Believe in Brands with Morals and Values

If You Believe
© 2011 Retail Voodoo, LLC. All rights reserved. Thursday, June 16, 2011 1

I've seen the best brands
of my generation destroyed by
madness and greed.

Factories and post-war prosperity
spawning an era of hyper choice to
the point where we now have 300
choices of toothpaste.

Design has become a shroud of
sameness, protecting us from the
original, the different.

Business schools and marketing firms
have chased the Four P’s of Marketing
into the corner, stripped them naked
and stomped them to death.

There are 300 choices of toothpaste.

My mission is to rid the world of
unnecessary products by helping
breakthrough ideas dominate so
powerfully that the pretenders die.

Have you ever killed a brand
just to watch it die?

300 choices.

The experience economy is a
real conversation helping people
to commune.

To be different, together.

To disrupt consumer driven society
and reconnect with other people.

Against all business school theory,
I believe that people will let brands
help define them so long as you, their
stewards, understand the following:

The people have assumed control of
your brand.

They want you, and your brand,
to have morals and values.

People look to brands to take a stand
on issues the way previous
generations looked to religion.

They willingly help ideology driven
brands become distinctive markers
of human identity.

No one is waiting to erect a
monument to our excuses.

I believe design without a voice is futile.

Ideology trumps systems.

I believe that people look to leaders
who are self-aware enough to
listen without worrying what they
will say in response.

And that the people will follow,
if they believe.

300, I say.

Now, is your mission to sell more
product to 18-34 year olds?

To increase shareholder value?

Is your mission to line extend in
pursuit of 2% share increase, or do
you actually believe in something?

Are you in the business of selling
things, or do you have a higher calling?

Because if you believe – if you
truly believe – then maybe
we can believe, too,

and maybe we can help reach others
who believe…

and together, build a community
of believers.

But if your biggest goal is line extension
– if share capture or stock price is
keeping you up at night,

then perhaps we will have the pleasure
of meeting on the battle field.

Written from the cottage on the dock, somewhere in Seattle

Recommended