Thomas Edison worked endlessly to become the world’s greatest inventor, with a record 1,097 patents to his name (picture source)
There are no secret potion you can quaff for instant riches. Nor will that two day workshop bring you instant fame and glory.
Our world is full of shamans, witch-doctors, snake-oil salesmen and ‘gurus’ encouraging people to take short cuts to success. We are relentlessly bombarded with pitches to instant riches, fame and glory.
T-Mobile’s Flash Mob at Trafalgar Square
In the world of advertising, it is common for one to think about generating Attention first before anything else.
After all, that age-old mnemonic AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) is predicated on the ability to capture your target audience’s eyeballs/ eardrums in the cacophony of marketing clutter.
Once in a while, you stumble upon a gem of a book which you cannot put down. That happened to me recently, when I read Lovemarks (authored by Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts who blogs here). Apparently, Kevin was in town recently as part of the Global Brand Forum but unfortunately, work commitments made it difficult for me to catch him live in action. Maybe next time.
There are several key ideas in Lovemarks which I found very useful (and which I blogged about before). One of these was that brands (which can be products, places, events or people) that resonated emotionally with people have these three key elements:
Paris Hilton – just a fad or an enduring icon in the age of attraction?
I have been reading Derrick Daye’s awesome blog for its unique branding insights and came across the idea of the Attraction Economy and its accompanying concept of Lovemarks. Both were created by CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, Kevin Roberts.
According to Kevin,
“Human attention was the principal coinage of the Attention Economy; human emotion is what funds the Attraction Economy. Emotion is tough to nail down because its complexities are beyond measure. Just take that at face value. Our facial muscles can move in 10,000 possible combinations to reveal what we are feeling. The Attraction Economy is not “one hit and you’re it.” Attraction demands emotion, but emotion with purpose.”