What’s at the Core of Your Brand? Love

If you read that headline and scoffed, you’re well within your rights. Plenty of brands try to sell us love. But if we actually get down to it, then love is at the core of almost every single brand that exists today.

Why do I say that? Because what we decide to do—the business we go into—depends on passion. And our customers are responding to that, really.

It’s sounds kind of silly, but it’s the truth.

What Do We Mean by “Love”?

Most of us think about love as in romantic love. Love can be a lot of different things, though. Think about how we toss the term around:

·          I love this show!

·          My kids love going to the movies.

·          I love running.

·          I love your outfit today.

So, what does this prove, aside from the fact we use the word love a lot? It means love is a more flexible concept than we often give it credit for.

What is love then? We can think of it a few ways. Love might be:

·          Passion

·          Excitement

·          Affection

·          Feelings of warmth

·          A sense of closeness

·          Familiarity

We can love people and animals as much as we love abstract concepts or our work.

And that’s one reason every brand has love at the core. We’re passionate about what we do! Or at least, we should be.

Think about it. Your brand is probably founded on someone’s vision. Maybe they created some exciting new technology. Maybe they believed they were going to be able to change people’s lives, the entire world, with this invention.

Or maybe they’re passionate about helping people. They want to help business owners get their taxes right. Someone else wants everyone to look and feel their best in fashionable clothes.

Whatever the brand, whatever the purpose, there’s often love behind it. Someone feels a strong affection for this purpose—whatever it happens to be—and they want to be the ones to bring the product or service to life.

We Respond to Passionate People

Have you ever talked to someone who loved their job? And I mean really loved their job. It could be the most boring job in the world, but you could feel their excitement. In turn, their passion for their job got you excited about it.

Not all of us get fired up about data processing or doing our taxes. If that’s someone’s jam, though, they bring a lot of energy to it. And their enthusiasm, in turn, gets us excited.

So, sure, getting your taxes done or going to the dentist isn’t your idea of a great time. But if you’re talking to the right person, then it can be a lot less painful.

What does this mean for our brands? It means that people gravitate to brands that also share this kind of passion. If you’re passionate about, say, computers, then you might get other people excited about computers.

This is especially true if you’re offering them something that’s innovative or high-quality. “We make better computers” or “we’re bringing new ideas to life” suggests that you’re more passionate than some of your competitors.

That attracts people—for a few reasons. One, it can make them feel more confident. You’re passionate about what you’re doing, so you’re going to put time, effort, and thought into things. The design of your computers is going to be careful, better. You’re going to build each computer with more everything.

In a sense, it’s a “human touch” kind of thing. Sure, Chips Ahoy! cookies are good, but can they compare to homemade cookies? Not really, because the homemade batch had a human touch involved—they were, as the saying goes, “made with love.”

What Love Doesn’t Mean for Brands

Of course, that’s not to say something needs to be made from scratch or every computer needs to be assembled by hand. What it means is that there are human beings at the centreof your brand. There are people at the core who are passionate and excited and enthusiastic about what you do.

That’s the difference between the homemade cookies and Chips Ahoy! for most of us. With the homemade cookies, there’s a face and a name, a human being behind them. The same is true if we go to a local bake shop.

That’s not to say the people behind the Chips Ahoy! brand aren’t passionate about what they do. It’s more that we often don’t have a chance to interact with them and see that enthusiasm. That’s where branding comes into play, especially in the digital era. Social media lets people interact with us. It lets them get to know a brand’s “personality” and the people behind it.

That’s where love comes into the equation. People can love your brand and get it excited about it because of the enthusiasm or clarity or innovative attitudes you bring to whatever it is you do.

And that’s why love is at the core of every brand.

So, in this case, love isn’t about selling it to our consumers—this isn’t McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” or Dove’s self-love campaign. This is about being passionate about what our brands are about, what we’re bringing to the market, and why we’re different than anyone else!

After all, if we don’t believe what we’re doing is awesome, why would anyone else think it’s great?

So when it comes down to it, the very core of our brands has to be love—love for our purpose. We can’t go into a brand without purpose, because we’ll lose that energy, that passion.

And, like always, that means we have to start with the why!

--Margo

Here to inspire!

I am a business person who has excelled in driving a competitive edge through marketing, strategy, innovation, building irresistible brands and unlocking the genius that exists. I am writing is inspire or create new consideration. If you have ideas or questions that you would like me to put a pen too, I would be delighted.

I would also be grateful if you shared this or any of the articles I have written to inspire others.