BRANDING BY ASSOCIATION

Truth Well Told.

-h.k. mccann, 1912

The building blocks of story.

Anecdote // Bait // Reflection

Maybe we’re doing it wrong.

Humanize my brand.

“Idioms are an anathema to innovation. They fuse organizations to assumptions, cultural mythologies and fossilized ways of seeing and talking about themselves, their business and, more importantly, their consumers.”

-Morgan Gerard

“The insight.”

We are not telling stories. We parade stereotypes, platitudes and observations as insights.

Our tenacity to turn cultural problems into simplistic solutions has kept us only a few steps beyond the jingle.

Three things to see our way out.

1. We search for people like us.

Breaking down the other.

The birth of transmedia storytelling, 1993. “transmedia intertextuality works to position consumers as powerful players while disavowing commercial manipulation”

Obama stole his distribution from Howard Dean. And the Republicans stole it from him. His message didn’t spread the furthest only because it was spread the most.

Distribution bits vs. Content bits

TRANSMEDIA a description of the distribution

INTERTEXTUALITY a description of the associations within

Join the Procession.

Intertextuality can be a way of finding humanness through common reference.

A brand cannot be human, but it can get an inside joke.

Dog-Whistle Politics coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has a different or more specific meaning for a targeted subgroup of the audience.

Never put a period where God has put a comma.

Noah Kalina and NBA

OKGO and Nike+

2. We like to figure things out.

“Often the more you understand something the less interesting it is because there are no questions to be considered or explored, there’s no mystery, there’s no tension, there’s no life.”

Our job (apparently) is to find clarity.

Not to raise the right *&^%#(o3’s or find proper gaps.

Remember the gaps.

3. We search for meaning.

“Worry not that no one knows of you; seek to be worth knowing.”

-Confuscius

Don’t hide.

Stand for something.

Give me the back story.

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And if you talk about what you believe you will attract those who believe what you believe.”

-Simon Sinek

"I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company's existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being.”

-David Packard

In Summary.

Associations + Interestingness + Purpose

Thanks. You can find me on the internet. Paul McEnany Director of Strategy at Twist Image. heehawmarketing.com // @paulmcenany