Brand a ritual

A brand that has a ritual associated with it is considered to have reached the pinnacle of brand positioning. It indicates consumers are engaged, loyal and emotionally attached to your brand. It means your brand is so meaningful to people that they are willing to do something slightly out of the norm for it, sort of- like they are in love with your brand.
Although you may think rituals are the natural reaction or show of affection loyalists have for your brand and can only evolve naturally, the truth is a brand can be the creator of its own brand rituals. I will show you different techniques to artificially create brand rituals, which myself and others have successfully implemented.
Before you try to create a ritual, here’s a handy checklist to keep in mind:
1. Simple : It needs to be something really simple. The more complex it is, the less likely it will become accepted.
2. Relevant : Although this is not a rule, rituals will work better if they directly relate to and are symbiotic of the features or benefits of the brand.
3. Meaningful : Customers are more likely to buy into a ritual if enhances their overall customer experience with your brand.
4. Fun : Customers should enjoy the ritual.
5. Consistent : Once the ritual is developed, the marketer must ensure that there is consistency in its promotion.
There are three types of brand rituals. We will label them “Must do” “Want to do” and “Can do”.
1. A “Must do” brand ritual is designed as part of the interaction a consumer has with the brand. If they want to use your brand, they must do the ritual, otherwise they cannot use your product or service. Examples of this include:
    A. Starting a Porsche with your left hand- Porsche designs all their vehicles with the ignition key on the left side instead of the right. Because this action is exclusive to Porsche, it is clearly a brand ritual. Legend has it that “This placement dates back to the early days of Le Mans racing when drivers were required to make a running start, hop into their cars, start them and begin the race. The placement of the ignition enabled the driver to start the car with his left hand and put it in gear with his right.”
    B. Iphone- sliding, flicking and pinching your fingers over their screen. Was this a ritual? Absolutely, when it first came out, no other phone required its users to make those strange set of hand motions. Now that others have imitated it, it lost some of its ritualistic qualities. Eventually it may become the only way to use a cell phone, but at the outset, it surely was a ritual owned by Apple. Apple, by the way is excellent at creating “must do” rituals. As a rule, any new product that they come out with has that maverick quality in that it is needs to be used in a way that is completely different from its competitors. Think about the wheel on the iPod, for example.
    C. Wearing a tag on your jacket zipper while skiing (and leaving it on for a month afterwards as a souvenir).
2. “Want to” brand rituals are rituals that someone would most likely want to engage in when interacting with the brand. No one is forcing them to do it but there are clear rewards to the customer for doing so. It is the better way to experience the brand. Examples include:
    a. Mobil Speedpass- a little wand you hang on your keychain and wave at the gas meter in order to pay. It’s fun and convenient. Although you don t have to use it, you probably want to use it.
    b. A café gives out Travelers mugs with their logo along with coffee club punch cards. The coffee club works as follows: Fill up your mug nine times with coffee and you get the tenth cup free. Every day people line up with these mugs to get their coffee. Of course, there’s the option to use paper cups but the promotion only works when you use the official company branded travelers mug- and that’s what makes using the official mug an ever deeper ritual.
    c. A fitness center offers T shirts with their logo on it for patrons to wear during their workout. Although you can get your own T shirt all sweated up, you most likely prefer to change into one of theirs before you start working out and toss it into one of the hampers in the locker room when you are done.
3. “Can do” brand rituals are rituals that “somehow” evolved around the brand and take on a life of their own. It is just the hip thing to do when engaged with the brand. There aren’t necessarily any benefits to doing the ritual and the ritual can probably be performed on other brands as well although it wouldn’t feel authentic. Examples include:
    a. Eating Sushi with Chopsticks
    b. Pouring Gatorade on the winning coach's head
    c. breaking the Kit Kat wafers
    d. squeezing a lime into a bottle of Corona beer
While “can do” brand rituals appear to evolve on their own, they are usually transmitted to the general public through the good graces of Madison Ave advertising and publicity agencies.
Rituals create a unique brand experience, which provides us with a reason, consciously or unconsciously, to want to revisit the brand experience. It imparts something personal, giving us a closer connection to the brand. The ritual also involves the customer with the brand. Acting in a unique way for a brand helps create affinity towards it. It creates a habit, which encourages loyalty. Brand rituals are also “sticky”, they help the customer remember the brand and the brand becomes iconic.

As I opined 2 posts ago, a new product needs to be routed in fulfilling some preexisting need or desire in order to succeed in the marketplace. The best way to come up with ideas for new products or services is to reverse engineer your idea. By this I mean that you should first explore unmet needs or desires and then formulate a solution for it in the form of a new product or service. This is primarily what the aforementioned Eugene Schwartz did very successfully. He spent his entire career trying to understand what desires people were already predisposed to and were already unsuccessfully trying to satisfy and then created products which he claimed (wildly) satisfied those desires. He did this to the tune of six billion dollars worth of self-help products! The focus of his marketing was never on the novel product he was selling but rather on the ability to solve an age old well identified problem or desire, in a new way.


Similarly, another method of ideation is to meditate on the products or services you already provide and think if there’s some irritation or frustration within your industry that no one has yet resolved and people just put up with. That’s exactly what David Oreck from the Oreck vacuums did. He realized that the heavy weight of the average vacuum was an irritation people just lived with and he set out to alleviate that. So instead of trying to make a better vacuum cleaner, he made a lighter one. From the outset, his entire branded position centered on the fact that his vacuums only weighed 9 pounds.

Kal Vachomer marketing

On a recent trip to Home Depot, I bumped in a palette of driveway sealer. They were 5 gallon buckets piled around 5 feet high and located near the spackle. The most fascinating aspect about these buckets was their description. It was described as “airport grade”. Now that caught my attention because I don’t believe shoppers at this particular Home Depot have airports in their front or backyards. I don’t even believe that any of them own an airplane! I am also quite certain that even the local, single engine airport, if they ever needed to repair their runways, would probably not send someone to Home Depot to pick up a couple of buckets of this stuff. They’d probably hire a professional road repair contractor. Wouldn’t you think? So what’s up with the “airport grade”?

I then went to the plumbing section and a looped video caught my attention. It showed a person demonstrating how his toilets never get stuffed. The person put 15 golf balls in the toilet and then flushed. Swoosh, all 15 golf balls went straight down the toilet. Quite a feat. It got me thinking though, is there anyone in his or her right mind that plans on flushing golf balls down their toilet? So, what’s the point of showing it?

Mr. Oreck was famous for showing how the suction of his vacuum can hold a bowling ball. Question- does anyone use a vacuum to collect bowling balls?

There is a logical formula for deciding questions in the Talmud called Kal Vachomer (the “ch” in Vachomer is pronounced in the guttural German “ch”). Kal vachomer means deducing the smaller from the greater and the logic goes as follows- If something can accomplish a great feat than surely it can accomplish a smaller one as well.

While in the Talmud, this is no simple matter and is given a full treatise, for marketing purposes, it is really simple. When you show or imply that your product can do much more than anything your customer will ever need it for, they feel secure that it surely do the job they need it to do as well.

Kal Vachomer marketing gives your product so much credibility, it can be the whole basis for your brand and make it quite successful. As a matter of fact, it has made the aformentioned business quite sucessful.

How to come up with new brand ideas and new products.

If you read enough branding and marketing books, you tend to believe that the best way to brand a new business is by coming up with a brand new, totally unique concept that no one has ever thought of before. We all heard of USP’s (Unique Sales Preposition) and the word “unique” is uppermost in any professional branders mind as he goes about branding a business. Theoretically, the more thoroughly unique the idea, the better chance it has of making it as a brand name.

Though this makes for great theory and ideology, reality is very different. True, there are those that will be successful in launching a totally unique concept, but they are the exception to the rule. The best proof of this is the new invention companies that you hear advertising on the radio all the time. They promise to patent your invention and make you a multimillionaire. Sounds great, but the sad truth is that less than 1% of all inventions patented through these “invention kit” companies ever give their inventors royalties that exceed the initial outlay invested. Why is this so? Remember, the inventor was positive this new invention would make him rich. So, what happened? Why do the vast majority of new inventions fail miserably? The reality is that brand new ideas or inventions don’t sell well. Read that counterintuitive sentence again- brand new ideas don’t sell well- and therefore brand new inventions don’t take off well.

The primary reason ninety-nine point something percent of all new inventions fail is that in order for people to buy a newly invented product, they first need to need or desire that product. The question is, if life was relatively good before this product was invented, why should your customer now think they need or desire it? The obvious answer is that with rare exception, they don’t, unless you create that desire. We already described “the bar conversation” which is a powerful method of discovering true unmet needs and desires. However, creating desire where hitherto there wasn’t any, takes many years and millions of dollars of education/ marketing and even then there’s no guarantee it will take off. One of the greatest copywriters of all time- Eugene Schwartz once said “Do not try to create demand, it will tire you out”. It is difficult to condition people’s minds to need and desire a product or concept they previously never imagined.

However, there is a trick to create desire even where none previously existed and that is by associating your new idea to a preexisting one, which your customer already accepted as necessary. By correlating your new idea to one already lodged in your customers mind, he or she no longer feels the idea is frivolous and unnecessary. Since the idea already exists in his mind, just in a different form, the customer simply transfers his natural acceptance of the previous need or desire onto the product you are now offering.

The difference between marketing and branding

As a branding and marketing consultant, I am often asked to explain the difference between marketing and branding. In this post I will do better than that- I will explain the difference between sales, marketing and branding, from a layman’s or small business owners perspective.


Have you ever heard the saying: “You can bring a horse to the water but you can’t make it drink”?. Well, to realte that saying to marketing, we can explain that marketing clears a path to the water. It lets the horse become aware of the water and makes it as easy as possible for the horse to get there and drink. It makes sure the water is drinkable and will actually quench the thirst of the horse. Branding makes the water beautiful and tantalizing so that the horse desires it and wants to drink it. Salesmanship takes the horse by the arm (or its mane), drags it to the water and tells it to drink. Now I’ll elaborate.
1. Sales: Simply put salesmanship is methods or tactics that guide a person to take the specific action you want him to take. By nessesity, all sales pitches end with a call to action. Salesmanship includes showing someone all the possible benefits they will get by taking a specific action and the loss they will incur by not taking that action. Proofs and tactics may be employed to signal to the client that the action you are asking them to take is correct. A direct link can be drawn between sales efforts and results. If there is no call to action or there isn’t a direct link between the effort and its result- it is not salesmanship.

2. Marketing. Marketing is one-step removed from salesmanship. It is indirect salesmanship. With marketing there is no call to action and there is at most an indirect link to the desired results. Marketing sets the stage for the sale to take place. Remember the 4 p’s of marketing- product, place, price and promotion. If you have the right product, sell it in the right place (or distribute it properly), have it priced right and promote it well- you should make a sale. And although we test all these parameters, tracking and then researching patterns and trends, there’s no definitive link between these things and the resultant sale. For every pattern and trend, a hypothesis has to be developed and hypotheses can be argued. John Wanamaker famously said “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half” (Do not confuse this with trackable advertising – trackable advertising always has a sales component with a specific call to action-it is sales, not marketing). I would argue that John Wanamaker was lying- it is impossible for him to have definitively known that half his advertising wasn’t working. However, he was correct in thinking that it was possible that half his advertising wasn’t working- because the bottom line is, there is no way to know for sure. The same could be said for all of marketing. Marketing is logical and intuitive and is based on a keen understanding of human nature. Is it measurable? Not really. Marketing definitely works- but because there is no direct call to action, there is no way to prove it is definitively working in a particular circumstance.

3. Branding is based on human laws of attraction. Try articulating why a particular person is more charming than a second. Now write a rulebook to teach people how to become charming. Well, that’s exactly what branding is all about. Often, it is not about being right or wrong, its about being cohesive and becoming a significant component in people’s lives and purchasing habits.
 Branding helps people draw the conclusions you want them to draw- but they do it on their own. It creates positive feelings in people’s minds and hearts for your business, product or service. It doesn’t push, coerce, compel or sell, rather it allows people to feel positive when identifying with you. Branding has the ability to create a fan club and fans are likely to buy, refer friends to you and even feel lucky they are able to purchase into you. Branding is based on the premise that if people have positive feelings for your business, they are likely to buy from you. Additionally, great selling skills may close a sale, but without branding to support it, people would feel like they were taken advantage of upon completion of that sale.

In an ideal setup, branding, marketing and salesmanship all work in sync to improve sales but each plays a distinct role in the process. Branding wins over people’s minds and hearts, building people’s desire for your product or service. Salesmanship closes deals and yields immediate, trackable results. Marketing bridges the two. It makes your business accessible and noticeable to your prospects so that they are impressed by the branding, which allows salesmanship to easily close the deal.

Here's what changes.

Amoungst other things, peoples desires and focus change every now and then.

Recently, I spent a day in the Garment district of NYC with a client of mine. As we entered the Lincoln Tunnel, I looked up and noticed a Mercedes Benz billboard ad. It showed a Mercedes on an empty beach and said something like “Tan lines fade; a Mercedes lasts forever”. I thought that was a strange and rather meaningless statement. My client pointed out that with summer on the way, everyone’s mind is on the beach and this may be Mercedes' way of tying in to that.

Over the course of our day in Manhattan, we met with the executive director of the GDIC. When he saw me, the first thing he asked was “Are you from the old school or are you new to the garment district?” I looked at him strangely, not sure what he meant by “old school”. He looked at me sadly, shook his head and said, “It’s been a long time since we had yarmulkes (head coverings that orthodox Jews wear) here”. Now I understood. There was once a time when the garment industry teemed orthodox Jews. Many Hassidic Jews worked hand in hand with some of the best-known designers. My grandfather- an orthodox Jew himself, was a textile manufacturer. He had a spinning mill the size of an Airport hangar and dye vats the size of swimming pools. I remember them vaguely. His clients included Kimberly and Zegna, amoungst others. But that all came to a crashing halt in the 80’s.

What happened? Why did things change so abruptly? Well many things changed, such as off shore manufacturing, new government regulations, government incentives to export all our raw materials, cheap labor in Asia, polyester, etc. Nevertheless, from a branding and marketing perspective, something else changed as well, that is very noteworthy.

Back in the 70’s, dry goods such as clothing were valued based on the quality of the goods. People primarily cared about how long a garment would last, how it stood up to heavy washing, the quality of its workmanship, etc. During the late 80’s things shifted. The defining criterion of a good garment was not high quality anymore. Comfort was the new benchmark. Casual Friday became vogue and whoever manufactured the most comfortable clothing was considered the best. As we moved to the turn of the century, that changed as well. The defining criterion was no longer comfort but rather figure. Whichever designer created the most figure enhancing clothing won. Currently, we are still in the Fashion Forward era and more important than longevity, function or comfort, is form and figure. What will come next? Who knows- but give it a few years and it will most certainly change.

Orthodox Jews, especially Hassidic Jews understood quality well- because all you need is common sense to understand good quality. To a lesser extent, they also understood comfort- because it is also common sense. When it came to the Fashion Forward trend however, they were totally lost. Its not something that is rational but rather intuitive. Additionally, figure-enhancing clothing generally goes against our tradition of modesty. Therefore, the orthodox Jews ended up closing up shop and are currently a rarity in the garment district.

To go back to the Mercedes Benz beach ad- while the billboard made no sense to me- the tie in to a tan certainly makes reference to the figure enhancing, fashion forward era we are now in- and that may be all Mercedes was trying to say. In some way you should imagine a Mercedes Benz to be your form and figure statement as well.

My point with this is that while principles never change and strategies rarely change, desires and purpose do change. Be cognizant of that, keep up with current and evolving fads and roll with the punches! Good Luck!

The principles never change

We live in a whirlwind, where long held beliefs and ideas are constantly challenged by today’s new realities. Until recently Google was the most used site on the web and therefore internet marketing was based primarily around SEO and PPC. Today though, Facebook outpaces Google and so everyone is rushing to Facebook to figure out how to “monetize” on it. Social networking, blogging, and Facebook in particular are taking center stage for the time being. Tomorrow something else may become the new fad and everyone will rush to that next.


We hear how the world has become inherently ADD and no one can read more than a few lines without becoming distracted (are you still reading this post or did I lose you already). We are told how with blackberries buzzing on people’s belts all day, most people cannot carry a focused thought or conversation for longer than a minute or so. It seems human nature has changed and that we have to accept the change and figure out how to capitalize on it. It’s a whole new world out there.

I am a timeless guy by nature. I like to believe that the principles of the human race and everything about us will always be the same. But I have to acknowledge that there are seismic shifts occurring daily- socially, technologically or otherwise, and if we don’t participate in them, we will be left out in the cold.

So, which rules change and which stay the same? And, is there a system to keep up with the changing rules of the game, or do we simply have to constantly question whether our efforts of today will become obsolete tomorrow?

This three and a half minute video clip from a Dan Kennedy seminar puts all this into perspective- at least for me. Enjoy!

Facts every branding person should know about copywriting

As David Ogilvy suggested in the video speech I’ve posted here, I’ve been spending much time researching direct response marketing. It’s been an eye opener, to say the least. It seems to me that although David Ogilvy never said so, he had that unique ability to bring the very different worlds of direct response and general advertising or branding together. That’s where his brilliance lay and that may be why he was so successful.




Amongst other things, I learned that Direct “responsers” loath advertising agencies and branding people with a passion. They claim ad agencies have a hundred and one reasons for producing ads, other than trying to make the most money for their clients. Direct responsers hate creativity, ingenuity and good graphics. They don’t care for branding or awareness. What they do care about, actually the only thing they care about, are results. They are madly driven to elicit an immediate purchase from their prospects and they are experts at doing that. They have a science and formula for doing it. It behooves you to learn it. Your branding and advertising would be much stronger if you understood it and incorporated at least some of their ideas into your marketing.



One of the major differences between branding or marketing and direct response is that direct response ads are “salesmanship in print”. In fact, “salesmanship in print” is their mantra. What this means is, that whereas advertising agencies are involved with attention grabbing creativity, branding, awareness, mindshare, credibility, personality etc- direct responsers are instead focused on make compelling sales pitches. These sales pitches are not very different than a car or furniture salesman except it is in print instead of being verbal.



Selling or “sales”, is the process of taking a potential customer from zero or little interest, to a burning desire for your product or service. That process has many steps because it is simply impossible to get somebody to go from zero to a hundred in a second. That’s why direct responsers and David Ogilvy talk about “long copy”. The longer the copy, the more time you have to make your case and convince someone to purchase from you. When making their case, “direct responsers” actually move their prospect in a linear path through very specific steps which are designed to build that desire very quickly. Below are the nine steps any good direct response copywriter generally takes to compel their audience to buy. Study it and memorize it.



1. Tell your prospect you understand their need,

2. Tell your prospect why your product is the best solution they can buy,

3. Offers proof through testimonials etc.,

4. Explain all the ways the product will benefit the customer,

5. Present the price in a way that makes it sound like a great deal and promote your money-back guarantee so it looks better than it really is,

6. Add bonus material to really motivate the customer to buy,

7. Make it a limited time offer

8. Ask for the sale.

9. Gain their trust again by reiterating your money back guarantee –



It would probably take a book to explain each step thoroughly but this outline is enough to get you going. With internet copywriting everything is exactly the same, except you “ask for the sale” multiple times, beginning with step 4 and in between each step thereafter. Try it out. See how it works.

Persuasion Marketing

While there is really no way to get people to starve for your product or services, there are ways to make them hungry or possibly get them to indulge, even if they aren’t hungry. Below is a list of tactics utilized by major marketers to whet people’s appetite. It is based on a seminar given by John Walker.


1. Social Proof- When people see everyone else is doing something, they are inclined to do it as well. We follow what everyone else is doing. When everyone gets off the plane, they’ll follow the people in front of them out of the airport. If one restaurant has an empty parking lot and the other is full, you will be inclined to go into the one with the full parking lot.

2. Scarcity- When something is scarce, people want it more. Create a feeling of scarcity by incorporating a deadline. Insert “for a limited time only” or “limited slots available” into your advertising. Even is something has unlimited capacity, try to create a sense of scarcity. Idea- Create “add-ons” or sales that are only for a limited time.

3. Stories- Build stories into your product or service. Even if people don’t really desire or need your product, they may buy into it for its story appeal. Buying a product with a history or story makes them feel like they are living that story. It’s similar to the concept of people spending tremendous amounts of money on art, just for its history or story appeal.

4. Anticipation- Turn your launch into an event. Seed it: “Coming soon”, “in 10 days..”, “countdown to the greatest….”. Anticipation creates excitement, which builds desire.

5. Community- Have communities get involved in the project. Run contests where everybody participates and everyone knows that everyone is participating. Have a blog where anyone can comment. When people see everyone else involved, they become involved (this is different from social proof where others are actually buying or taking the exact steps we want the target mimic). If everyone else is expressing a desire to get involved- they’ll also get involve and hopefully buy.

6. Reciprocity- If you give something to someone, they will want to give something back to you. Give them time, a free report, a free sample etc. Let them you know you expect reciprocation in a very subtle way: You can tell them "I believe that if I am good to others, they will be good to me". "I am giving this away for free because I am certain that if it truly meets your expectations, you will buy it", “I don’t give away things because I am an altruistic person but rather because I know that when you are ready to buy, you will remember to use me” "I am giving away this free stuff because I know just how useful it is to people like you and I am sure if you had access to it like I do, you would have done the same for me." etc.

7. Commitment and consistency- People like to act in accordance with their commitment. Get them to admit they need your product on some small level and they will want to follow through with their previously stated position.

8. Controversy- controversy breeds interest. When people see controversy, their eyes and ears pick up and they want to know what’s going on. This follows with them developing an opinion about you. Once they take sides, they either love you or hate you. If they love you, they’ll often show you that love with their wallet. Even if they hate you, they will often hate you for what you stand for but admit you offer an excellent product or service. Once they do that, they’ll buy into you as well. Idea- Center the controversy around something that has nothing to do with the quality of your product or service. Ie. Support a controversial cause.

9. Proof- Show proof that what you sell works. If they really believe your promise through the proofs you show them, it usually makes logical sense to buy it and they often will. “No proof, no launch”. Show proof and more proof and more proof and then ask for the sale. Idea- always include testimonials showing your products value to be much greater than its cost.

The copywriter’s secret

Good direct response copywriters are wildly successful. They pull in billions of dollars in sales (Eugene Schwartz sold over 6 billion dollars worth of self-help books through his direct response ads). As a matter of fact, really good copywriters are not available for hire because they create their own companies to sell their own products. Rather than make others all that money, why not keep it for themselves.

David Ogilvy, in a famous speech extols the virtues of direct response copywriters. He explains that if all marketers’ had only one chance to make a sale, and the results are fully tracked -like direct response marketers are- marketing would be much more efficient and productive.

Following David Ogilvy’s advice, I set out to study direct response marketing. I discovered there’s one huge secret all direct response copywriters have -and it has nothing to do with how compelling, long or succinct their writing is.


Direct response marketing usually comes in the form of a long letter. It makes huge promises. It explains how this product can turn your life around without any effort on your part whatsoever. It then goes on to heap a bunch of add-ons included free and explains how you’re really getting a $5,000 value for only $49. It usually has a money back guarantee and leaves you thinking, “Although this sounds totally outrageous, let me give it a try. Maybe, just maybe, it is really as good as it sounds. Maybe this is God’s gift to me and it will really change my life around. I shouldn’t pass it up.”

While reading direct response copy, people are often in a hypnotic state. They’ll read through 10 pages of copy, getting more excited with each passing paragraph until they are bursting with an uncontrollable desire for the product. And while logically, a little voice whispers this is too good to be true, a thunderous urge to try the product right now, often leads to a sale.


The copywriter's secret I'm about to tell you was revealed when one famous copywriter asked a bunch of marketers: If you had a hamburger stand and you could ask for anything you can think of to generate sales, what would they be? Give me all of your ideas and I will ask for one and only one thing that I guarantee will generate more sales than all your ideas combined. So, he drew up a list of all their ideas; posters, billboards, positioning statements, advertisements etc, on the left side of a chalk board and made a line down the middle. On the right side, he wrote his one request. It was two words. They were “starving people”. “All I need is a group of starving people" he explained, "and I’ll sell out every last hamburger in my stand.”

With all David Ogilvy’s hype and accolades on direct response marketing, the real secret to direct response marketing is they only sell products people are starving for. No, direct response cannot sell ice to Eskimos or sand in the desert. They never try to. Eugene Schwartz said, “Don’t try to create demand- you’ll tire yourself out. Figure out how to channel it”. Schwartz realized people always demand or starve for, a few basic things: Beauty, Fame, Health, Wealth and Intelligence. He figured out how to channel it his way.

Although there are tactics utilized by direct response copywriters to get you all excited about their product and force you to read without letup the entire copy, the main reason you are excited is because the copy promises this product will help you attain one or more of your greatest desires. In other words, it is the food you are starving for.

How do you figure out what people are starving for? How can your product or service really be the solution that people demand? You need to listen. According to Eugene Schwartz, a great copywriter is a great listener. Listen to what average people are saying. What bothers them? What do they wish for? Position your product as the answer. Copywriter John Carlton, in his Simple Writing Systems has a method of doing this. He calls it “the bar conversation”. It basically goes like this: Picture yourself in a bar. Someone walks in, sits down and asks the bar tender for a drink. Bar tender: “How was your day Bob?” Bob: “Lousy, I …..” Stop right there. Now you need to think, what kind of problem can Bob bring up, where you can then turn to Bob and say, “Bob, I have the solution for you”. In other words, what real problem or wish do real people have, that your product or service solves? Create all your marketing, branding and copy around that and sales may just fly through the roof.

Engage the senses with the brand

As you may be well aware, neuromarketing, publicized by Martin Lindstrom in his book Buy-ology, is the scientific method of measuring the brains reaction to marketing stimulus. It is based on the assumption that people cannot really articulate the reasoning behind their purchasing decisions or desire. The way someone responds to a survey and the way their brain responds to a survey can be very different. Since the brain is not subject to an ego or theatrics, it is assumed to be the one telling the truth. Sort of like a lie detector. Taking this idea a step further, it follows that there may be all sorts of outside influences affecting our decisions which we aren’t even aware of. Those influences though, will always reach us either through logic or emotion. And, the path to emotional engagement is the senses. Will you buy something because it smells, looks, feels, sounds or tastes hits a raw nerve within you? You bet!

According to Lindstrom, sneakers placed in a room with a scent so subtle it was considered subconscious, outsold sneakers placed in a room without the smell by 84%. Additionally, people were willing to spend on average $10.33 more for the sneakers in the scented room! Lindstrom suggests using scent to evoke childhood memories. Vanilla scent is naturally found in mother’s milk and is therefore the earliest childhood memory we can evoke through the senses. Baby powder scent as well creates a strong emotional reaction, taking us back to our earliest childhood memories. Many companies specialize in scent marketing. They can literally recreate any scent imaginable.

Sound is a powerful stimulus. Consider the fact that Harley Davidson sued Honda, claiming Honda’s Shadow Ice 1,000 sounded similar to Harley’s Fatboy. Obviously, Harley felt the “potato, potato" sound of their engines was an integral part of the Harley experience.

Consider this: In 1998, Adrian North, David Hargreaves and Jennifer McKendrick ran a test in a British wine shop to determine the role of background music in purchase decisions. For a number of days they piped in French and German music, alternating between the two. The results: on French-music days, the French wine outsold the German wine by a ratio of four to one. On German-music days, German wine outsold the French by a ratio of three to one. The same team also discovered that customers are likely to tolerate long waiting times (both on the phone and in the real world), if and when the hold/background music is enjoyable and fits our expectations. [From Building Brand Value Through the Strategic Use of Sound by Noel Franus.]

What about looks? Consider the back label of Listerine Purple: “the bottle design and purple color are trademarks of Johnson & Johnson”. Remember Crystal Pepsi? Somehow, colorless cola did not feel right. What about Heinz’s green ketchup, for that matter?

And, by the way, the smell of that new car you leased- It’s entirely artificial according to Lindstrom. Actually, it is sprayed in to the vehicle with an aerosol can right before coming off the assembly line and is designed to last 6 weeks after the purchase. What would buying a new car be like without its accompanied new car scent?

The genius of taglines

The first step in executing a brand strategy is to create a tagline. There are differences of opinion as to what a tagline is. To some, a tagline is a description of the fulfillment you provide the customer. For instance, Red Bulls tagline is “energy drink”, Gatorades tagline is “thirst quencher” etc. Others use the term "tagline" to mean a slogan- Allstate “you are in good hands”, American Express “don’t leave home without it” etc.
The difference between them is that the former has to be classic and timeless, lasting througout the entire life of the business, at least in theory. The latter may be trendy and change according to the times. Consider Coca Cola's many taglines/slogans:
1932 - Ice-cold sunshine.
1937 - America's favorite moment.
1938 - The best friend thirst ever had.
1938 - Thirst asks nothing more.
1939 - Coca-Cola goes along.
1939 - Coca-Cola has the taste thirst goes for.
1939 - Whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be, when you think of refreshment, think of ice cold Coca-Cola.
1941 - Coca-Cola is Coke!
1942 - The only thing like Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola itself.
1944 - How about a Coke?
1945 - Coke means Coca-Cola.
1945 - Passport to refreshment.
1947 - Coke knows no season.
1948 - Where there's Coke there's hospitality.
1949 - Coca-Cola ... along the highway to anywhere.
1952 - What you want is a Coke.
1954 - For people on the go.
1956 - Coca-Cola ... makes good things taste better.
1957 - The sign of good taste.
1958 - The Cold, Crisp Taste of Coke
1959 - Be really refreshed.
1963 - Things go better with Coke.
1966 - Coke ... after Coke ... after Coke.
1969 - It's the real thing.
1971 - I'd like to buy the world a Coke.
1974 - Look for the real things.
1976 - Coke adds life.
1979 - Have a Coke and a smile.
1982 - Coke is it!
1985 - America's Real Choice
1986 - Red White & You (for Coca-Cola Classic)
1986 - Catch the Wave (for New Coke)
1989 - Can't Beat the Feeling. (also used in the UK)
1993 - Always Coca-Cola.
2000 - Enjoy.
2001 - Life tastes good. (also used in the UK)
2003 - Real.
2005 - Make It Real.
2006 - The Coke Side of Life (used also in the UK)
2007 - Live on the Coke Side of Life (also used in the UK)
2009 - Open Happiness
2010 - Twist The Cap To Refreshness


Regardless of which definition you are working on, a tagline is the sum total of the strategy. It is also the most powerful tool in a brand strategist’s toolbox. Consider it the rudder that directs the ship. When properly utilized, a tagline will:
-drive the brands position to the specific spot we choose it to be.
-gives meaning and context to the brand.
-differentiate the brand and makes it relevant.

The way to create a tagline is to first do all the steps described in previous posts to figure out your brand strategy. Once you’ve done that, write down the strategy in as many paragraphs as it takes. After that, try to distill it into one paragraph then into a sentence and then into 1-6 words. Those one to six words will be your tagline.
Before you do this exercise though, you need to ask yourself what you would like the tagline to accomplish. If you are a master at the brand game, you can reasonably assume that the tagline can accomplish almost anything you want it to as it can literally do anything. Your only limitation is that it can only do one or at most two things, so choose wisely.