Its the ultimate question when it comes to effective brand differentiation.

That campaign – that Facebook post – that video – if you were to cover up the logo would people know that its you speaking?

Would people still be able to connect with you if they had a mask on?

If they can that means there is a real, deep brand connection.

If not – that means you are just like everyone else to them.

One thing I keep forgetting is that you simply can’t settle in advertising. Advertising is a field where if you settle you are always prone to regression to the mean.

You will simply be like every other agency. Like every other brand. You will die for mediocrity slowly. You may have some decent at ideas here in there but at the end of the day you’re the same as everyone else.

I used to think that this was a nice extra bonus to hit it out of the park here and there. I was wrong.

It’s a requirement for every single marketing project.

Why the word storytelling is so misleading is that nobody wants to hear your story.

They may enjoy the story, they may resonate with it – it might even change their life.

But that wasn’t because it was your story – it was because the story resonated with their story.

You can’t tell people to be apart of your story – you invite them to become a part of it and they write the story with you.

It’s time for modern storytelling.

“I like the way this looks”

“I like the way this sounds”

As marketers we run in circles when we start off being selfish. It’s not what you care about, its not even really what the client cares about. Ultimately – it’s what the customer cares about.

The only way to be professional in marketing is not to first ask yourself if you like it – that is mostly irrelevant.

You first ask – does the customer like this? Does this make them excited? Does this look good to them? Does this sound good to them? 

That is always forgotten. The more its forgotten the more and more you run in circles and stay an amateur marketer.

Your brand doesn’t have a story it generates one and it generates a story only through visceral responses; meaning it touches peoples hearts and moves them.

You as the marketer, don’t get to decide what moves people hearts – people of the market do.

You are here to serve people of the market and to create experiences for them not at them.

Things that we enjoy our things that stimulate us in a certain way.

It doesn’t stimulation by drugs nor does it mean that you can’t be relaxed by stimulation. Stimulation doesn’t mean hyperness.

Stimulation is immersion. Its engagement. Its being fully immersed – or at the very least being being pulled by something.

You can’t stimulate someone through logic – you do it through the limbic system – the primitive brain.

The human brain doesn’t necessarily deal in logic or words – it deals with emotions and images. It deals with vibrancy and frequency.

The limbic system serves the logical part of the brain. Stimulation pulls people in.

Brand is not logo.

Brand is not reputation.

Brand is not design.

Brand deals with expectations and promises. Brand is the sum of all your marketing efforts – the by product is a shortcut and tool for customers. Brand is a tool for people to communicate with themselves and the people around them. That’s why brand also doesn’t mean story – a brand is not a story it is only apart of a story.

Brand is not a end in and of itself – it exists to serve the customer in a complex world.

It’s about having a brand that can’t regress down because of the competition but is lifted higher by it.

It’s one of the indicators of ultimate success in a brand

What makes your brand more valuable as other people join the market?

As Voltaire once wrote: “It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.”

Some of marketing is focused on this idea of seducing customers – and it is correct. People want to do things on their own time and feel like they are in control. They want to feel like it was their idea all along.

Alternatively, sometimes instead of seduction – force is required to change people.

They need a little bit more, fear, tension or force to take action – just seduction wont work from them.

Sometimes you need a little bit of both to make change happen in someone.

The message is the medium is a common phrase in advertising.

The reason why the message is the medium is simply because of the medium provides the context for the message.

Context is about what is happening in the news that day. It’s about what the medium was designed to do and not to do. Its about the other social media posts I saw that day.

Context is the fact that the message has to fit in that medium – whether its social media or a billboard.

There is much to much focus on advertising on the content of the ad – the images and words and not to much on the context, where the words and images are live.

Strong advertising takes advantage of both.