The biggest enemy to your business these days is being average.  With mass customization, free information, and a tight economy, you need to drive your branding image.  What are the new rules for branding?

1 – It must have a plot or a storyline.  Think Disney.  Chipotle has it’s brown bags with stories on them.  Harley is about terrorizing small towns (see previous blog post)

2. It must be unique to stand out.  Unless you have a BHAC (Big Hairy Audacious Concept) you have beige, average, pedestrian.

3. It must fill a need or create a new mind set for the customer.  Columbus fought the flat world with a round world idea.  Dyson killed the vacuum bag.

4. Rabid Fans must be able to “join“.  Think Blue Man Group.  These fans will experience your brand again and again and TELL OTHERS ABOUT IT (see rule #1)

6- Repeatable – There are Harley fans who motorcycle between locations just to get a “local” Harley shirt.  Another way to see this . . . consumable – or – such a great experience that you just-want-to-do-it-again!

7- Once it is in place it is either re-created or destroyed and rebuilt (isn’t that the same thing?).  Just when your McMuffin is copied by everyone else, you have to recreate it in a new format/recipe