Umair Haque / Bubblegeneration

Monday, February 18, 2008

Edge Principles: Love > Fear

Found an interesting reponse to one of my points here -

"...

tja, true love is hard to find but definitely out there (apple, threadless, netflix, krispy kreme)

disagree."

Let's rewind and understand the relationship between love and ads: it's strongly negative. When consumers really do love stuff, those brands have to advertise less.

Why? Simple: because love isn't built by carpet-bombing people with costly ads.

On a deeper leve - as Threadless demonstrates - it's not the "brand" consumers love; and when people love stuff, they stop being "consumers".

We need a whole new vocabulary for these new dynamics.

But the point is: don't miss the forest for the trees. Yes, there are a handful of companies people love. But from an economic pov, those are the almost always guys that invest the least in advertising. They earn that love in more strategically meaningful ways.

-- umair // 3:44 PM // 3 comments

Comments:

I want to believe you, but it doesn't look to me like Apple don't advertise.

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Composing // 12:03 AM

phil,

apple does advertise.

is that why people love apple?

does apple advertise as much as, say, ford?

thx for the comment.

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umair // 12:10 AM

As Hugh McLeod so rightly says, if you talked to people like advertising talked to people they'd punch you in the face.

(See at Gaping Void: http://qurl.com/jts3y)

PS see you at tonight for NW.

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Anonymous // 4:39 PM