The one-sentence summary

Creating loyalty beyond reason requires emotional connections that generate the highest levels of love and respect for your brand.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • The idealism of love is the new realism of business. By building respect and inspiring love, business can move the world
  • Once there were products, then trademarks, then brands, and now lovemarks
  • For great brands to survive, they must create “loyalty beyond reason”
  • The secret is to use mystery, sensuality and intimacy
  • Consumers, not companies, own lovemarks
  • Some truths about love: humans need it; it means more than liking a lot; it is about responding, about delicate intuitive sensing; it takes time; and it cannot be commanded or demanded
  • A picture may be worth a thousand words, but terrific stories are right up there with them. A great story can never be told too often
  • Great ideas, like humor (sic), come from the corners of the mind, out on the edge. That’s why humor can break up log-jams in business and personal relationships

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • The book is attempting to redefine brand thinking, and is thought provoking
  • The warning signs of brands descending into generic stuff are: consistent, interchangeable, impersonal, abundant, homogenous, lowest price
  • “Brands are out of juice” is an interesting notion: worn out from overuse; no longer mysterious; can’t understand the new consumer; struggle with good old-fashioned competition; have been captured by formula; have been smothered by creeping conservatism
  • Human beings are powered by emotion, not by reason. The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions
  • Primary emotions: joy, sorrow, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust can be outstripped by more complex secondary emotions: love, guilt, shame, pride, envy, jealousy

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • The action points at the end are all pretty hackneyed stuff: be passionate, involve customers, celebrate loyalty, find, tell and retell great stories, accept responsibility
  • Pretty much all the examples are from Saatchi clients, and at times it just sounds like a self-trumpeting agency brochure