66 �ovemarkA

Long befare I joined Saatchi & Saatchi, 1 was aware that brands were enrering an endgame. Being invired ro be CEO of rhe most exciting adverrising agency in the world certainly sharpened my focus. Ir was all very well knowing the problems wirh brands, but what was the solurion?

How could we inspire brands to evolve ro the next leve!? The usual sruff like organizacional change, rejigging srructure, and smarter logistics wasn't going ro do ir.

There had to be something new, something

that would create

Loyalty Beyond Reason. My thinking started ro crystallize around a line Tide used back in the 1970s. "Tide for cleaning you can count on." I thought, "Something you could always count on. That would be hugely valuable. That would be Loyalty Beyond Reason."

And the first word that carne to me was trusr. Many of our clients responded ro the idea of trust. The Internet had put trust firmly on the agenda. Trust felt like part of the vocabulary.

1 was hot on the trail of something l thought of as Trusrmarks when I met Alan Webber, Founding Editor of the business magazine Fast Company. We were ar a rop-to-top CEO forum at Cambridge University convened by P&G. Here's how Alan remembers ir:

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My ideas were based on work we had done comparing brands with whar we now know were emerging as Lovemarks. The besr brands were Trustmarks, we had decided, bur rhe grear ones were Lovemarks. We charred rhe differences.

BRAND �ove mar�

lnformation Relarionship

Recognized by consumers Loved by pcople

Generic Personal

Presents a narrativa Creares a Love srory

The promise of quality The rouch of Sens ualiry

Symbolic lconic

Defined 1 nf used

Statement Sro ry

Defined attributes Wrapped in Mysrery

Values Spirit

Professional Passionarely crearive

Advertising agency Ideas company

1 said in che arricle:

''I'm sure that you can charge a premium for brands that people !ove. And I'm also su re that yo u can only ha ve one Lovemark in any caregory."

70 iovemarb

1 was sure rhen, but now I see l was wrong. Now that we have moved more deeply imo Lovemarks we can see rhar rhis was way too narrow. The sushi shop on rhe corner of your block can be a Lovemark ro you. Lovernarks can be created by designers, producers, service people, ciries, and nations.

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Can consumers make Lovemarks out of two products in the same category? As far as l'm concerned, they can do any­thing they damn well please!

Love ls in rhe A ir 71

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One of the things that we all learn in our business

careers is that language matters. That has been a hall­

mark of Fnst Compnuy. If you describe something or

name something accurately, that coinage becomes not

just a marketable product, it fundamentally changes

the conversation, and people begin to reframe the way

they think and talk to each other. They begin to creare

categories in their own business experience they didn't

even know existed.

"1 definitely feel that 's what our article with Kevin did.

lt opened up a whole new category where people could

think about the way their companies perform. lt's

interesting that a recent Nobel prize for eco no m ics

went to a couple of economists who were, once and for

all, making it an official, acceptable fact that the most

important part of economics is emotional. That emotion

is one of the key elements of economic behavior.

"One of the points Kevin was making in our article-and

obviously it has emerged even more strongly-is that

the way you relate to the market is, in many respects,

making manifest that which is fundamentally intangible.

lt's not about the cost per thousand, or the rate, or

what you are charging for this product. lt's the way it

feels, the way it represents itself, and then the way it

either does or doesn't live up to those representations.

:.\l•n \\d>hcr. Foundin¡: Editor. F.r;r Comp.m¡: