brand experience – Page 2 – Right-Brain Brands

Empathy fuels growth at Harley-Davidson

Great marketing is alive and well, happily. After covering the Bad and the Silly at the recent Edge Conference in Boston in my last two posts, it’s a pleasure to salute admirable work that’s strategic and innovative, integrating plentiful right-brain thinking.

Harley-Davidson is a much admired brand, and justifiably so. One key reason for the brand’s success is empathy.

While many brands look externally for paths to growth, to acquisition or flashy new digital tools, Harley looks deep into the hearts and lives of real people. By connecting human aspirations with the brand’s own roots, the company has developed new business opportunities while also strengthening loyalty. No small feat.

Do tweets go better with Coke?

advertising, brand experience, product proliferation, social media, Uncategorized

With social media the it thing, it’s no surprise that Coke and Pepsi have spent huge amounts in trying to “create a conversation” about their flagship brands. So far, it appears they’ve bombed. In the latest issue of the popular Dim Bulb marketing blog, the always readable Jonathan Salem Baskin describes how both Coke and Pepsi have little if anything to show for their expensive forays into social media.

But should that really surprise us? What is there, really, to say about yesterday’s iconic sodas?

Don’t let your shtick get stuck

brand experience

A unifying motif for a brand can be both powerful and fun. Geek Squad uses a campy retro-spy theme, reminiscent of “Get Smart.” Geek Squad reps are “double agents” saving the world one computer at a time. Folders for documents and CDs are “’Recently Declassified’ case files,” etc. etc. It works pretty well, mostly.

When Geek Squad installed a new router and set up a printer network for me recently, the service call documents referred to my computers as “Suspect No. 1” and “Suspect No. 2,” for example—on page 5 of the documents, no less. So this theme seems fairly well baked into their brand. Except when it turns out to be only half-baked.