Branding is just like life: Play a little hard to get
If people were like companies, we’d all be drunken sailors–telling our stories to anyone who would lend us an ear, and probably a lot of people who aren’t even paying attention. Companies are so eager to make friends that they violate the most basic rule of human engagement, which is: make sure the other person is interested. Because if they’re not, you’re totally wasting your time. Forget about the other branding rules. Just remember this one: The easiest way to get people interested is to BE interesting.
So stop trying so hard. The best way to be interesting is to DO something interesting. Instead of trying to find the shortest, easiest path for your branding message into people’s brains, create some fresh neural circuitry. Instead of telling people to get off their butts, Volkswagen actually made them get off their butts by giving them extra work to do.
Why would you take the stairs if you could take the escalator? Because walking on stairs that were turned into piano keys was a lot more fun.
Playing with people’s expectations is a game that any company can play. Take a cue from the bars on the Spree in Berlin. Guess what? None of them have names. So you have to do some exploring to find a friend and who knows what you’ll find along the way? Making life interesting by making it a little difficult is practiced to a T by Bourbon & Branch in San Francisco, the reincarnation of a Prohibition-era speakeasy. No sign to let you know you have arrived. And if you visit the website you will not even find an address. Do you think that makes it more attractive or less attractive?
The most basic life rules are echoed in the most basic branding rules. Nothing worth having comes easy. Then anybody can get it. And if anybody can get it, how valuable can it really be? Any girl worth kissing is going to be hard to kiss. It’s about desire. And if branding isn’t about creating desire, then what is it about? Why do you think there was a line for Orchestra’s Mailbox iPhone app? Because the developers were afraid the crush of expected users would break the servers? Maybe. More likely it was so headlines like this would appear on blogs all over the web: “Estimate Orchestra’s Mailbox App Waiting Time” or “Mailbox App Gets 800,000-Person-Long Waiting List With Promise Of ‘Inbox Zero.'”
Orchestra gave people some work to do. The work was figuring out how to get a better place in line. We are wired to chase things that retreat from us. It’s the exact opposite of what most companies do, which is to make everything easy as pie so you don’t need a ladder to get to the fruit, which is usually parked right in front of your nose. But if you can pick the apple any time, why do it now? Put it in your calendar for the day after tomorrow, or how about never?
If you share our belief that great branding starts with knowing what makes people tick, drop us a line.
