Why are some businesses growing consistently regardless of the economy? How can these
brands charge top dollar and have people practically beg to give them their cash? The
answer is simple, sort of. Emotions, habits, beliefs. Companies like Apple know how to make
their product, but more importantly their brand, become a part of your life. More than that,
become a part of you, or at least the way you think about yourself.
It's more than making funny ads.
What I do is get rid of all these buttons. Just make a giant screen, a giant screen. It's about
making the brand a part of your identity. Bad marketing doesn't appeal to any identity and
just tries to sell you things you don't want or need or care about. Good marketing appeals to
a customer's current identity, but it's great marketing that appeals to your aspirational
identity, who you want to be. And this effect is so strong and so powerful that not only does it
influence our buying decisions, but also carries over into how we think and feel and act in
our everyday lives.
A study done by Duke University found that brief exposure to well-known brands can cause
people to behave in ways that reflect that brand's traits.The researchers tested this by
flashing either the Apple or the IBM logo quickly to participants, and then did an exercise that
measured how many creative ideas they were able to come up with. The results were that
the participants that were shown the Apple logo were able to come up with significantly more
creative and unique ideas than for IBM. This is what makes the Mac versus PC campaign so
genius. It's not just that it's funny, but that it appeals to a person's identity, current or
aspirational. It's also polarising, pulling some people in and pushing some people away,
something that every great brand and business does. Identity is about culture, community,
and connection. Or as Seth Godin puts it, people like us do things like this. What Apple did
well, as well as other brands like Nintendo and Nike and Chick-fil-A, is that they tapped into
a culture in a community that was already there. A target audience, if you will, and gave
them another flag to fly. A flag that not only allows them to show what ideas and messages
and lifestyles are important to them, but also encourages the customers to do a little bit, or a
lot of it, of extra free marketing in support of the brands that they believe in, which is what
this next point is all about.
We as humans use other humans in order to decide what to do, and what to like, and what
brands and businesses to buy from. The fancy psychological term for this is the memetic
theory of desire and it's basically how we're programmed to want things when we see other
people showing them off in a way that looks cool or interesting or amazing and we think hey
I want that too. Even the most anti-authority you can't tell me what to do rebel without a
cause kind of people still look to other anti-authority you can't tell me what to do rebel without
a cause kind of people for cues and signals and behaviours that they should copy and model
and emulate. This isn't a bad thing and it's certainly not a judgement against following other
people, rather than going alone and forging your own path. After all, this behaviour has been
evolutionarily hard-wired into us, as in the past, the people that forged their own path often
ended up not making it to the other side. Uh, I wouldn't go that way if I were you.
But you are me.
The key then is learning how to harness this power by stacking the odds in your favour and
going out of your way to show more people using your business, products or services, loving
every minute of it. In marketing, we call this social proof, and Apple does an amazing job of
brands charge top dollar and have people practically beg to give them their cash? The
answer is simple, sort of. Emotions, habits, beliefs. Companies like Apple know how to make
their product, but more importantly their brand, become a part of your life. More than that,
become a part of you, or at least the way you think about yourself.
It's more than making funny ads.
What I do is get rid of all these buttons. Just make a giant screen, a giant screen. It's about
making the brand a part of your identity. Bad marketing doesn't appeal to any identity and
just tries to sell you things you don't want or need or care about. Good marketing appeals to
a customer's current identity, but it's great marketing that appeals to your aspirational
identity, who you want to be. And this effect is so strong and so powerful that not only does it
influence our buying decisions, but also carries over into how we think and feel and act in
our everyday lives.
A study done by Duke University found that brief exposure to well-known brands can cause
people to behave in ways that reflect that brand's traits.The researchers tested this by
flashing either the Apple or the IBM logo quickly to participants, and then did an exercise that
measured how many creative ideas they were able to come up with. The results were that
the participants that were shown the Apple logo were able to come up with significantly more
creative and unique ideas than for IBM. This is what makes the Mac versus PC campaign so
genius. It's not just that it's funny, but that it appeals to a person's identity, current or
aspirational. It's also polarising, pulling some people in and pushing some people away,
something that every great brand and business does. Identity is about culture, community,
and connection. Or as Seth Godin puts it, people like us do things like this. What Apple did
well, as well as other brands like Nintendo and Nike and Chick-fil-A, is that they tapped into
a culture in a community that was already there. A target audience, if you will, and gave
them another flag to fly. A flag that not only allows them to show what ideas and messages
and lifestyles are important to them, but also encourages the customers to do a little bit, or a
lot of it, of extra free marketing in support of the brands that they believe in, which is what
this next point is all about.
We as humans use other humans in order to decide what to do, and what to like, and what
brands and businesses to buy from. The fancy psychological term for this is the memetic
theory of desire and it's basically how we're programmed to want things when we see other
people showing them off in a way that looks cool or interesting or amazing and we think hey
I want that too. Even the most anti-authority you can't tell me what to do rebel without a
cause kind of people still look to other anti-authority you can't tell me what to do rebel without
a cause kind of people for cues and signals and behaviours that they should copy and model
and emulate. This isn't a bad thing and it's certainly not a judgement against following other
people, rather than going alone and forging your own path. After all, this behaviour has been
evolutionarily hard-wired into us, as in the past, the people that forged their own path often
ended up not making it to the other side. Uh, I wouldn't go that way if I were you.
But you are me.
The key then is learning how to harness this power by stacking the odds in your favour and
going out of your way to show more people using your business, products or services, loving
every minute of it. In marketing, we call this social proof, and Apple does an amazing job of
