Brand Seduction: How Neuroscience Can Help Marketers Build Memorable Brands by Daryl Weber

Author:Daryl Weber [Weber, Daryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The Brand Fantasy Model

Making the Intangible (Somewhat) Tangible After all this theoretical talk, you’re probably ready for some practical applications of this thinking. In this chapter, I’ll lay out my suggestions for how to start working with the unconscious network of associations with your brand, what I’m calling the Brand Fantasy. We’ll dig into a suggested model for how to make this nebulous, intangible idea at least somewhat tangible.

Let’s acknowledge from the outset that it won’t be easy. The Brand Fantasy is messy and abstract. It’s a constellation of interconnected associations, feelings, moods, attitudes—not easy things to capture on paper. On top of that, we all have slightly different associations with a brand, and different ways of wording and imagining them. It’s not perfect, but we should try.

If you’ve taken anything from this book so far, I hope it’s that the unconscious side of brands is as important, if not more so, than the conscious side we spend so much of our time and effort building. Our unconscious beliefs, perceptions, and emotions guide how we move through this world, and how we make decisions.

As we saw in the last chapter, our current brand models are woefully incomplete, ignoring this ocean of important brand associations.

This doesn’t have to be a whole new way of working. It should work alongside and complement the tools you already have. You can let your existing tools manage the conscious side of the brands, and then add this to represent and capture the abstract unconscious side.

This is not a strict set of guidelines. I believe the model should be flexible and allow your Brand’s Fantasy to shine through in whatever form works best for the particular brand and for your organization. The point is to capture and communicate the associations and feelings connected to your brand, not to check boxes.

The purpose of using the Brand Fantasy is to create a shared language and understanding that helps us guide and build the brand toward a common goal. It gives everyone who touches the brand (not just the marketers!) clear direction, guardrails, and a filter for what we want this brand to feel like, and what we do and don’t want associated with it. It provides a North Star to build toward.

So use these items as suggestions only, and feel free to get creative with it. It can be adjusted and molded depending on the brand and your needs. We shouldn’t force-fit the brand into the model; we should shape the model around the brand.

The goal is to capture your brand’s version of cool. It’s the aura of your brand, the feeling you want your consumers to have when they think of it. To do this, we will need to let go of the logic and order we’re used to in business settings. We should embrace the mindset of an artist: be open to exploring different concepts, techniques, and imagery with the goal of capturing an elusive and nebulous feeling.

We need to embrace the messiness.

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