1. The Creation Story

    How Brands Begin, The Creation Story

    Category: Podcasts Comments Off | November 30, 2005 by THINKTOPIA®

  2. Mention on MPR

    Radio mention on MPR’s Midmorning show – August 10, Hour 1. Carlson School marketing professor mentioned the seven pieces of primal code during his interview.

    Category: In the News Comments Off | November 29, 2005 by THINKTOPIA®

  3. US Ad Review

    Our work for Best Buy’s entertainment group was featured on the front cover of US Ad Review.

    Category: In the News Comments Off | by THINKTOPIA®

  4. Carlson School Magazine

    CEO and Founder Patrick Hanlon featured in Carlson School magazine, a publication of Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

    Category: In the News Comments Off | by THINKTOPIA®

  5. What feels better sells better

    Seth Godin is right in his November 26 blog when he claims that how we “feel” about products/services like Google and iPod makes all the difference. When quality and abundance are ubiquitous and how much we trust the manufacturer is no longer at issue, it is the perceptual differences that count. The “story”–as told through advertising, web, and PR. And the “design”–the sensory icons of smell, touch, taste and sound, are all just two pieces that influence how we feel about things. It’s not just design and story, as Seth alludes, lots of products with great design and great stories have failed (witness the Sony AIBO ERS-7M3/T Robot.) It’s also what the product is about (its creed), rituals that surround the product, the lexicon of special words surrounding Google and iPod (iLife, iOffice, iWorld), as well as those people who just don’t “feel right” about Google and iPod (wherever they might be), and the commanding leaders: Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Apple’s Steve Jobs. It is this full surround (story, creed, icons, ritual, specialized words, nonbelievers and leaders) that make products, services, personality brands, social and political movements, even civic communities, “feel better” than other options.

    Category: New Ideas Blog Comments Off | November 26, 2005 by THINKTOPIA®

  6. Primal Branding receives rave reviews

    Here’s what people have been saying about Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company and Your Future.

    “What Jim Collins’s Built To Last did for companies, Primal Branding does for brands. Hanlon’s voluminous research and interviews across a wide horizon of business boil down to a few must-haves for any brand that wants to spot-weld itself to the hearts of customers.”

    — Luke Sullivan, author of Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads

    “Not the same old branding B.S. Hanlon brings a fresh perspective and new ideas to the table. Every brand manager should take notice.”

    — Al Ries, co-author of the marketing classic Positioning and The Origin of Brands

    “What do Starbucks, Apple, the Marine Corps, and Cesar Chavez have in common? They create what Hanlon calls ‘a culture of belief.’ Primal Branding cracks the code of these cultures — and offers a fascinating look at why people respond so ferociously to them. Whether you’re leading an advertising agency, a Fortune 500 company, a middle school, or a political movement, you need to read this book.”

    — Dan Pink, author of Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind

    “As in most good books, one idea alone is worth the price and the time. In Primal Branding, it’s the ‘creation story’. That story is often at the heart of being different and successful.”

    — Jack Trout, a well-known marketing expert. His latest book is Trout on Strategy.

    “Primal Branding is an exciting, different way to think about the core of the branding challenge. The seven factors of Primal Branding provide a structure by which all types of entities from companies to countries to religions can create a unique identity. Everyone involved with creating and managing an image should understand these factors.”

    — Michael J. Houston
    Interim Dean, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

    “Primal Branding takes you deep into the heart of branding territory…To a place that other so-called branding experts haven’t even dreamed about, let alone imagined. This innovative presentation is credible, incredible, and curiously compelling. It’s a deep dive into a new design culture, one that is sure to resonate with today’s consumers.”

    — Robyn Waters, author The Trendmaster’s Guide, Former Vice President of Trend, Design and Product Development at Target

    “I took the book on our front porch and with the help of a glass or two of wine read all the things I should have done and should be doing with my own company. It’s that kind of book. Very easy to read yet really hard to digest because I felt guilty with every paragraph. There were so many things I had forgotten. I’ve read all the books on branding, but they didn’t affect me this way. The other branding books were also well written and provocative, but they didn’t make the sweat break out under my arm pits. Hanlon has written a guidebook for people ready to start a company or launch a new product or who need to reinvigorate their company or brand. As soon as I got back to Miami, I sat all our staff down and said, ‘Gang this is what we have to do…’.”

    — Ron Seichrist
    Founder & Global Director, Miami Ad School

    “It’s not just the same old thing everyone talks about when it comes to branding.This is something different.”

    — Doug Knopper
    Vice President, doubleclick

    “A crash course in branding. It’s so easy to understand, I felt myself saying ‘of course’. I’m sorry to say, it’s exactly what many companies should be doing, but are not.”

    — Christian Korbes
    Vice President, LEGO

    “Primal Branding is a provocative new way of thinking about classic branding.”

    — Scott Lutz, venture catalyst

    “This can be even more positioned as a totally pervasive organizational credo rather than just a consumer brand platform…The value will be in getting in front of smart decision makers and helping them determine strategic brand planning with this fresh approach.”

    — Brian Shepherd
    CEO, Mice Group PLC, London

    “Primal Branding is untraditional, it’s emotional, and it’s depth rather than breadth.”

    — Dave Williams
    Vice President, BEST BUY

    Category: New Ideas Blog Comments Off | November 22, 2005 by THINKTOPIA®

  7. Ecko is a primal brand

    A recent article in The New York Times Magazine talks about apparel manufacturer Marc “Ecko”. Although he may not realize it, his Ecko Unlimited has all the marks of a primal brand.

    Ecko is the nom de pop of Marc Milecofsky from Lakewood, New Jersey. His company, Marc Ecko Enterprises, as the TNYTM article points out, cuts a major swathe in the branded hip-hop apparel market. Not only does he sell his widely popular Ecko clothing line (his own Ecko stores enjoy retail sales of about $550 million), but he also has a skateboard line, the obligatory trend-ready magazine, a low-end apparel line which sells at J.C Penney’s and Kohl’s called Avirex, and a deal to private label 50-Cent’s G-Unit rack of apparel.

    But it wasn’t always this way. A few years ago, Marc and partner Seth Gerszberg were creating popular t-shirt designs and faced losses of over $6 million.

    Yanking victory from the jaws of defeat, Marc (the design half of the team) came upon the now-famous rhinoceros logomark. The rhino is not a trendy creature. Unlike the sleek Polo pony, the rhino is big, brash, it knocks down whatever gets in its way. It plays perfectly to the thud thud hip-hop downbeat of mall ganstas from New Jersey to Fontana, California.

    Ecko clothing, if you’re not already aware, is crossover gear (the fact that they have an article in The New York Times Magazine alone is testimony to this). For establishement mall stores like Bloomingdale’s, inner city gansta couture is tricky stuff. Who knows how it might play in, say, Wichita. Yet counter culture is fresh culture. And fresh green over-the-counter sales cannot be ignored even by major department store chains under the Federated umbrella. (Federated owns mall-wise stores like Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and former regional chains like Rich’s and Burdines.)

    Back to story. Armed with his now-famous rhinoceros icon (apparently inspired by his father’s collection of wooden rhino figurines), Marc Ecko’s clothing line jumped from $15 million to $36 million in a single year. Phat.

    Primal brands, remember, carry the primal code: seven ingredients including a creation story, creed, icons, ritual, sacred words, nonbelievers, and a leader.

    The sudden survival and growth of Ecko can be attributed to the transition from an apparel line, to a line of branded apparel.

    The TNYTM article is clearly a PR push touting Ecko’s creation story and establishing Marc Ecko nee Milecofsky as leader of the brand. These two elements have been missing from Ecko’s primal construct, and now round out the brand.

    Ecko’s anti-establishment credo of graffiti and hip-hop couture culture is not dissimilar from many other lines of clothing trying to rub off on rap. (Like Phat Farm, Fubu and, of course, Hilfiger.) Only when the creed was surrounded by other elements of the primal code—and the iconic signature that ultimately became “The World-Famous Rhino Brand”, did the brand (and sales) start to sort itself out.

    Rituals surrounding fashion are focused on fashion shows, spotting trendy wear on celebs in paparazzi shots and in music videos. Ecko is no different. His rhino became a recognizable icon on the street and in videos. Trying on the clothes at the mall is another ritual. And, of course, the most important rite of passage of all is sporting the fashions along the most critical fashion strip of all—up and down the air conditioned corridors of mall America.

    Sacred words include the entirely created “Ecko”, even the visual language of urban fashion with its oversized pant legs, cocked baseball cap and shiny bling defines who belongs to this urban cum mall culture, and who does not.

    The nonbelievers, or pagans, are the well-bred uptown set wearing their regimental ties. The stuffy conformistas.

    Initially, the leadership was invisible, relying on the clothing to merchandise itself rather than building a brand. Profit, and the boys, suffered accordingly.

    What Marc is discovering, like others before him, is the difference between well-designed merchandise and a well-designed brand. Merchandise is transitory. Brands carry weight. Brands carry power. Even through tough times, brands carry the day. The brands that take off, are brands invested with the seven pieces of primal code.

    Nowadays, Marc is out in front of his brand. On the Ecko website, visitors are treated to “Marco Ecko’s Getting Up”, a video game soon to be released by Atari. The web screen is divided in half between Marc Ecko, personality brand, and The Company. A full-page photo of Marc in TNYTM, shows the stocking-capped Ecko standing sternly with arms crossed in front of a fieldstone Georgian mansion with two Sphinxes standing guard. You wonder if the Sphinxes could have been rhinos instead, but the photo leaves no doubt about who is in charge.

    Today, Ecko Unltd. is a fully loaded primal brand. And as Marc ventures from clothing into the other arts, let’s hope he doesn’t forget what Calvin Klein, Gianni Versace, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren knew from the beginning. If it’s your name on the door (or on the label), you’d better have a story and you’d better shout it. As the article in TNYTM demonstrates, Ecko’s story is finally being told.

    Primal Branding is a construct that lets you engineer a belief system that attracts communities of people who want to believe. Primal brands contain the seven pieces of primal code: a creation story, creed, icons, ritual, sacred words, nonbelievers, and leader. The word “brand” is an imperfect word. For purposes here, “brand” is considered to be any product, service, personality, organization, social cause, political ideology, religion, movement, or other entity searching for popular appeal.

    Category: New Ideas Blog Comments Off | November 19, 2005 by THINKTOPIA®