A Clear Eye for Branding by Tom Asacker is, in my opinion, an insightful book about branding.  It alters our way of thinking a little bit when it comes to brand names or logos that we come in contact with.  I feel like Sixthman does a good job of this – let me explain.

Building a strong brand used to be about awareness, clever advertising, and catchy jingles, but not anymore.  It’s a feelings thing!  As Tom puts it, “It’s an abbreviated reference for the gut feeling people have about something, some group, or even some one or some place.”  It’s about perceptions and feelings that have accumulated over time in peoples’ minds.  Take the swastika for example.  That symbol used to be a charm or a sign of good luck before the Nazis picked it up.  And now…?

It’s a feelings thing!  Increase customers’ good feelings – like discovery, fun, increased self-esteem, sense of belonging to a community.  “The brand is created in other peoples heads and hearts.” How the customer feels when they come in contact with your brand is very important.  In the future, they will associate that good feeling they just felt with what they were experiencing when they felt it.  Make sense?  And hopefully your brand is what they were experiencing.

We hope you feel good when experiencing our brand – we hope you feel like you belong to our community.

Live Loud!

-Mike