Creating a Love Affair

Developing an emotional preference for your company, product or ser-

vice isn’t easy. Being likeable to a lot of people isn’t the point—it’s being

loved by the right ones.

We say this over and over to our clients—avoid the temptation of trying to be all things to all

people. Creating brand preference is about sharpening your focus, simplifying your message,

and championing a clear idea or concept that sets you apart from others.

It all leads to the One Thing.

The following is a scene from the movie City Slickers in which a grizzled trail boss Curly (Jack

Palance) talks about the secret of life with Mitch (Billy Crystal), a ranch guest:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is? This [he holds up one finger).

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean [squat].

Mitch: But, what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles] That’s what you have to find out.

Brilliant! That scene is a perfect metaphor for the process of digging into your brand, stripping

away everything non-essential, and knowing exactly what it stands for.

An example of simplifying a message until it expresses an idea with true emotional resonance is

Apple’s iconic “Think Different” campaign of the late 90’s.

As mentioned previously, Steve Jobs was a master of understanding how much of an emo-

tional bond people can make with a brand. He knew simplicity in using technology was a

major differentiation point in the personal computing market at the time. He also knew that

Apple was a unique company whose values aligned with those of transformative figures

who were featured in the “Think Different” campaign—Gandhi, Martin Luther King, John

Lennon, Einstein, and others.

The campaign not only created buzz and attracted international attention, it did so without featur-

ing a single product. Again, when you’re championing a single bold idea—“Think Different”—that

reflects the viewpoint of titans whose advancements in civil rights, art, and science defined the

20th century, you really don’t have to. The elegance of the campaign’s message, coupled with

the inviting design of Apple computers, deeply resonated with people who wanted an uncompli-

cated, enjoyable computing experience.

What’s important to note is that the campaign wasn’t about coolness or even computing per-

formance. It was about the truth—the “One Thing”—at the core [sorry] of Apple. Even though

Apple has produced many brand advertising campaigns over the years, the nugget of “Think

Different” is still at the heart of its overall message and brand.

Other great brands such as Coca Cola, IBM, and Starbucks also understand the “One Thing”

concept well and spend lots of time, energy, and money nurturing, managing, and marketing

their brands. Designing a powerful, persuasive message for a brand today is challenging to say

the least. But like Curly says—that’s what you have to find out.

Natural Attraction

The beauty of the “One Thing” concept and discovering what that is for

your brand is that it leads to an organic, unforced connection with the

audiences and prospects you want. When a creative team discovers that

central concept, it sets up the opportunity for a new brand dialogue—a

dialogue based on honesty, trust, and intimacy. When that happens, there

is a profound change that takes place in a brand’s “natural attraction.”

Consider the story of Nike. When the company was founded in 1964 by Phil Knight and famed

track coach Bill Bowerman, it was originally named “Blue Ribbon Sports.” In 1971, the company

was renamed “Nike” after the Greek goddess of victory. The same year, Knight commissioned

a Portland State University graphic design student, for $35, to create a new logo that should, as

described in his brief, suggest “movement.” After rejecting several designs, Knight finally settled

on one—an upswept “swoosh.”

The leaders of the company understood branding. They knew, just like Jobs, that they weren’t sell-

ing products or shoes. They were selling a feeling—a feeling that inspires people to greatness.

“Just do it.”

What is the ONE THING you feel when you hear or see “Just Do It”? You feel empowered,

maybe even rebellious, and that anything is possible. You want to go out and conquer the

world. Who wouldn’t want to embrace a brand that makes you feel like this? Nike has

grown its company on the “Just Do It” mantra and established itself as THE brand that

speaks to the inner athlete in all of us—a natural attraction.

Nike became a global pop culture icon because it understood and captured this feeling. It

harnessed society’s worship of heroes; obsession with status symbols; and adulation of

singular, often rebellious fi gures, and married it to sports.

You know a brand is strong when you don’t even need the name to know the brand—just

the logo.

Nike isn’t the only brand that has attained instant recognition nationally or globally simply

through its logo. Here are a few examples:

The Way to Your Prospect’s Heart

As a brand builder for your company or organization, you ultimately want

to fi nd a way to your prospect’s heart. Simply put, you want them to love

your brand. How do you get there?

Here’s an exercise to use during the discovery process to begin to form some central ideas

about your brand’s Unique Value Proposition (UVP). The UVP is a branding term for the

“One Thing” concept. This diagram is oversimplifi ed, but you get the idea:

It shows you the type of information sources you need to explore to gain the insights and

understanding that are critical to determining your brand’s UVP. There are a host of tools and

tactics you can use for this, such as brand benchmarking analysis, internal and external inter-

views, focus groups, online surveys, communication audits, and ethnographic research.

Ultimately, when you’ve fi nished collecting this information and spent time sifting through

it, you’ll get a better idea of the unique qualities of what your brand offers AND the unique

qualities the marketplace wants from a brand in your category. That overlap, outlined in

purple, is the sweet spot of your UVP.

In addition, here are some revealing questions to ask about your brand that can help you get some

different perspectives and a more nuanced picture of how it’s perceived. New ideas can come

alive when your brand is seen through a different framework and fresh descriptions and images

are associated with it:

This is fun to do as a part of the discovery process, particularly if participants come from a variety

of audiences—employees, customers, prospects, suppliers, partners, etc. The answers will no

doubt be different, but you’ll begin to see some underlying patterns in the perceptions—some

positive, some negative.

The point is, you have to find out what truly matters to your prospects. What do they need that

they can’t find? What would they create to fill this need if they had a magic wand? How would this

make their life easier? Finding these answers takes time and asking lots of questions. But they

are all mile markers on the road that will take you to your “One Thing.”

If your brand was a store— what would the sign say on the outside?

If your brand was a car— what kind would it be?

If your brand was a dream vacation—where would it be?

If your brand was a person— what would its personality be like?

Breaking the Rules

Great design is courageous. It’s often more about inspiration and imagina-

tion than logic and analysis. It’s about making human connections based

on emotions and not just on data from research, which often doesn’t get

beneath the surface of aspirations or motivations. This is not to say that

market research doesn’t play a huge role in helping to synthesize how

people might react to messages and interact with products. Great ideas

draw from that data, but they go beyond it by breaking conventions with

imagination and some intuition.

The late Bill Bernbach, the creative genius behind the advertising for Volkswagen in the

1960’s, said, “Rules are what the artist breaks.” The best creative ideas seem as if they were

plucked out of the universe, perfectly formed and intuitive, yet almost always transcending

conventional thought.

Nike broke the rules by creating counterculture marketing which motivated people to chal-

lenge themselves physically and almost spiritually. Southwest Airlines caused an upheaval

in the staid travel industry by promoting a more fun, friendly style. Ralph Lauren gave us a

clear, exciting new vision of the “American look” and flung open the doors of exclusivity.

These brands were almost “evangelistic” in their mission to break through conventions.

The fact is a great idea can become the key point of attraction for a brand. And these days,

great ideas will spread like wildfire through social media channels.

Tap into the Emotions of Your Audience.

The goal of your branding should be to open eyes. Generate

excitement. Challenge conventional thinking. And, most of

all, build trust and love for your brand. When you identify the

UVP of your brand, and invest in the business practices and

customer engagement programs to fully support it, you’ll

have the foundation you need.

Soon you won’t have to continually chase customers—

they’ll be attracted to you.

Branding and Integrated Marketing Communications

The Design Channel, LLC

5420 Wisconsin Avenue

Chevy Chase, MD 20815

p 301.951.9195

f 301.951.9197

www.thedesignchannel.com

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