Mysterious Brands
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Thoughts on why brands should behave mysteriously. Explores reasons why humans respond to mysteriousness and the tenets of story telling in this way. NOTE: click on the 'Speaker Notes' tab to get a clearer read on what I'm trying to say on each slide as this presentation is not very slideshare friendly.
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Mysterious Brands
- 1. mysterious brands matt summers manager, account planning
- 3. Q: so transparency is good for brands, right?
- 4. “every successful enterprise has proprietary information (secrets). otherwise there is no competitive advantage.” P.J. Crowley former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State of Public Affairs
- 5. when we make ourselves mysterious, we make ourselves interesting
- 6. world’s most valuable brand
- 7. 2nd most valuable brand
- 8. american staple for 125 years
- 9. 2nd biggest single-day gross in box office history
- 10. fastest growing imported beer
- 11. their mystique is a differentiator
- 12. humans naturally want to finish the story Gestalt Law of Closure: when presented with incomplete images, our brains will try to complete them on their own
- 13. unfinished things cause us to feel tension Zeigarnik Experiment: incomplete tasks are better remembered than complete ones and motivate us to go back and finish them
- 14. saying a little says a lot
- 15. building suspense creates desire
- 16. being remarkable is worth remarking about “be remarkable, that is, worth remarking about.” sethgodin
- 17. surprise is currency “when you’re outspent, surprise is your currency.” adamkeller
- 18. shock to awe
- 19. a backstory gives you more dimension
- 21. honesty complements mystery “what artists do wrong is lie. I don’t lie. I build good will with my fans.” “if I’m open about everything and yet art direct everything in my life, I’ll maintain a sense of privacy.” closes the loop when you want people to move on
- 22. “come in late and leave early” don’t tell the whole story
- 23. be sure to withhold the engine for mystery
- 24. but, mysteriousness isn’t right for all scenarios
- 25. when brands should be mysterious
- 26. when brands shouldn’t be mysterious
Editor's Notes
- We’ve been talking about transparency as marketers for the last several years. And I think that’s because it’s a good thing.If it wasn’t for transparency, the Egyptian incident at Tahrir Sq. wouldn’t have turned a closed culture into an open one. Social media is one of the greatest tools to allow us to seek and prove openness from institutions and celebrities (think Anthony Weiner). And our demand of it makes them behave better.
- If we agree that transparency is good for for institutions and celebrities, it’s good for brands too, right?
- Well I vote no. Because I think brands should be mysterious. In some cases, it helps to be secretive. You may have heard at our last New Front that former US Assist. Sec. said that “every successful…” If Google revealed it’s algorithm, what would it have? It wouldn’t be Google.
- Because when we make ourselves mysterious, we make ourselves interesting.Don Draper is the epitome of mystery. He reveals things about himself every so often. He is soft spoken, yet deeply complex and secretive. Hell, Don Draper isn’t even his real name.
- Some successful brands are doing this already. Apple orchestrates secrecy and builds hype around their product launches. Coincidentally, they’re now rated the world’s most valuable brand by Mashable.
- Google is purposely secretive and says very little while introducing new things all the time. Making you wonder what’s going on behind those doors.
- Coke has teased its secret formula on multiple occasions to maintain the mystery.
- The Dark Knight helped revitalize the Batman character by highlighting his darker side where he is cast as a person who has personal demons.
- Dos Equis has started small by creating a new character and revealing more about him over time.
- For all of them, their mystique is a differentiator. And we all know that differentiation is key to marketing. But this mystique works in more ways than just differentiating the brand. It attracts people at their core.
- That’s because humans naturally want to finish the story. A psych experiment showed that when presented with incomplete images, our brains will try to complete them on their own.
- That’s because unfinished things cause us to feel tension. TheZeigarnik Experiment revealed that humans are much more likely to remember incomplete tasks than completed ones. This is because incompleted tasks are unsettling, causing us to feel ‘psychic tension.’ One psychologist argues that this is because as early humans we needed to find solutions to problems that we failed at in order to survive. Therefore, our brains are hardwired to recall failed attempts so that we can find the motivation to consider new approaches that might be successful.
- There are several tenets of mystery that we can use to shape storytelling. One is recognizing that saying a little says a lot. Google didn’t advertise on a large scale for 12 years after their birth, yet were highly publicized and discussed by consumers.
- Apple used secrecy to build hype and desire for what the iPhone 4 was going to look/feel/act like that Gizmodo paid $5k to essentially steal it.
- Being remarkable is also a component of mystery. The brands we love the most are often remarkable in what they do or provide. Dyson is remarkable by making boring items extraordinary. TOMS is remarkable in its business model. Groupon is remarkable in its benefit to consumers. Even if you don’t have anything remarkable about your brand, there’s a way to make it appear remarkable or introduce it in a remarkable way. The last image is one of a heavy machinery manufacturer that chose to build a custom tower for the machine to scale at a trade show in order to demonstrate it’s strength. This is remarkable in the sense that it’s not something you’d expect this product to be doing.
- Surprise is currency and should be leveraged to maintain engagement. Mini has done an amazing job with using media to continuously surprise consumers through its launches.
- Lady Gaga builds her “mastery of the art of fame” by using fashion to not only garner attention, but to direct it to her work rather than on her personal life. Every piece she wears signifies something that she wants to say (meat dress = don’t ask don’t tell).
- Banksy never revealed his face, and then when he did a documentary, no ones knows if it was real or fake because of how he’s portrayed himself. Was it really just to make fun of this Thierry guy and his ridiculous hacking of the street art world? Or was he trying to build awareness of the art and of Banksy’s influence?
- Lost did a really good job of setting up different avenues for people to go down and get excited about.In mystery novels, they call these ‘red herrings’ which are little pieces of information that are designed to mislead you to the wrong conclusion – making the story harder to solve.
- But misdirection shouldn’t be confused with lying. You want to misdirect the focus onto whatever you want to focus on, or whatever will bring you a desired reaction (excitement for something, controversy, etc.).Honesty should always be your game as it builds good will with your fans. Our culture desires honesty because that closes the loop on the story. We obsess about things like Tiger’s affair until he comes clean because we want to know the whole story. But if you want to have people move on, finish the story for them with honest feedback that’s believable. Then they’ll move on to focusing on whatever you want them to.
- JohnHegarty said that in storytelling, you should come in late and leave early. Which is to say, don’t tell the whole story so that people continue asking questions in order to fill in the gaps.
- Just be sure to keep your secrets secret. Joaquin Phoenix didn’t receive the success he should have with his mockumentary because the inclination that it was a hoax was leaked and publicized before the full launch of the film – ultimately killing the mystique and overall interest in what was initially believed to be a fantastic story of a star falling from grace.
- You should be mysterious if you’re a shoe company, a luxury brand, a car company or launching a completely new product or service.
- You shouldn’t be mysterious if you’re a bank, government, food company, or you behaved really badly (like dumped a bunch of oil in the ocean). Instead, you should be transparent, and leave mystery to someone else.