Brand Building

No review of the brand Jordan phenomenon would be complete without examining the extraordinary creative collaboration that Michael had with Nike’s premier designer and creative genius Tinker Hatfield. Tinker is the designer of many of Nike’s most popular and innovative shoe designs,

Chris Anderson once observed that every abundance creates a new scarcity – and vice versa. So if digital is the abundance, what’s the new scarcity? I think it’s analogue – and by that I mean the things that are hard to reproduce and share quickly.

Brands require huge levels of energy. They need to be promoted, they need to be maintained, they need to be serviced … just to keep them going. And that can lead some to believe that that is all they need. Surely, if you invest enough energy in this brand, it will succeed.

We’re much more susceptible to the power of suggestion than many of us might like to think – at least that was my take-away from more reading from Time: this time on how brands use buying suggestions to entice us to buy more than we might otherwise.

Recently, the research firm APCO Insight released its list of the top 100 most loved companies. Their study measured consumer attachment to brands based on eight emotions: understanding, approachability, relevance, admiration, curiosity, identification, empowerment and pride. There are some interesting results. Yahoo beat Google. Disney beat everyone (OK, maybe that’s not so much of a surprise) and Apple came in at ninth (which certainly would surprise many).