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that irresistibly beckons you to a special experience. People buy what they believe. Brand is where faith and commerce intersect.
I’m Just Not Buying It
When we don’t believe something, we often say, “I’m just not buying it.”
To get people to buy your product, they have to buy into your brand. You must create belief system around your brand. Your brand needs to get “religion.”
Advertising guru Simon Sinek gave a popular TED Talk Start with Why a number of years ago that gets to
the heart of the concept. He said, “If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this: ‘We make great computers. They are beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly.’ Here’s how Apple actually communicates: ‘We believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?’”
Apple has created a faith around their brand, built
on irrational beliefs with passionate followers. True believers in the Apple creed swear Apple products are well-designed, but their phones shatter so easily a whole industry of phone cases emerged. Apple disciples will swear that Apple computers don’t get computer viruses, despite the fact that a recent 3Com study reports that Apple products have the most security holes of any major software maker. White hat hacker and security research teams at 3Com have found that Windows 7 (the PC operating system) is much safer than the Snow Leopard OS (what Apple computers run on). The fervor around these tenets and others in the Apple creed reaches the highest levels of passion of zealotry. The facts don’t matter. What people believe is everything.
Special! Act Now!
Beliefs tell us to what to pay attention to and how to act. They are the tenets that we use to interpret the world and take action. We are constantly deluged with sensory information and do not have time to logically weigh facts. Instead, we act from the gut, on preconceived notions, biases, prejudices and generalizations.
A belief is an idea that is held to be true. While facts and logic have some bearing on belief, emotion
and human spirit are the bigger drivers. Facts are absorbed through emotional and irrational lters.
As Eric Hoffer observes in his groundbreaking work The True Believer, “People tend to believe new things that support what they already believe,” and “People will believe something is true if they really want it
to be true.” People have a strong desire to belong
and resist change. Facts that t into traditions are easier to believe. Authority—our emotional reaction
to authority—drive what we perceive as factual. We may want to please someone we love or we may fear someone with power, both of which impact the facts we obtain from them. Facts are ltered through emotion, and when we run out of facts, all we have is emotion. The True Believer states, “We can only be absolutely certain about what we don’t understand.”
Brand beliefs are not rational, but that doesn’t mean they are stupid. They are the product of an incredibly intelligent process. Belief is universal to all humans. It is how we create order out of chaos and how we act when we face things we don’t understand. Our beliefs are critical to our survival and happiness. Our ancestors did not see each tiger they encountered as something new to ponder. They were biased to believe all tigers were dangerous. When they saw one, they acted fast. People think about facts, but they act on belief. We drink Coke because we know it refreshes. We listen through Beats headphones because he designed them to perform
like his studio headphones. The cool people drive Mini Coopers, the coolest car on the road.
Building a Brand Belief
Where marketing is a rational operational task of research, planning, strategy, and managing the 4
P’s, brand is an evangelical effort of creating belief, a secular religion surrounding a product or service. To learn how to create brand, don’t just read marketing literature. Immerse yourself in literature, neuroscience, religion and the psychology of mass movements.
Authors: Milton Kotler Chairperson, Kotler Marketing Group USA. He has been active in China for since 1999. He is an economic advisor to the Mayors of Xian, Dalian and Harbin in China. He has delivered public seminars in over 50 Chinese cities.
Lisa Merriam is an associate of Kotler Marketing Group. She is a brand consultant who helps create and build pro table brands for Fortune 500 rms and fast-growth entrepreneurial companies. Her book Merriam’s Guide to Naming was rst published in 2009, with a second edition that came out in 2013.
60 I October 2015