Why People Get Tattoos of Brands

Think about what the term “branding” really means and you’ll have a better appreciation for the importance of the psychology of tattoos. We have a biological instinct to mark ourselves. While body art may scar the body, its meaning is branded into us.

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The MAGIC of the Symbol

Symbols are powerful and within them are those primitive analogies that speak to the unconscious. The Symbol is the primitive exponent of the unconscious, but at the same time and idea that is linked to our very own modern mind and intuition. Marketers must realize that that the unconscious can be reached only by the symbols.

Brand Extensions that Rock

Please give me examples of existing brand extensions you think have been done well?

Polo, of course, was one of the first brands to enter the extension game on a large scale and still sets standards. While a licensing executive at Polo, I grew the business substantially, but always following the strategies and rationales set by Ralph Lauren. He knew his brand and he knew his customer. Every Polo/Ralph Lauren licensed product was required to deliver on the same brand promise he established when the Polo business launched. If I wanted to make the business case for a new extension, I had to first convince Mr. Lauren that the new venture would maintain and enhance his brand’s equity. Apparel for infants and toddlers appeared at first to be too far afield from Polo’s elegant image, until we created what was essentially a new product category of a higher quality and design quotient than what was then on the U.S. market.

Apple is another great example of an admirable strategy. Apple has taken its brand promise of “cool innovation” and exponentially expanded its definition, equity and revenue through brand extensions, continuing through the recent launch of IPad.

A recent extension I find really impressive is Disney’s new English language schools for children in China. Not only are they enhancing their positioning as an educational tool, Disney is introducing a whole new- and sizeable - market to their characters through numerous references in both the school and the lessons themselves.

And, in another sector, Proctor & Gamble’s IAMS brand, which promises to nourish pets and protect them from disease, recently licensed the brand into pet insurance, solidifying the brand’s protection positioning and creating an entirely new product category in the process.

Brand Extensions Strategist

Tracey is a recognized leader in the fields of brand management and brand extension. She has over twenty years’ experience in senior strategic brand management and consulting positions for world-class multinational companies, including Polo/Ralph Lauren, FILA Sports and Turner Networks. Her work spans multiple channels, product categories, industries and countries and her cross-industry experience gives her a unique perspective and expertise on the potential of brands to mine new revenue opportunities while enhancing brand equity.

Consistently designing and delivering on growth-oriented strategic and business plans for large enterprises, Tracey has also crafted numerous strategic alliances between brands and companies. She has a track record of building consensus around common goals, across multiple departments, divisions and companies, as well as a P&L management track record and perspective.

Tracey received her MBA, with a concentration in international marketing, from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is on the faculty of the University of Texas’s McCombs Graduate School of Management. Tracey speaks on multiple brand topics to industry groups and serves as an expert witness in trademark litigation.

Click here for more information on extending your Brand

Humor in Brand Building

We all know that humor in brand building is risky. But It can also be devastatingly effective. When done right, humor works - really, really well.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when using humor to brand:

• Branding with humor works best when the message is suited to Brand Lovers
• The humor must relate directly to your products if you want to be remembered
• Branding with humor yields the best returns when used to market an established and commonly purchased product

The ultimate LEGO Brand experience

There is no question that building a compelling multiplayer experience is hard. But when you are backed by the creative ideas from your best customers and brand lovers the road can be traveled safely. International brand power, LEGO will be unveiling LEGO Universe the upcoming massive multiplayer online game. Expect fun, creativity and of course a community of fans!

Brand Extensions that work

Hi Tracey can you give us a few examples of existing brand extensions you think have been done well?

Tracey Nelson:

Polo, of course, was one of the first brands to enter the extension game on a large scale and still sets standards. While a licensing executive at Polo, I grew the business substantially, but always following the strategies and rationales set by Ralph Lauren. He knew his brand and he knew his customer. Every Polo/Ralph Lauren licensed product was required to deliver on the same brand promise he established when the Polo business launched. If I wanted to make the business case for a new extension, I had to first convince Mr. Lauren that the new venture would maintain and enhance his brand’s equity.

Apple is another great example of an admirable strategy. Apple has taken its brand promise of “cool innovation” and exponentially expanded its definition, equity and revenue through brand extensions.

A recent extension I find really impressive is Disney’s new English language schools for children in China. Not only are they enhancing their positioning as an educational tool, Disney is introducing a whole new- and sizeable - market to their characters through numerous references in both the school and the lessons themselves.

And, in another sector, Proctor & Gamble’s Iams brand, which promises to nourish pets and protect them from disease, recently licensed the brand into pet insurance, solidifying the brand’s protection positioning and creating an entirely new product category in the process.

Our Brand Extensions Strategist

Tracey is a recognized leader in the fields of brand management and brand extension. She has over twenty years’ experience in senior strategic brand management and consulting positions for world-class multinational companies, including Polo/Ralph Lauren, FILA Sports and Turner Networks. Her work spans multiple channels, product categories, industries and countries and her cross-industry experience gives her a unique perspective and expertise on the potential of brands to mine new revenue opportunities while enhancing brand equity.

Consistently designing and delivering on growth-oriented strategic and business plans for large enterprises, Tracey has also crafted numerous strategic alliances between brands and companies. She has a track record of building consensus around common goals, across multiple departments, divisions and companies, as well as a P&L management track record and perspective.

Tracey received her MBA, with a concentration in international marketing, from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is on the faculty of the University of Texas’s McCombs Graduate School of Management. Tracey speaks on multiple brand topics to industry groups and serves as an expert witness in trademark litigation.

Click here for more information on extending your Brand

When is Extension the Wrong Strategy?

Tracey Nelson:

I want to say again – as I’ve said so many times before - that if quick and/or short-term revenue is the objective, extension is the wrong strategy. Brand equity is among the most valuable assets owned by a company and extending the brand is a long-term strategy to build that brand equity and enhance the positioning and footprint of the brand, with long-term bottom line revenue a strong benefit of a well-planned and executed extension strategy. But there are risks.

The extensions will not be perceived by consumers as coming from a licensed company or partner, but from the source of the brand itself. Extensions’ successes – as well as their failures, quality issues, delivery problems, etc. – will be tied to the brand. The extensions will BE the brand and need to be planned with the same strategic considerations as the base business.

Clearly, if the brand is still new, does not have a clear identity, does not have a defined profile of its brand lover or has little awareness, brand extension is probably the wrong strategy at that moment. Research may reveal areas in which to fortify the brand, with the goal of extending it at a later date.

In a previous conversation, I mentioned the licensing agents knocking on the door of any reasonably hot brand. While several excellent agencies exist, brand teams should be aware that many represent both sides of a potential extension, contracting with product companies to obtain licensed brand names as well as brands seeking products. The brand’s priorities need to be the driving force behind any extension strategy, and partners chosen accordingly.

Our Brand Extensions Strategist

Tracey is a recognized leader in the fields of brand management and brand extension. She has over twenty years’ experience in senior strategic brand management and consulting positions for world-class multinational companies, including Polo/Ralph Lauren, FILA Sports and Turner Networks. Her work spans multiple channels, product categories, industries and countries and her cross-industry experience gives her a unique perspective and expertise on the potential of brands to mine new revenue opportunities while enhancing brand equity.

Consistently designing and delivering on growth-oriented strategic and business plans for large enterprises, Tracey has also crafted numerous strategic alliances between brands and companies. She has a track record of building consensus around common goals, across multiple departments, divisions and companies, as well as a P&L management track record and perspective.

Tracey received her MBA, with a concentration in international marketing, from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is on the faculty of the University of Texas’s McCombs Graduate School of Management. Tracey speaks on multiple brand topics to industry groups and serves as an expert witness in trademark litigation.

Click here for more information on extending your Brand

Louis Vuitton: Designed for the Archetypal Experience

Tapping into the unconscious can be difficult and often tricky. There are only a few things that unlock the hidden possibilities of archetypal light of beauty. Design and art are among the most rapid to enter the subconscious mind. Add music and the brand becomes a new program.

Asking the consumer to project value onto any object can be difficult without the power of art. Notice the various archetypal motifs particularly in the images and animations.

What Symbols do you recognize? What effect do you believe they have on the mind?

Are You Ready to Extend Your Brand?

BJ Bueno:

How do you know when your brand is ready for extension?

Tracey Nelson:

One of the most common mistakes in brand management occurs when a brand team jumps into extension too soon. Based on their metrics for success in one category, many corporate teams seize on extension as a low-cost means of generating licensing revenue, most of which can fall to the bottom line – a heady temptation! Also, those calls and emails start coming in from licensing agents dangling big opportunities if only you let them manage your brand extension plans! I would suggest a few questions to ask yourself before seriously considering extension:

First: Do you really understand your current customer?

Most brand executives will just nod their heads here or think about their target customer, rather than their actual customers. Knowing the answer to this first question involves in-depth research.

Who are your brand lovers and what is it about your brand that they love? It’s essential to understand this as: a) brands cannot risk their current business by alienating the brand lovers won so far and, b) the brand must continue to deliver what they love in any extension product or service. It is very important to articulate the unique transferable characteristics of the brand before embarking on an extension strategy.

Second: Is the reach of the brand wide enough to support new products?

For example, a brand may be well known in the Northeast, but does it have sufficient recognition and equity in the Southwest to support an extension with national distribution plans? If a brand is only known to automobile aficionados, are there enough of them shopping in the grocery channel to ensure a success there? Again, this evaluation requires research and clear-eyed analysis.

Third:

If the results of the research indicate some “holes”, either in brand perception or reach, is the company willing and able to invest in the marketing necessary to fill in those holes?

Fourth: In what markets and product/service categories could the brand meet channel and consumer needs?

Again, knowing what needs a brand currently fulfills is essential to answering this question, as well as extensive analysis of any new product categories considered. Not to mention a bit of inspired creativity!

Our Brand Extensions Strategist

Tracey is a recognized leader in the fields of brand management and brand extension. She has over twenty years’ experience in senior strategic brand management and consulting positions for world-class multinational companies, including Polo/Ralph Lauren, FILA Sports and Turner Networks. Her work spans multiple channels, product categories, industries and countries and her cross-industry experience gives her a unique perspective and expertise on the potential of brands to mine new revenue opportunities while enhancing brand equity.

Consistently designing and delivering on growth-oriented strategic and business plans for large enterprises, Tracey has also crafted numerous strategic alliances between brands and companies. She has a track record of building consensus around common goals, across multiple departments, divisions and companies, as well as a P&L management track record and perspective.

Tracey received her MBA, with a concentration in international marketing, from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is on the faculty of the University of Texas’s McCombs Graduate School of Management. Tracey speaks on multiple brand topics to industry groups and serves as an expert witness in trademark litigation.

Click here for more information on extending your Brand

Artist and Brand Wyclef Jean Embraces his Twittering Fans

Most artists don't understand branding, nevertheless embrace their most loyal fans and brand lovers. But Wyclef Jean is one artist who gets it. He has embraced the digital age and understands what branding is all about (inclusion).

In fact, Wyclef is so devoted to his fans that in honor of reaching 100,000 followers on Twitter, he performed a live acoustic concert for his "Twitt heads." He also gave fans a peak into his world by filming the concert from Platinum Sound Recording Studios.

Embracing your fans takes listening. Are you ready to hear what they have to say?

P.S. Wyclef Jean now has over 400,000 followers. When you embrace your fans, the brand prospers and grows.

http://twitter.com/Wyclef

Extending Beyond The Immutable Laws of Branding

Hello Branding Geniuses and Marketing Rock Stars!

Today's post will be a bit different. For the next couple of weeks, I will be sending interview questions about building powerful brands to awesome consultant Tracey Nelson and sharing her answers here. Tracey is a recognized leader in the fields of brand management and brand extension. She has over twenty years of experience in senior strategic brand management and consulting positions for world-class multinational companies, including Polo/Ralph Lauren, FILA Sports and Turner Networks.

BJ Bueno:

How would you respond to Ries & Trout’s twelfth “Immutable Law of Branding”?

Tracey Nelson:

Law 12 of Al Ries and Jack Trout’s excellent book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding states that “…There's an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand and it's a mistake. Instead one should create new brands to address new markets/products.” A superb rule, as it probably protects consumers from many ill-conceived product extensions!

However, there are multiple examples of successfully extended brands which support the addition of an amendment to that law: “…it’s a mistake if undertaken primarily for quick profit, rather than to extend the long-term equity of the brand and without objective research and strategic planning…”

Clearly, Ralph Lauren’s multi-billion dollar empire would not exist had we restricted the Polo brand to just ties. Nor would the Disney brand be the global force it is today had Walt stuck with one animated mouse. These two men were visionaries, but any brand team can certainly learn from them. They understood the relationship that their brand, at its core, had with its customer. Then they made sure that, as the brand extended into multiple product categories, it continued to deliver on its promise.

A simple concept, but one that requires research, objective evaluation and careful strategic planning.

BJ Bueno:

Thank you Tracey. More questions coming your way soon!

Click here for more information on extending your Brand

How Biology Creates Believers

Prof. Robert Sapolsky is an American scientist and author. He is currently professor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery at Stanford University.

I. The Biology of Religion. Some opening caveats, disclaimers and fine print.

II. Religion and belief

III. Religion and ritualistic practices

IV. Religion and the attribution of causality

Links:

• Stanford School of Medicine
• Stanford Magazine
• Cult Branding dot Com
  

Old rules? Going…going…gone

“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress” - Charles Kettering

Brands that are built on fear, are failing quicker than ever. And those that are set in their ways and refuse change are already dead. The funeral is just a detail. Trends such as time compression are erasing the lines of what we once called “natural” change. Industry control freaks are having to face a very scary proposition because all bets are off.

We are living in the most am·big·u·ous time: Now open to more than one interpretation.

Consider that the average consumer is in contact with over a thousand products daily. When customers go shopping the number expands to over 35,000 products and brands. Now add the human factor. The human mind experiences an average of 50,000 thoughts each day. This overflow of information and sensory experiences are eroding what we once considered in marketing the immutable laws.

“Stability is a dead fish floating downstream. The only kind of stability we know in this country is change.” - Henry Ford

To succeed in this crowded marketplace, we must be open to ambiguity. Knowing that there is no longer one right answer. Those days are gone. It's time to embrace change. The easiest way to get started is to reverse our perception:

Reward failure and Adopt change.

As humans we have always survived by adaptation and breaking habits that were no longer conducive for survival. It's now time for brands to do the same. Change can be a wonderful thing.

Onward!

The Power of Cause Branding: 6 Benefits of Meaningful Alignment

A powerful way to reach your consumers is through your Brand's alignment to a cause. Even something as simple as caring for others can transform the perception of your business. Having a cause gives your brand purpose and power. Sometimes it really is about the heart of the matter.

Companies that demonstrate a sense of social responsibility stand out in a world of increasingly undifferentiated goods and services. Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.

The key to cause branding is the selection of a cause aligned with your corporate goals. Most cause-branding programs should be, at their heart, about enhancing corporate brands in ways that are meaningful to key constituencies including customers, employees, communities, public officials, or suppliers.

Cause-branding strategies directly benefit your business by:

• Deepening consumer loyalty
  
• Transforming the brand's reputation
  
• Deepening employee loyalty
• Growing the number of Brand Lovers
• Strengthening ties with business partners
  
• Growing sales, at times exponentially
  

Despite its many advantages, cause branding does have limitations and pitfalls. It is not an antidote to a damaged reputation. A cause can never turn a brand into something it's not. Rather, it's a way of making a strong brand even stronger.

Remember to activate your brand and bring your Cause Branding to Life.

Seeing the Brand is Believing the Brand

As humans, we are highly visual creatures. The visual cortex of our brain has over thirty areas dedicated to helping us see and make sense of the world. When we see things, we don't just see shapes, but we also emotionally experience what we are perceiving.

The connection between emotions and the brain has been clearly demonstrated by modern neuroscience. Brain scans reveal the hidden connections between what we see and how we feel about what we see. Without feelings, objects in our visual field hold no significance and fall into the background of our perception. If an image doesn't trigger the emotional center of the brain, it's without meaning. We feel disconnected to what we see, even when it's people as important as our parents or children. Biologically, all memory is tied to an emotion.

Emotions = Energy

Every image, including your Brand Image, must pass through the thalamus--the relay station in the brain that takes in sensory information and then passes it along to the cerebral cortex. Simply put, the thalamus tells customers how they feel about your brand.

Your Brand Image carries energy, and provides information to the consumer about the brand experience. For example, the Apple logo is one of the most widely recognized images in the world, associated with creativity and innovation. Empirical studies have shown that subjects exposed to the Apple logo exhibit greater creativity than control subjects. Like Apple, your Brand Image stands for the sum of the brand promise.

The Brand Image has the power to connect your Brand with the emotional centers in the brain. We are wired to see. And when we see, we believe.

How much POWER does your BRAND IMAGE have today?

A BRAND Walks Into a Bar

Branding with humor can be very powerful technique, but if done wrong it can make your business and brand look silly and not credible.

Humor can lead to a marketing grand slam--as long as it's done right.

Getting the most from Humor:

• The humor can't overpower the brand.
  
• The humor should fit your product or service's personality.
  

Entrepreneur Magazine recently asked a few experts (cult branding as well) to comment on this very topic:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2009/april/200722.html

Brand Loyalty Expert Kicks Off the Retail Advertising Conference

Orlando, Florida, February 16, 2009 - Author, creative strategist, and creator of Cult Branding Bolivar J. Bueno will be opening for this year's Retail Advertising Conference (RAC). This annual 3-day event in Las Vegas, Nevada (February 25-27), is attended by the heads of top retail brands like Best Buy, eBay, Kohl's Department Stores, Macy’s, JCPenney, PetSmart, Target, Toys “R” Us, and Home Depot.

Mr. Bueno will be joined on stage with Jennifer Dorian, Senior Vice President, Network Strategy and Brand Development for Turner Entertainment Networks, which includes TBS, TNT, and Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

Together, Mr. Bueno and Ms. Dorian will share how to build an authentic brand while growing a more profitable business.

ABOUT THE CULT BRANDING COMPANY - The Cult Branding Company is the recognized leader in cultivating authentic customer loyalty. Using its trademarked Brand Lover Model, The Cult Branding Company helps businesses understand, connect, and serve their best customers. Clients include Kohl's Department Stores, Scheels, Turner Classic Movies, and LA Lakers.