Once my PC shame subsided, the exchange got me thinking about brands and how much they’re entwined with the personas of the users. Apple is an anomaly in that it’s transcended the phase of user-makes-product-cool. See a geek with a Mac on his lap and you think, maybe not so geeky after all. It took Apple a long time and lot of hard work to arrive at this exceptional state of influence. The majority of brands still rely on users to up their fab cache, not the other way around.

When a brand is introduced, a target audience is identified. Marketing textbooks will tell you that a target audience is the group whose demo and psycho graphic data most closely resembles the need solution of the product. But let’s get real, a target audience is the group you hope and pray will make your brand cool.

In a brand’s infancy, the product itself, its availability, distribution channels, and marketing are all success factors, but it’s the early users that play a large part in shaping public perception. I call it Association Magic. A cute, young, and fashionable girl riding by on her Public bike glamorizes the Public brand more than any website or clever ad ever could. It’s why companies give free stuff to rich celebrities and not the homeless who really could use a hand-out. I’m not immune. Susan Sarandon rockin’ Ray-Bans on the red carpet makes me want to buy them more than if I saw the same specs on Howard, my neighborhood eccentric.

This is why discounting can be risky. I used to work for a hotel that booked a lot of bands and celebrities. A big draw of staying there was that you might ride in the elevator with someone famous.  When tourism plummeted after 9/11, we discounted deeply on travel sites where people booked on price alone. Suddenly the hotel was filled with camera-wielding tourists in souvenir t-shirts who shouted, “Oh my gawd, would ya just look at that man covered in tattoos!” These folks were bad for business. We may have filled a few rooms, but we harmed our image with loyal customers by virtue of the fellow clientele. That’s why I caution clients to think hard before using discount tactics as they can backfire.

Brands looking to create Association Magic should aim to get influencers using or talking about their product, now more than ever with social media allowing people to immediately share what they love.  Get the cool kids to “Like” it and the rest will follow. Get Apple users to “Like” it and prepare for a stampede.

It was a Friday night and my husband wanted to meet some of his buddies at a bar across town, so I offered to drive him (why thank you, I am a nice wife). I piled Jake into the car and we dropped off Daddy. As we drove away and came upon a stop light, Jake and I noticed three cute 20-something gals in fashionable, yet teeny-tiny dresses, clutching sparkly purses and teetering on strappy shoes. They were shivering furiously while trying to hail a taxi with zero luck. Clearly they were heading downtown, presumably to a nightclub, but their fun was thwarted by the dreadful fog and cold that often sneaks up on San Francisco.

The mom in me worried and I said aloud, “Where are their coats?”

Jake, not missing a beat, yelled from his car seat, “Where are their pants?”

I think I laughed the whole way home. Not only because it was so darn funny, but because Jake had illuminated my inability to see the obvious. Asking where their pants were, was a far better question than pondering the whereabouts of their coats.

He could see this so clearly because kids are unfettered by mental models. They haven’t yet come to rely on a particular way of thinking about the world and the relationships between things. As adults, we use these short-cuts to help us navigate the world more efficiently. They’re a wonderful thing really, but they can also handicap us in a way for we stop seeing things entirely as they are.

My mental model of fashion and societal norms made it perfectly okay for the women to be wearing scraps of fabric in 50 degree weather, because I understood their desire to look cute for a night on the town – they just needed a coat. Jake didn’t share that model, so he was thinking, get some pants ladies!

As I apply this insight from my bathtub farting guru to my work, I challenge myself to let go of mental models about how branding and marketing is or should be. Some fundamentals have merit, but it’s a powerful practice to slow down every once in awhile to examine the norm and see if there might be a deeper question to be asked. Or I can hang out with Jake. I just have to wear pants.

I have a dirty little secret to confess. Here goes – I get my daily coffee at Starbucks. Gasp, right? This is especially shameful given that I live in San Francisco, a city where people will cheerfully wait 30 minutes for their artisan, fair-trade/organic, hand-dripped coffee. However, there’s one reason I choose The Bucks over my neighborhood’s equidistant Hipster Cafe and that, my friends, is consistency.

In 20 years of marketing, there’s one thing I’ve seen build fierce customer loyalty and it’s delivering a predictable guest experience over time. It’s not sexy and it’s not immediate, but it appears to be the secret to longevity and faithfulness.

I listened to a story on NPR recently regarding political party faith and the scientist being interviewed said that brains like to make predictions and when they come true, little bursts of dopamine are released. We literally get high by correctly predicting what an interaction might be like. That’s why consistency is so important. The more companies can deliver or exceed an expectation, the happier the customer is.

So, let’s go back to why I prefer Starbucks over Hipster Cafe. Is the coffee better at Starbucks? No, but it’s consistently fine. Hipster Cafe serves way better coffee, but only on some days. Others days it’s the wrong temperature or has a funny after-taste. What’s more, the staff at Starbucks is lovely. They know my name and even give me freebies occasionally. At Hipster Cafe, some are nice and some are icy cool with a heavy dose of ennui. No thank you. Besides, there’s too much turnover to get to know the staff. The wait is also a factor. A round-trip trip to Starbucks takes no more than 15 minutes. Hipster Cafe, who knows? Could be 10, could be 30, they’ve never gotten it together well enough to streamline the service.

I know what I’m going to get at Starbucks and in return, they have my loyalty. Now, I also know it’s not cool to like Starbucks. I’m not about to yelp or tell all my friends to go there. However, despite it being my little secret, they have my business nearly every day because of delivering a consistent experience over time. And that just might be a secret worth sharing.

Biotic potential is a living creature’s maximum reproductive potential without accounting for factors that may inhibit proliferation. Just imagine how many frogs would hopping around if they didn’t have to worry about mortality variables like being a tasty snack for otters.

I immediately recognized an analogy between biotic potential and branding through my work with new companies. An idea for a new product or service is a gleam in an entrepreneur’s eye that I’m asked to help turn into cold hard cash. Often I meet with starry-eyed folks so enthusiastic about their new idea, so sure of its impending success, that they’re unwilling to consider the variables that may kill it once it’s released into the wild yonder. I get it. They’re in love and let’s face it, love can be blind.

If you’ve read my Facebook or Twitter posts, you’ll know I’m often the drum major leading the enthusiasm parade about new things – “Check this out!,” being one of my oft used lead-ins. Consequently, I loathe being the one to toss sour lemons in the punch bowl of a festive New Idea Party.  Yet, for a new idea to succeed, it’s crucial to fully consider all the potential harm factors. Like it or not, it’s my job to toss in the lemons.

So, let’s talk about some of the biggest and baddest mortality factors of biotic potential and their analogous organizational counterpart:

Predators – The obvious parallel is Competition. When evaluating the competitive landscape, it’s not only important for new companies to distinguish those who already do what they intend to do (and kudos if the idea is so original that no one already does), but it’s important to consider those who could do what they intend to do. If an idea is good enough, large companies with ample capital, technology, and human resources may quickly surpass the original. Organizations need to be prepared for this kind of predatory assault.

Disease - As any doctor will tell you, disease comes in many forms. Likewise in an organization, disease comes in many infestations from poor leadership to low morale and rampant gossip to outright corruption. Diseases like these can kill a company faster than Mad Cow can blight a herd of heifers. Companies should aim to detect and inoculate against organizational diseases before they strike.

Weather – Sometimes the economy is stormy and sometimes it’s sunny. Sometimes the forecast is correct and sometimes you wonder how the heck those people at weather.com keep collecting paychecks after being wrong so much of the time. You just never know. A plan is essential for when the economic weathervane inevitably starts spinning out of control.

Poor Adaptation – Evolution is survival. Apple could have kept making computers, but they noticed the trend toward mobility and the fact that computers are anchored. Even laptops are only mobile between anchor points. So Apple started making phones and not just any phone, but one with the capacity to do more than any had ever done before. This was not just adaptation, but elegant evolution – the kind that would have had a binocular-wielding Darwin taking furious notes in the bushes.

Migration - While poor adaptation describes a failure to change towards opportunity, migration describes a failure to move toward opportunity. Like polar bears packing up for more solid land masses or birds flying south for warmer climates, it’s necessary for companies to think about where the epicenter of opportunity lies for them. Sometimes it means moving closer to resources like skilled labor pools or crude materials. Other times, it requires relocating closer to where customers live.

Food Supply -
This one is pretty simple.  If you don’t have food, you die. If companies don’t have the organizational equivalent of food – capital, both monetary and human – they won’t survive either.

Accidents - An accident can threaten a company’s ability to survive depending on how it reacts. Right now I’m working with Miss Pearl’s Restaurant & Lounge. A few months ago, they had an unfortunate incident when a felled fire hydrant flooded the space. The restaurant could have been devastated, but instead, they turned the accident into an opportunity
to renovate and undergo a name change. Accidents can be a tricky variable to
plan for, so it’s important to form and foster an organizational culture that
will react quickly, efficiently, and smartly to incidents as they arise.

Well, one excursion to the zoo to entertain my son and there you have it – a whopper of an organizational analogy. I hope it’s inspired you to think about the potential inhibitors of your venture’s biotic potential without losing an ounce of enthusiasm.  Who knows, maybe sour lemon are the secret ingredient in the punch after all.

There’s a common assumption that an organization’s brand resides in its traditional outward-facing marketing foundation: logo, tagline, positioning statement, advertising, and so on. However, companies often fail to recognize how much the brand actually resides in the unique experience they deliver to the customer and that marketing is only a fraction of that experience.

Simply put, a brand to an individual is the total sum of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions based on his or her interactions with the product or service. And a brand as a public entity is the aggregate perception of all those customers. This is evident more than ever since the advent of social media and review sites. A 4.5 star restaurant on yelp.com has way more brand equity than a 1.5 star restaurant. These ratings are largely based on the customer experience and far less on the marketing. You don’t read many yelp reviews that say, “Everything was amazing, but I’ll never go back because of that logo.”

I encourage clients to brand holistically – to not just evaluate outward-facing marketing tactics, but look inward at the culture, leadership, style, attitude, ambiance, and exchanges with the customer. One restaurant I worked with didn’t need a new logo. Instead its brand turned around on a suggestion that they switch the door used for their entrance, providing them with increased street visibility and a much warmer arrival for the diners.

Branding from the inside out can be a bit more complex than a conventional approach, but it’s also way more exciting. Creating powerful, memorable, and unique experiences for the customer is exhilarating. It gets people talking, it garners positive reviews, and it inspires people to come back. If you want to overhaul your brand, start by asking what your experience says about you.

Recently I ran across an article suggesting that marketers should switch from “I” marketing to “You” marketing in their communications. I Marketing is that narcissistic bore at the cocktail party stuck on monologue setting.

“I’m so smart. I’m so good-looking. I am totally and undeniably awesome.”

I agree that I Marketing is an ineffective communication strategy. Use that feature-based approach and you’ll lose your audience as often as the party bore hears, “Gosh, nice to meet you, but I’m gonna go check out the bean dip.”

As an alternative, the article suggested You Marketing; shut up about why your
company is so great and start talking about the customer. The author provided an example of You Marketing:

“After meeting you, it’s clear that your business is on the verge of tremendous
growth. You’re facing some challenges that many companies at this stage of
growth have faced before.”*

While I agree that I Marketing is a poor strategy, You Marketing isn’t the answer. If I received the message above, I’d be turned off. First, it’s presumptive of the writer to say they know about my business with authority. Second, the author claimed that You Marketing is not manipulation, but that’s exactly what this feels like. The marketer is leveraging information that I’ve shared or they’ve researched for their own personal gain.

I suggest we try a more elevated and progressive approach, We Marketing. “We” as in together or us. Instead of yammering on about ourselves or what the customer needs, let’s envision unique possibilities of working together and share those instead. An excellent example is Obama’s simple and inclusive, “Yes We Can,” 2008 campaign slogan. The creative magic happens in partnership, so let’s enroll and excite potential customers about the collaborative “We” and leave the divisive “I” and “You” pronouns behind.

*I didn’t credit the author of the article intentionally because I’m disputing
his/her theory. If you are the author and would like to be credited, please
contact me and I will happily do so.

For me, idea generation feels like those 3D optical illusion stereogram posters in the 80s. The trick is to look at the artwork, but allow your eyes to go out of focus so that the real artwork emerges from within. Ideas are the same. They can be shy. I have to focus attention when seeking them, but not too intently, otherwise they won’t appear.

When a client asks for a big idea – whether it be a new name, tagline, or concept – I get clear on the task, set an intention for the idea to come forth, and then shift my focus onto something else. When my husband first observed this technique, he thought it was procrastination re-branded as process, but he soon learned that indeed, the ideas come out of hiding.

Here are my nine favorite ways to unfocus and open the idea valve:

1.  Go For a Run – Runner’s World Guide to Running says that running helps you to reach creative breakthroughs (p.25). I believe it. Something about the rhythm of running eases my brain into ideation. I can’t write ideas down while in motion, yet this is a good test.  If I still remember an idea by the time I get home, it just might be the one.

2. Shower – Maybe the hot water relaxes me or my minty body wash perks me up,  whatever the case, some of my very best ideas have bubbled up while lathering. Like running, it’s tough to write things down in the shower, but an idea may be a keeper if it makes it to the rinse cycle.

3. Clean – I laugh with  my friend Darilyn, designer-extraordinaire of DK Design, about how we both break out the vacuum when we need to be creative. I think the sense of accomplishing something, even just clean floors, combined with a newly uncluttered space, gets the juices flowing.

4. Slow Down & Notice - Legend has it that Steve Jobs was inspired to design the curved necks of the first Apple flat screens by staring at sunflowers in his backyard. I like to sit on a bench and watch the world go by. It could be the fashion sense of a pedestrian, the bark of a dog, or the shape of a cloud that brings forth an idea. I just
have to slow down long enough to notice.

5. Eavesdrop – Yep, I’m that weirdo listening to your conversation. It’s just that you say really interesting things. I love eavesdropping in physical spaces like busses and cafes, as well as virtual spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and comment sections. Often I hear a word or phrase and voila, an idea is born.

6. Maker Muses - Some people get inspiration at tech or industrial design conferences where the creativity has a wow factor. When seeking my muses, it helps to have an element of “I could do that too,” and let’s face it, I’m not the designer of the next smartphone. I gravitate toward maker fairs or etsy.com. When perusing t shirts with cute slogans, a million versions of a hand-painted owl, or a terrarium gallery, my own ideas start to flow.

7.  Seek Art – While galleries and museums are obvious art havens, I also try to notice the art all around for inspiration. For example, someone has transformed a telephone pole in my hood into an incredible sculpture with keys, locks, and metal miscellanea. My very favorite place to get ideas from art is Burning Man where creative boundaries are challenged, pushed, and broken in the very best way.

8.  Travel - In our daily lives, we create mental models of our surroundings that serve as efficiency short-cuts.  It’s nice to not have to look for the coffee every time I need it, yet these mental models can be a real creativity killer. I stop noticing all the rich nuances of my experiences. My answer is to get out of town; even a one day trip helps to cleam my creative lens.

9. Hang With a Kid - There’s no better cure for idea constipation than my 5-year old son. He asks the questions others don’t think to ask. He makes few assumptions. He looks up and looks down. We walk around the hood and I’ll say, “Tell me what you see,” so that he can help me notice things that open my mind to new ideas.  I bet you can guess who spotted the telephone pole first.

If you’re looking for ideas, think about the ways you can unfocus a bit to allow them to come forward.  Ideas may be shy, but once you find them, they can be the life of the party.

I learned a powerful lesson on branding in the unlikeliest of places; in a class on early childhood development at my son’s preschool.

The course leader did a very interesting exercise. She gave each parent an apple and asked us to bite into it. After we did, she encouraged us to shout out words to describe the experience of eating the apple while she scribed them onto a large notepad. Descriptors like juicy, crunchy, snappy, tart, sweet, smooth, intense, tangy, fragrant, delicious, and succulent filled the page. Finally, we had to stop because the page ran out of room.

Then she asked us to forget about eating the apple and showed us a picture of a red apple. She inquired, “Now based on the drawing alone, what can you tell me about an apple?” Words were not flowing now, but trickling very slowly. Red, flat, green stem, and round-ish were pretty much the extent based on the illustration.

Finally she asked us to forget about eating the apple and the picture. She showed us a piece of paper with the letters, “APPLE,” on it. She asked, “What can you tell me about an apple from this alone if you had no experience with an apple?” Beyond apple being a five letter word, we came up with nothing.

Her demonstration was to describe the Three Stages of Learning

• Experiential Learning – eating the apple
• Symbolic Learning – interpreting the picture of the apple
• Abstract Learning – utilizing the code ‘APPLE’ to represent it

She explained that all three learning stages are ideally linear – that if we have the experience of something first, it deeply enhances our ability to relate to and connect with both its symbolic and abstract forms. When we experience something – we
build a Fund of Knowledge around that thing solidifying our relationship to it. When we jump to symbolic or abstract forms of a thing without this Fund of Knowledge, it’s meaning and emotional connection are diminished or perhaps non-existent.

How does this relate to branding? Well, a lot. So often I encounter clients who are consumed with their logo (symbolic) or the copy on their website (abstract) without a thought to the most powerful form of branding they do every day – the experience they deliver to their customer. Some companies are oblivious to the Funds of Knowledge they are building in consumer’s minds about their organization. Furthermore, if these Funds are negative, a logo refresh or copy rewrite won’t enhance the brand or turn-around customers.

That’s why my company, Slye Marketing, approaches branding experience-first. The fastest way to build customer affinity is to build positive Funds of Knowledge. In doing so, the symbolic and abstract representations of a brand come easy as (apple) pie.

Recently, I had a very fun assignment. I was asked by a client to help define creativity when he was invited to give a presentation on the subject.  What a cool opportunity to look scientifically at something that I do every day – generate ideas.

What is Creativity? What Are Good Ideas?

Defining creativity turned out to be harder than we anticipated. Former Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, said of pornography, “I know it when I see it.” The same adage often applies to a good idea; it’s something we know or feel, but the why can be elusive. Furthermore, the label of “good” can depend on the context and/or the metric chosen to measure the idea’s success.

So, instead of trying to determine a universal definition for creativity, my client and I chose to examine the DNA of ideas instead.  We consulted a great book called, How to Get Ideas, by Jack Foster, and agreed upon two powerful characteristics of ideas that also serve as an effective launch point when brainstorming.

Great Ideas Redefine the Familiar

A creative idea is something universally known or accepted, but conveyed in a
novel, unique, or unexpected way.

Take something familiar, add a powerful twist, and voila – creative brilliance. At Smitten Ice Cream in Hayes Valley of San Francisco, customers are eponymously infatuated with its new spin on a traditional dessert. Smitten makes custom ice-cream from fresh ingredients in 60 seconds with a one-of-a-kind liquid nitrogen machine. The process ensures deliciously pure ice cream and people are literally lapping it up. Smitten takes something familiar and redefines it; even the tagline is, “New Old-Fashioned Ice Cream.”

Yet, sometimes creativity is not a makeover, but matchmaking between two familiar things. Diane von Furstenberg’s legendary wrap dress is a robe and dress united. If a laptop had a baby with an iPhone, you’d end up with an iPad. And the most popular new FiDi lunch spot in San Francisco is Sushirrito where diners savor sushi ingredients nestled conveniently in a tortilla. Sometimes a pair of things have the chemistry to become one new concept that’s far greater than its two parts. Or in the case of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, sometimes not – so the trick is to find the magic combination.

Great Ideas Make Things Simple

A creative idea synthesizes the complex into the startlingly simple. It ties up all the loose ends into one neat knot.

A big misnomer is that a great idea requires layers of complexity, when in fact, the best ideas simplify, not complicate. They have what I like to call the Duh Factor, as in, “Duh, why didn’t I think of that?” I have to look no further than my own floors for an example. Swiffer has to be the best housekeeping innovation of the last century. Replacing a mop, rags, and a pail of sloshing water, is one little disposable wipe that makes my hardwood floors sparkle. First runner-up to Swiffer in the Duh Factor Pageant is putting wheels on a suitcase. Duh, indeed.

Simplicity doesn’t just apply to tangible design, it extends to communications too. Simplify your message and people will more readily understand what your brand might mean to them. Take the Miller Lite tagline, “Tastes great, less filling.” What could be simpler than that?

To sum it up, if you’re daunted by brainstorming and ideation sessions, don’t be. As you and your respective organizations come up with creative ideas, streamline your process by redefining what’s already familiar to you and keeping it simple. In the end, you might ask, “But how will I recognize true creativity?” Like porn, you’ll know it when you see it.

Also known as  the Harvard or Oxford comma, the serial comma is used before a coordinating conjunction (and, or, and sometimes nor) linking a group of three or more items within a sentence. Let’s take a look at what a mess one keystroke can make.

Prior to an all-day meeting, an e-mail is sent to the attendees that trumps even the agenda in importance –  the sandwich order. It reads, “Place your lunch order by 9am. Choice of roast beef, BLT, turkey and cheese.” Mass sandwich chaos erupts. It’s unclear whether turkey and cheese are two different options or if one turkey and cheese sandwich is on the menu. The serial comma dilemma strikes again.

Those who snub the serial comma most likely come from a journalism or public relations background. Their bible, the Associated Press Stylebook, recommends that the serial comma be dropped. Interestingly, it’s a carry-over habit from when newspapers wanted to reduce typesetting. I once traveled to the Peruvian highlands and noticed that the Quechua people always whispered. Apparently Spaniards outlawed their language upon conquering Peru in the 1500s, so the Quechua began to whisper. 500 years later, this habit of self-preservation is still going strong despite it being totally unnecessary. Likewise, computers have made traditional typesetting obsolete. A serial comma is no more trouble than any other letter, but old habits die hard.

Those who root for the serial comma tend towards traditional publishing composition. They’re the folks in marketing who crank out brochures and website content while referring to their bible, the Chicago Manual of Style. It recommends that the serial comma be used, as does A Writer’s Reference by Diana Hacker.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m in the latter camp.  I see two reasons to befriend the old SC.  First, a sentence has a nicer rhythm to it when used. Absence of the serial comma feels like the drummer missed a beat. Second, it can’t hurt. If you don’t use it, you’re gambling that people will understand the sentence. But if you do, you’re taking an extra step to avert confusion and anxiety. I say help a reader out. Had the e-mail stated, “You have a choice of roast beef, BLT, turkey, and cheese,” placing a sandwich order would have been simple, clear, and efficient for all.