Tom Asacker

Can your audience see themselves reflected in your brand?

The British economist John Kay wrote, “I am irresistible, I say, as I put on my designer fragrance. I am a merchant banker, I say, as I climb out of my BMW. I am a juvenile lout, I say, as I down a glass of extra strong lager. I am handsome, I say, as I don my Levi’s jeans.”

What do people internalize when they interact with you? What image does your idea help them conjure up about themselves? Your audience aches to believe that you “represent” them and that you’re in it for, and with, them. Your ability to reach outside of yourself, and connect with them in a meaningful and reflective way, demonstrates this bond.

You’re them. They’re you. Connect your passion and purpose to their passion and purpose. Relate your unique view of the world and your place in it to their unique view of the world and their place in it. They long to see themselves and their unique needs in the reflection of your carefully polished idea. They crave your humble, yet confident and wide-eyed passion for the possible. They want you to display personality and to be vulnerable and human, like them.

Bill Cosby once said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” Being reflective is ignoring everybody and being one with your audience. It’s about regarding them the way they regard themselves--as insiders, collaborators, and protagonists of the idea.

It’s feeding their spirit, giving them a sense of belonging and adding to their feeling of identity by being special and standing out. Reflective helps people experience the most powerful feeling in the world, “It’s not just me who feels this way. I am not alone.”

 

How does the glass look to you?

An optimist sees the glass as half full. And a pessimist sees the glass as half empty.  But we can always dig a bit deeper into people's perceptions.

For example, how would an engineer see the glass? Probably that it's twice as big as it needs to be. The accountant would want to know if the glass really needs all that water. 

The physicist would say that the volume of this cylinder is divided into two equal parts; one a colorless, odorless liquid, the other a colorless, odorless gas. Thus the cylinder is neither full nor empty. Rather, each half of the cylinder is full, one with a gas, one with a liquid. And the quantum physicist would tell you that the glass has a 50% probability of holding water.

The government would say that the glass is fuller than if the opposition party were in power. The opposition would say that it is irrelevant because the present administration has changed the way such volume statistics are collected. And the so-called "super committee" would fail to reach any kind of agreement.

The economist would say that, in real terms, the glass is 25% fuller than at the same time last year. And the banker would say that the glass has just under 50% of its net worth in liquid assets.

The psychiatrist would ask, "What did your mother say about the glass?" The philosopher would proclaim that if no one looks at the glass, who's to say how full or empty it really is? And the social media expert would want to know how many "Likes" half full and half empty have received.

Oh . . . and the seasoned drinker would say that it needs a bit more Ketle One and some ice.

But, my friends, the truly important question today is, How does the glass look to you? If you have your health, hope, loved ones and freedom, your glass is a bright, sparkling gift.

Be thankful.

Value is a complex and puzzling notion.

The great management philosopher Peter Drucker was almost right when he wrote, “What the business thinks it produces is not of first importance. What the consumer thinks he is buying, what he considers ‘value’ is decisive.”

It’s what the consumer feels he is getting in exchange for his time, attention, and money that is decisive today. Value is determined using an internal feelings calculator, with simple functions like add and subtract, right and wrong, and more complex ones like weighing the outcome of one’s decision on future achievement, affiliation, and contribution.

Value is a complex and puzzling notion.

Economists can’t agree on a definition because it’s not an objective concept. Value is multifaceted. Value is highly contextual. Value is subjective. Value is about desire. Value is delivered and imagined contentment, happiness, and self-worth. Value is an emotional thing. And whoever develops and delivers the best evolving composite of value, for their particular audience, wins.

We’re not rational creatures.

We don’t optimize our choices to survive in the most cost-effective and efficient manner possible. We buy to blossom. We select to show that we belong. We purchase to get a sense of control and meaning. We choose to avoid looking bad, as well as to draw attention. We decide in order to feel good.

Conventional wisdom, the notion of human beings as rational actors who are trying to optimize their marketplace decisions, drives people and organizations to dispassionately deconstruct and compare their objective idea to their competitors’ ideas. Executives sit in endless meetings logically plotting their features, benefits, pricing, and positioning on 2 x 2 matrices.

But value isn’t dispassionate. Value is an enthusiastic and creative exchange between people. Value isn’t something you bring to life on your own. It’s not inert matter that you can extract from the marketplace, like drilling for oil. Value is co-created. It’s released through a mutually beneficial and stimulating relationship.

Kill the matrix. Kill complicated, time-consuming, and costly processes and engage people in possibility. Organize simple, powerful creative undertakings that produce a constant stream of ideas and meaningful activities. As Herb Kelleher, founder and former chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines once remarked, “We have a strategic plan, it’s called doing things.”

Who controls your brand?

It's not who you think. Read "Who Controls Your Brand?" for the surprising answer (one-page PDF).

Here's the link: http://bit.ly/t58psj

And I'd love to know your thoughts. Please post a comment when you get a chance.

Interest springs from desire.

"Just because I don’t care, doesn’t mean I don’t understand." — Homer Simpson

One of the most pernicious myths in the marketplace of ideas is that interest in an idea is stimulated with media exposure and salesmanship.

Why does it persist? Because there are a lot of people whose imagined futures, self-worth, and livelihoods are tied up in that myth. They suffer from what Nassim Taleb, author of the influential book The Black Swan, calls the “narrative fallacy,” the notion that people sometimes explain events by cooking up stories, by reverse engineering an explanation.

The cooked-up marketing story is that people become interested in something, in an idea, because they’re repeatedly exposed to it or are otherwise conditioned or convinced to take interest. And then their interest in the idea eventually leads to desire for the idea.

The fact is very much the opposite.

As author and neurologist Robert A. Burton points out, “In order to pursue a new thought, we must feel the thought is worth pursuing before we have any supporting evidence or justification.” In other words, desire stimulates interest.

Despite the increasing flood of advertising dollars and the explosion of media consumption, most ideas languish. They never move beyond attention and engagement, which is why eight of ten new ideas, and nine of ten entrepreneurial ventures, struggle for significance.

Don't let that happen to you and your idea.

Once you engage people, you must strategically make use of that opportunity to signal meaning and value. By doing so, you’ll motivate them to dig deeper and maintain their interest.

Unlocking the Door to Interest is about drawing curious people towards you by creating something valuable and memorable. It must be something that connects deeply with their desires and sense of self; something that will, ultimately, move them to action (video #5 in the Opportunity Screams series):

It's all in the design.

Is your communication--your advertising, social media, pr, shelf presence, speech, signage, sales presentation, et al.--producing the results it was designed to produce? No?

Of course it is! Think about it: The design of your communication determines the result. You may not be happy with those results, but that's a different issue.

If you want to change the results, you must change the design.

Most business communication is designed to fail; and by "fail" I mean they are impotent at motivating people's behavior. Many are clever, most are accurate, and some are even beautiful. But very few are captivating and stimulating.

To be captivating means to be unexpected and expressive. To be stimulating requires that your communication be evocative (video #4 in the Opportunity Screams series):