Mona Lisa Your Branding

By Sean D'Souza Have you mistakenly trained your branding to fall over and play dead? Do you know how to use psychology to create branding that lights up with the voltage of a thousand neon bulbs? And can you play Scrooge with your budget, yet get huge branding mileage? And if so, how? Read on and find out how you can be a Leonardo Da Vinci with your brand!

It’s Raining 3000+ Messages a Day!

I have a friend. Let’s call him Eugene. Partly because that’s his real name. Eugene positions himself as a pitch manager. Very effectively, he shows CEOs and executives (who make pitches for new and existing business) how they can use simple steps to get a powerful presentation across.

Eugene had a problem that all of us do. His brand (or his company’s brand) was just one of three thousand new messages that bamboozle us every day through various media. To get his name welded in his customer’s brain was like being on a rocking chair. You feel the movement, but you go nowhere. Eugene’s brand was going places, but it was a slow tedious process.

He needed to get some prime real estate in his customer’s brain really quickly and without the benefit of Daddy Warbucks’ deep pockets. All he had to do was get their attention…

13 Boxes. Does That Get Your Attention?

Doesn’t your brain go nuts wanting to ask what is the significance of 13 boxes? That’s the new brand name of Eugene’s company. Can you see that immediately catching your attention? The brain is dying to know the significance of this strange sounding set of words. And it won’t let go till it gets an answer!

In this case the answer is simple. Eugene has a system of 13 boxes in his training process that takes you from the start of your presentation to the final crescendo. The 13 boxes form the structure and the route you must follow to get results.

His company brand could be something like XYZ Training or have his own name (like accountants and law firms do) but why on earth would that excite his customer’s brain?

Another Branding Example called KeyGhost...

Here’s another example of vivid psychological branding called KeyGhost. KeyGhost is a powerful but simplistic device that monitors every keystroke on your keyboard. This spy-like product evades the scrutiny of the unobservant eye. A name like KeyGhost immediately ruffles the brain forcing it to stop what it’s doing. Then it drives all its attention in the direction of this unusual sounding product.

This is exactly what you need. Once you’ve got a spotlight-hogging brand name, you start to own a tiny part of your customer’s brain that is yours to keep forever.

Forever Starts With a Trigger…

A trigger called Curiosity! Curiosity sounds a deafening red alert in every neuron of the brain. The brain is at its curious best when faced with something that seems irregular or uncommon in some way.

If your brand name doesn’t create a curiosity factor, you’re wasting gobs of money to just trying to cut through the communication clutter. The sooner you get psychological exclamation marks into your brand name, the sooner you get the attention you crave for.

But What If You Have a Boring Company Name That You’re Stuck With?

Hey it happens! You inherited the brand name and there’s not much you can do with it without the shareholders going for your jugular. Well don’t fret. First you’ve got to realise that branding is not restricted to just your company name. A process/product that your company has or follows could become bigger than the company itself.

Look For The Power Of Your Processes…

With Eugene, his process was sitting under his nose all along. In the case of 13 Boxes, it’s quite easy to draw up a dramatic scenario of how 13 boxes can get you out of your ‘box’ and give you immense confidence in your presentation skills. In his case, though, the process actually defined the company.

With KeyGhost, it’s a cinch to describe how the hardware works just like a ghost and yet link it back to your keyboard and computer.

You can be an accounting firm with a company name like “Boring, Dead and Co.” and still brand your prize-winning process and call it ‘Goodbye Extra Tax’ or ‘Corporate Loopholes.’

Do you think your clients will see you in a better light? You bet they will! So get going, get out and get working on your brand naming canvas right away!

Nonsensical Names Work Too…

One Red Dog, The Loaded Hog and other such names flout the basic principles of process and logic. Yet they seem to work powerful imagery on the brand name. It’s the story that goes with it that creates a sense of immortality and distinctiveness around the brand.

Even if you choose to have a name that means very little and can drum up a story to match it, you’ve got yourself a winner. Which place would you rather frequent? \'One Red Dog\' or \'Joe’s Café?\' With a vivid name you’ve got the opportunity to weave a story -- even a story that you made up all by yourself!

Shazaam! It’s Branding With Drama!

Don’t just Mona Lisa your brand. Put some Shakespeare in it as well. Push the limits of your brand name and make it an action tool. For example, 13 boxes could be presented as 13 different boxes placed on a CEO’s desk. Can you visualise the curiosity factor? What if the boxes were different shapes and different colours? Can you see the website name? The t-shirt design? The ad on TV? Can you see how extendable a picturesque brand name can be?

Go ahead; make the effort to Mona Lisa your brand name.

You’ll make Leonardo really proud of you!

Mona Lisa Your Branding - To learn more about this author, visit Sean D'Souza's Website.

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