Hmm. So, if I’m amazed by the 4x product promise, I must like hot bikini models. Oh, and I do, I mean, gosh, who doesn’t? Wait, the ad tells us who doesn’t: anyone not amazed by the 4x product promise. Therefore, if you don’t like Energizer Advanced Lithium you must also hate hot bikini models. Whoa.

While I certainly appreciate the demographic Energizer is catering to, I don’t know which I find more irritating, the specious, transparent “right to the crotch” value proposition or the fact it’s “hiding” behind the fact that its tongue is firmly planted in it’s cheek. How longer battery life will result in you being mistaken for a “professional photographer” is, of course, never addressed, but that’s not the point. The point is that it’s supposed to be funny. The words hot bikini models can’t be used seriously in any kind of communication. But for Energizer to put its product-positioning chips on this kind of brainless square strikes me as oddly demeaning to the product, readers, and, of course, hot bikini models.

When you make a living architecting brand messages (and I do, I mean, gosh, who doesn’t?) you become especially sensitive to this type of look-at-me borrowed interest. I understand the sole purpose of the ad is to connect Energizer in the reader’s mind with 4x longer, I get it. But the context for that connection is what makes it matter, makes it meaningful. And that’s where this creative gets lazy. The easier the attention-getting device, the harder to establish impact and credibility.

When I was a boy, I’ll never forget a newspaper ad that featured one word in very big letters: SEX. And below that mother-of-all-headlines were these words: We don’t sell any, but we sell the best fish and chips in the Bay Area. And I distinctly remember feeling surprised and manipulated and not in a good way. When a brand is perceived as manipulative, it’s both hard and expensive to shake. While the Hot Bikini Models ad is not as blatant or disingenuous as the H. Salt Esquire Fish and Chips Sex ad, it’s not as different as Energizer wants us to think it is.

Now, I’m not saying category experience isn’t important, just not the most important. An agency’s knowledge of the values, issues, and terminology of a particular market can be extremely valuable and drastically reduce transition and time-to-market. But, like muscles, creative and strategic thinking grow through being used in different ways, on different challenges. Working in the same category repeatedly can keep an agency in a comfort zone that, over time, can’t help but result in similar work for similar clients.

Good agencies become good by stretching and applying their unique creativity, philosophy, energy, resources, and processes to a variety of vertical industries. Because good agencies know how to communicate and connect to any target in any market. They’re adept at quickly learning an industry’s unique landscape, competitors, history, offerings, and language, and provide fresh thinking. I believe clients are better served by an agency that does consistently outstanding work in four different categories than consistently perform mediocre in one. As a veteran and award-winning creative director once said, “A client asking an agency if it has experience in a certain category is like asking a doctor if he’s worked on Eskimos.”

Again, I’m not saying category experience important, just be clear about what it’s really buying you. If it’s your primary search criteria, the process should be short and easy and could result in work generated out of reflex or habit. If it’s not the primary criteria, look at agencies that have demonstrated excellence in multiple categories. They have the passion, experience, and resources to communicate effectively to any industry, even yours.

All branding is essentially tribal. That’s the heart of its power. Social media, in turn, fosters the creation of fluid, digitally-connected “tribes” that form and interact in response to an opinion, idea, product, service, person, or company. The process of brand building, especially in digital environments, is about creating repeated and sustainable actions (more on that at another time). Any medium that generates emotionally genuine action and creates loyalty and free content in the process is justifiably the Holy Grail of Digital Marketing.

Whether in response to a video blog from an executive like John Chambers or a promotion from Red Bull or Skittles, no platform so effectively aggregates and merchandises self-created tribes. But what makes it tribal is an interactive dialogue. Over the last decade, Amazon has built its brand and made billions by featuring the collective wisdom of consumers in product reviews and rankings. It’s tribal but, without the ability to dialogue, it’s not social. The critical element for a vibrant dialogue is social media’s second trait—time.

The ability to see the impact of our contribution to a group or individual dialogue instantly and in real time is uniquely satisfying. Like ripples in a pond, we can watch them roll out and collide or merge with other rings into new shapes or go off and be forgotten. True social media lets us contribute opinion on literally anything to the great cultural dialogue enveloping the planet on a moment’s notice and from a “safe” environment. This immediacy help sustain a level of passion and engagement not possible in platforms that require waiting and delay.

Earlier, I used the term “true” social media because I feel only two or three of the standard-bearing brands listed in first paragraph really provide the Two T’s. While they all have different strengths, some are, in my opinion, more “media” than “social.” As more applications eagerly jump in the pool, I firmly believe those that continue to innovate around the Two T’s will succeed while those that don’t are the ones that will eventually be roadkill.

From man’s earliest days grunting to friends beside a fire to instant messaging with virtual friends in 3D experiences, story provides the context that penetrates and allows us to learn. Discounting the burning of cowhide, branding developed as a subconscious process in a late-1800’s society forced to make decisions in increasingly complex retail environments. But I believe its roots go back much further.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when people seeking to survive chose the cave without the saber tooth tiger in it, they employed a primal instinct that scales forward to branding: we go toward things and people we like and understand and away from those we don’t. And the device that helps us decide this is a complex combination of relevance and need determined through story. The cave without the saber tooth tiger had a better one.

Without a framework that provides a human reason to care, brand communications are essentially propaganda. The importance of being taken on a relevant and credible emotional journey around a product or service is so basic we’re rarely conscious of it. Yet when it’s missing, we don’t respond because it hasn’t broken through an overcrowded landscape screaming for our attention. Story doesn’t mean a long or complex “once upon a time” journey. The best brand stories are both instant and elegant. The perfect example of this is in a print ad I saw over 15 years ago and it had a single word of copy.

It was a one-page ad that ran in Europe and shows a naked woman from the waist up sitting in a chair looking directly at the camera. Starting at her top left shoulder, an ugly two-inch wide purple bruise runs down between her breasts and across her belly, ending at her right hip. And along the bottom was a single word: Volvo.

To me, that single image perfectly conveys brand story. While most companies can’t express their product benefit so succinctly, this is the kind of customer-centric context critical to true engagement. The number one mistake companies still make is creating communications that are only talking to themselves (“Our Calmar Fibrulator Runs 10 Times Faster!”). Mr. Cooper and I agreed the best and only use of technology is make humans care. And that the way to make them care is to tell ‘em a story.

After years of developing messaging strategies and copy for early stage and well-known brands, I’ve finally decided to start doing it for myself. This is a forum for sharing experiences and opinions about the disciplines that touch that pervasive, yet oddly elusive beast—branding.

 Everything starts with brand. Whether we’re aware of it or not, it’s the spark, the genesis, the foundation of almost everything we do. Most of the thousands of decisions we make each day are based on, or affected by, brand principles. It’s the means by which we navigate a society exponentially filling with information and options. But it extends beyond our daily product choices and influences how we interact with our family, friends, and associates. Far more than a framework for marketing, I believe branding is the emotional currency of basic communication and interaction. That’s why it matters. And yet many still think it’s all about the logo.

 Because effective branding is about influencing and motivating at a human level, it’s also about passion, the one thing that can’t be faked. As a baseline, I believe there are three things companies should get from any consultant—experience, objectivity, and passion. If you’ve ever heard me speak or present, you know why I named my consultancy BrandFire. And I hope that comes through in this blog. I have no desire to be scholarly or analytical. There are thousands of educational resources on brand communications and they’re all valid and valuable. But I’d rather connect than inform because without emotional context, information is just data.

 In this blog, I’ll share opinion, experiences, and lessons learned over two decades developing and managing strategic communications for over a hundred different companies at international and regional agencies. I realize I’m a bit late to the blogging arena but didn’t want to start until I was ready. Now I am. Several months ago in LAX, I saw a guy wearing a T-shirt that said, More People Read My Shirt Than Read Your Blog. That may be true but when you proudly walk that message through one of the busiest airports in the country, the irony isn’t lost on anyone but the wearer.

This will be fun. Thanks for coming.