I spend a fair amount of time coaching clients on how to apply their brand voice. Brand voice is most often associated with a brand’s personality. It guides the tone and style of verbal and visual identity. It’s easiest to understand brand voice when reviewing copy. Sometimes, the way the brand chooses to express itself in words just feels wrong. When that happens, we say the brand is not “in voice.”

Sometimes, the words a brand uses are out of voice but the brand experience still feels consistent. When that happens, it’s usually the visual system kicking in. Because our minds are wired to read more from pictures than words, we skip over the inconsistencies in the verbal expression and read the visual elements that are consistently in voice. Which leads me to the topic of this short post. (more…)

Two questions I am most frequently asked about Legendary Brands are: (1) can brand cultures grow around B2B brands, and (2) how does social media play a role in brand culture development. The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second requires a bit more explanation. As digital media becomes an increasingly important touchpoint for many brands, social functionality provides the opportunity for these brands to engage and evangelize brand cultures. I am at work on an white paper that will soon be released that studies how to use social media in brand development. In the meantime, check out some of the work that BreakingPoint is doing. Breaking Point is a startup that specializes in network testing equipment and infrastructure. Despite its short history, it has developed an impressive community channel that makes full use of social media. In fact, one of the employees I met at a recent conference confided that he found his job at Breaking Point through a twitter post. The clues to making social media work as a brand builder are inside this effort.

Apple is the darling of brand managers. At least once a week I hear a client ask me how their brand can be more like Apple. I’ve written about the company’s brand narrative extensively. Indeed, Apple is linked to a compelling story that rests in the minds of its faithful consumers. It is a story of empowerment and creativity — of the iconoclast leading the masses to freedom through enablement. The landmark 1984 spot for the launch of Macintosh epitomized this narrative.

Sadly, Apple has begun to turn its back on the roots of its mythology. Consumers and business partners are starting to view the company as a control freak. From its rigid design aesthetic to its business practices, a different side of Apple’s character is emerging. And if the company is not careful, the brand can sink into Act III of the empowerment narrative — the part of the story where the revolutionary spirit turns on itself (a la Citizen Kane).

The latest example of this story development is detailed in this blog post about Apple’s latest patent application, in which is states a purpose of thwarting users from using contraband garments to activate their iPod pedometers.

The (maybe not so) latent nerd in me still gets fired up about NASA and the space program. These photos of a recent Discovery launch are a great insider’s look at how the orbiter is assembled, prepped and launched.

I’m fascinated by the NASA brand. It has such a rich narrative legacy, and yet in recent years, it seems to have lost some of its luster. The agency is still as vibrant and exciting as it was 20 years ago, but the brand system is falling apart. It’s time for some branding.

For all those who question the logic of emotional branding campaigns, read this NY Times science article on recent research into the brain’s processing of memories. The study found that single brain cells became  highly active when remembering recent experiences — these cells were equally as active when the actual experience occured, suggesting that remembering can be just like doing. For the brander, this is significant because it could mean that positively charged brand experiences can affect people even in recall.

People are growing fatigued by brands. I don’t have any empirical data to prove this … just a hunch. Part of it is linked to my travels, where I find the same collection of retail stores in the heart of the city. Part of it is based on the feedback I hear in focus groups and client research. Brands have become ubiquitous, and as a result, people are feeling betrayed. The brands they invest in have not saved them in the hard times. I think I will do a survey to study this. In the meantime, tell me what you think.

Becoming a great brand storyteller requires mastery of genre. Novelists, screenwriters and poets would be lost without the guard rails it provides. The truth is that there really are no original stories. Every story you can imagine has been told before. Over centuries of yarn spinning, the storytelling patterns have clustered into familiar plot progressions and thematic underpinnings. That’s genre. The conventions of each genre strengthen the connection between audience and storyteller, which is why brand storytellers must learn to identify and utilize the genres that fuel their brand narratives.
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