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| Had the chance to meet Jim Rubart at ACFW 2011! |
Want to confuse
yourself? Ask ten friends—or marketing people— to define branding. I predict
eight to ten different answers.
My mission—which
I’ve obviously chosen to accept—is to give a brief definition of branding you
can keep in your head after you’ve read this post.
Branding has been
a hot buzzword in the publishing world for at least ten years, but I want to go
back farther than that. In 1904 Ivan Pavlov won the Noble prize for his
research into branding. You’ve heard about his dogs. That’s branding. Ring the
bell, give the dogs meat. Do it enough and the dogs salivate without the beef.
Psychologists
call this planting an associative memory.
“I’m Tom Bodett
for _______ and we’ll leave the light on for ya.” Most of you instantly
inserted Motel 6 into the blank. Some of you even hear the folksy music in your
head and are thinking about a “clean comfortable room” and “the lowest price of
any national chain.”
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| Rooms |
How do we plant
an associative memory into the mind of a reader, agent, or editor?
Consistency,
frequency, and anchoring.
Consistency: Give people the same message every time. Did you know
Pavlov did his experiment again with circles? Show dogs the circles then give
them the meat. It worked. Then he changed the circles to ovals. It stopped
working. The consistency wasn’t there. This is why it’s tough—but not
impossible—to brand yourself as a nonfiction writer and a fiction writer at the
same time. Or to switch genres. Once you get into the mind with a strong
associate memory, it’s difficult to change it, or even add to it. For example,
when you hear Harry Houdini, you think magician. But who can remember that he was
the first person to fly an airplane in Australia? Even most Australians don’t
know that. Why? He already was in there mind with a different brand.
Frequency: This is easy. Keep your message out there. Often.
Anchoring: This is the tough one. Many people think by throwing together
some potent colors and coming up with a catchy tagline they’ve branded
themselves. Huh uh. Anchoring is divided into three parts:
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| Book of Days |
2. Anchor to something the public wants. Picking on Chip again, people want entertainment, they want to be surprised. Are they, when he steps out in his MacGregor tartan? Of course. They love it. Randy Ingermanson has branded himself as the Snowflake guy to writers and editors. At an ACFW conference a few years back I smiled as I saw his branding had become so successful it was parodied from the stage during the opening session.
3. Anchor to something you already are. Anchor to something you already are. No, that wasn’t a typo. It bears repeating because this is where more authors stumble. Many try to create a brand out of nothing:
“Suspense that
sucks you in and won’t let you go! Never! Ever! Really!”
“Making you
hyperventilate after every chapter!”
“Romance that
makes you a mush cake every time!”
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| The Chair |
Branding is
taking the unique elements about you and your writing that already exist and
exposing them to the world. Your brand is there; your job is to uncover it.
Yes, it’s a
challenge pinpointing what your brand is. Often we’re too close. Most people
have trouble reading the outside of the bottle when they’re standing inside. So
ask people close to you to describe your uniqueness. Brainstorm with other
authors about what sets you apart. Ask your editor, spouse, kids, agent, and
others.
Yeah, I know,
we’ve only scratched the surface. That’s why Amazon is packed with books on
branding. And why marketing people like me have jobs.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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| I love God, my wife, my sons, writing, speaking, playing guitar and golf, in that order. And I dabble in photography. (and yes that's me in the ski shot above) www.jimrubart.com |
What do you think? Does Jim's comments open up a new understanding...and hopefully less daunting amount of info to consider while you do the preliminary marketing?
