A Brainy Brand

I’ve been thinking a lot about branding recently, for important professional reasons. Well, it can happen to everyone: to think about your job in your spare time. What worries me a little is that it happens more and more often to me lately. It may imply that I’m starting to like what I do between 8 and 5. This is a very dangerous phenomenon: being satisfied with one’s job brings a looming danger of self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction, in turn, is disastrous to creativity. Irritation is, not only phonetically, close to inspiration (take pearl creation or ovulation as an example – both processes are very creative and both involve friction).

According to one definition, a brand is something unique, intangible, single minded, experiential, meaningful, consistently delivered, authentic (in line with what the audience thinks and feels about the brand), sustainable and scalable (i.e. applicable for brand extensions, too).

I’m not sure about my private brand, as I act by intuition and not a cleverly engineered plan. But I just thought I know one perfectly marketed brand: MEN.

Unique. Intangible. Single-minded. Experiential. Meaningful. Consistently delivered. Authentic. Sustainable. Scalable – applicable in case a MAN extends his activities.

 What constitutes the essence of this particular brand? It’s all described in a lengthy volume entitled „What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex” by professor Sheridan Simove. http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Every-Thinks-About-Apart/dp/1849531986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350588555&sr=8-1

Despite the fact that the book contains as many as 196 pages, every man will be able to read and grasp it in its entirety. It’s all about them, MEN, after all. There’s nothing as interesting for a human being (you see, I don’t discard the brand at all) as the being himself. Except for sex maybe…

The description sounds really encouraging: “In this groundbreaking book, Professor Sheridan Simove reveals the true depth of a man's mind. After years of painstaking research, he has precisely identified what men actually think about apart from sex. Professor Simove beautifully reveals a man's mind as an open book and the results unlock an age old secret...”

The book, except for the title page and the description, is completely blank. 196 white pages.

I became instantly speechless (though not finger-less, fortunately, so I keep typing):

Unique. Nobody else but MEN think constantly about sex.

Intangible. Indeed, there’s no way of capturing thoughts. Even an MRI scan isn’t capable of revealing the exact contents of someone’s mind.

Single-minded. Sex and nothing else.

Experiential. I pity those who have not yet experienced this truly unique brand.

Consistently delivered. Sure – the whole book is blank.

Authentic. Would the audience believe in the message? Of course. What I would have trouble with is believing a man, who claims to be thinking about something else all the time. Something like the colour of nail polish. Or the sum of all the angles in a triangle.

No, I would believe the one with triangles, after a second thought.

Sustainable. It lasts till the last breath.

Scalable. Applicable to brand-extentions. Obviously – if a man develops a sudden taste for teenage girls, his brand essence remains unchanged. The teenager may weaken him physically, but the brand remains strong as ever.
The same applies to male offspring of a MAN, once they get older. Conclusion – it works perfectly for any extension or diversification you may think of.

Oh, what a beautifully consistent brand message! MEN truly are a brand to remain loyal too. Till the last breath.

And me, what am I to do with my bearings? Build the brand on …. balls?

PS. I bet if this post has good statistics it means Rabbit Hole is being visited by plenty of men. That’s encouraging, because it proves they have the large brain, too. You need that one for reading. It’s located in the higher regions of their body and serves to regulate body temperature and give directions to their members. Among others.