7: Making the Intangible More Tangible
The author admits that his concept of the brand fantasy "is messy and abstract," but the reason that marketers have gone so far astray is that they have attempted to create a clean and methodical system and in so doing have thrown out a good many important things in order to be tidy, so much has been oversimplified or discarded that the models of consumer behavior have little to do with actual consumer behavior. The human mind does not lend itself to a clean theoretical model, and "we need to embrace the messiness."
The conscious side of the human mind has been the focus, because it is rational (or we can pretend that it is) and tractable. But the greater part of human behavior is attributable to the unconscious side of the mind, which is difficult even to conceive. Moreover, neither side should stand alone - our conscious and unconscious minds are interdependent and influence one another greatly, and any system that ignores either one and focuses exclusively on the other is missing half the brain.
The mind itself exists as a network on both the biological and cognitive level. A thought or a memory is not a self-contained thing, but a network of associations between concepts in the mind. Brands are one kind of concept - they are simply a more specific kind of thing than a generic object. The brand associates a product (good or service) with its maker, and there are associations to the product, to the brand, and to the maker that all combine into a mental image and the individual's feelings about the brand.
The author refers to mind-mapping diagrams that create a web of concepts. It generally starts with one concept, then links other concepts to it. This is very much how we understand the mind itself to work, so it is a good technique to use to explore and illustrate associations between the brand and other ideas.
He suggests that doing this will require setting aside existing beliefs about the brand, particularly those that are based on the model of the rational and conscious mind. (EN: My sense is that this isn't something people can do with a brand they have worked for years, and it may be necessary to engage customers to perform this analysis with guidance from a proctor rather than having insiders handle the task.) A few exercises he suggests:
- Tour the senses. Do not make mental evaluations of the brand, but instead focus on sensory perception of the brand - what it looks, sounds, feels, smells, and even tastes like. This can extend from the physical good to the store or the places where the product is purchased, used, serviced, etc.
- Anthropomorphize the brand. Consider the personal characteristics of the brand as if it were a person. It's the question of "if your brand were a person, who would it be?" Consider the basic demographics, but also thing such as what the brand would do for a living, what it would do for fun, which people would it be friends with, etc.
- Contextualize the brand. When you have the brand translated into a person, think about the environment to which the brand would be suited. What kind of home would it make for itself and what other objects would be there? What kind of party would it throw and who would be on the guest list?
- Eliminate the brand. Consider what the world would be like without the brand. What would be missing from the marketplace? What would the customers purchase instead? What would make them more or less satisfied about accepting a substitute?
He admits some of these ideas seem a little weird, but it's about thinking metaphorically, in the way that the mind creates associations. It's not about the brand, but the connections the brand has to other ideas. All of this can be documented, but it is more likely to be understood in a vague and ineffable way. Again, this defies traditional approaches, but it is necessary to embrace a less structured approach in order to understand the brand.
In terms of documenting this thinking, the author suggests a few approaches:
- Core Terms - A list of three to five terms that "begin to capture" the feeling of the brand. This is not about the product or benefits, but the brand itself. The goal here is to select words that, when mentioned, quickly create a general sense of the brand.
- Brand Network - A "mind map" that diagrams associations to the brand. This will likely be rather a large diagram, in that it represents concepts that branch out from the brand (concepts that link to concepts to brand) and should indicate the strength of the connection between the items and the core brand. Simplified versions can be created that show only the strongest associations, but somewhere there should be a document that shows the full story.
- Mood Board - This is a collage that may include images and media - but no words - to convey the sense of the brand by any means necessary to communicate it. It includes both sense-data, concepts, and emotions that are associated to the brand, and there is no fixed or systematic way of doing this. Much of its concepts may be communicated by way of metaphors. The author mentions multimedia mood boards that combine images, sounds, and motions to convey a sense of the brand.
- Trigger - A word or phrase that brings the brand to mind. This word represents the brand as it wishes to be, which may not be the same as what it is. The trigger word can be anything - an object, a feeling, a movement, or whatever - the important thing is not the word itself but the feeling it conveys.
Another list: the author suggest validating and aligning the brand fantasy with the "three Cs" of customer, commerce, and culture
- Customer - The target market for the product, considering their perspective about the brand
- Commerce - The competitive position of the product, how it compares to and is differentiated from key competitors
- Culture - The "broader world beyond your category and industry," which is to say the culture of the society in which the brand exists, particularly when non-buyers can be meddlesome
Lastly, there is the advice to keep this dynamic and up to date. This is not an exercise you do once and then ignore it, or assume that it will not change over time. It is the "as is" against which your strategy will seek to create a new state, and your efforts will have an impact on the brand, which may not always be what you hoped to achieve. Ultimately, you must accept things as they are and embrace the mess to fully understand the brand in context of all its associations.