I picked up this book entitled “60 Minute Brand Strategist: The Essential Brand Book for Marketing Professionals” by Idris Mootee. And I have to tell you. It’s pretty impressive. I mean, you’ve read on this blog about Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point“, and Jonah Berger’s “Contagious“. And those books are essential. But this one is new and really good too. It opened my eyes when it comes to how deep branding actually goes.
So here are some important takeaways from this book and how it can help you as you venture out to develop a strong and memorable brand… I’d highly encourage you to purchase it from Chapters or Amazon.
Lesson #1: Brands help us choose
There’s so much ‘stuff’ out there. Brands are comforting. They are personal to use. They have personal characteristics like trust, loyalty, credibility, knowledge, etc. They are familiar. And people really like brands. Brands distinguish a car from a Tesla, a computer from an iMac, a cup of coffee from a Starbucks. Brands help us to simplify our choices and provide us with goals and dreams.
Lesson #2: What a Brand is NOT
A brand is not a logo, a slogan, an ad, a graphic, a layout, text, colours, etc. A brand is a living, breathing, emotional connection that parks itself between products/services/ideas and customers. It’s right in the middle. It’s the connection.
Lesson #3: What a Brand is
A Brand is a point of view, values, experience, a competitive advantage, logic, and emotion. A Brand is the “personification of a product, service, or even entire company… a brand has a name, a personality, character and a reputation” (p. 14). A Brand taps into emotion (p. 114), is consistent, delivers exceptional experiences, has a vision and touches its customers through every medium with the same message/experience (p. 129).
Lesson #4: Without a Brand…
You’re a commodity, competing with others to be the cheapest kid on the block. Not cool…
Lesson #5: Customers are on a treadmill
I love this one. This is from page 19 and really speaks to me (as I find myself on the treadmill when it comes to golfing, vacationing, and drinking premium tequila): “The more we make, the more we spend, the more we want. The faster we get it, the faster we want it. The more convenient, the more we realize how convenient it could be. The more our unreasonable demands are met, the more unreasonable they become.”
Lesson #6: What a Brand can do for you…
Allow you to work less, spend less, earn more, and take more time off to enjoy the fruits of your labour (because it’s now easier for you to target a segment of the population and charge premiums!).
Lesson #7: The difference between a product and a Brand…
From page 33: A product is built in a factory, easily copied, an object, sold by a merchant and quickly outdated. A Brand is built-in trust and relationships, unique, a personality, bought by a customer and timeless.
Lesson #8: People buy Brands because…
It makes them look cool/smart in front of their peers. Brands help us become better. They help us find meaning in everyday life. This is from page 44.
Lesson #9: What is Branding by Customer Experience?
This is from page 80. The idea here is that customers want products and services that “dazzle their senses, touch their hearts, and stimulate their minds. Here, the customer becomes the most important part of the brand. Over the years, many brands have transformed themselves into experience brands by creating a compelling customer experience”.
Lesson #10: The Massification of Luxury
Luxury items used to be for the few. Now, everyone is walking around with a Louis Vuitton purse or a high-end cell phone or driving a BMW. Experience is also luxury. Individualism is luxury.
SO…How does this relate to your dental practice?
That’s the big question here, isn’t it? Let’s get into that in a new blog…
