All branding is about sex
There, I said it.
This statement isn’t just provocative; it tells you nearly everything you need to know about brand strategy. Brands delivering bigger, badder, longer, faster, sweeter, softer, tastier benefits are nothing if they don’t help get your customers laid.
If you want long-term leadership in your category and market, you need to develop deep emotional bonds with your customers. How do you do that? You help them feel, look or be more effective in some way. Those of you who are sexually active know that when you feel your best, you can get a sexy swagger. If you use your imagination you can picture how your brand gets your customers out of the grocery store, oil field or office and into bed.
If you have a consumer product or brand it’s easy to make the mental leap from basic functional benefits to super-sexy-swagger benefits. And if you think really hard you can probably come up with all the ways that using day-to-day brands – from beauty to food to consumer electronics – can get you the love that you want.
But what about enterprise brands? I promise, you can make those connections too. Let’s say you’ve got some kind of super-fast, super-light, super-super technology product you sell to enterprise IT managers. You’re probably having trouble picturing how that product would help an IT manager get laid. Remember, enterprise IT managers work in a super unsexy work environment often in thankless, grueling, under-appreciated jobs. Start there, and think about how your product delivers benefits that give that IT manager a super-sexy swagger:
- Confident people are sexy. Does your brand enable customers to triumph over the soul-crushing monotony at work, boosting his or her self-esteem?
- Successful people are sexy. Do you give the customer an edge over co-workers that make them more valuable to the organization, securing greater financial rewards?
- Uninterrupted whoopee is sexy. Can your brand keep the customer’s boss from calling him or her at home at night?
So, the next time you’re stuck in a rut communicating just about your brand’s features, speeds and feeds, breakthrough your idea block by digging in and thinking about all the ways your brand can get your customers laid. Rich information about your brand’s benefits lies in this creative exploration.