You can either tell someone that you are funny. Or you can make them laugh.
My friend Richard has taught me a phrase that I now use in almost every meeting about branding. Are you ready? "You can either tell someone you are funny. Or you can make them laugh".
Get it? I chuckle every time I see a sign saying: "Come try our world famous lasagne". Do we think it is really world famous? Would they have to tell us it was if it were? Does the host ever say: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome on stage...the world famous Pope"?
Kings don't earn respect by telling people to respect them. Brands don't earn love by using adjectives. I passed some giant hoardings outside a luxury London hotel and each one had a different word across the top. One had "Sophisticated". Another "Luxury". Another "Exclusive". "Prestigious". It genuinely upset me (do I need to get over it?) that a place that should be unconsciously and implicitly these things thought that it could BE those things by telling people that they are those things. Still with me?
Chanel doesn't say "come try our world famous glamorous and prestigious luxury clothing". Please can we go back to a world where people and brands are intrinsically wonderful from the inside rather than advertised and adjectivised from the outside?
