Do you have the Know Why?
Companies love their know how.
They are very proud of it. So proud that it often is the focus in their advertising. “Look how well I’m good at doing this. Much better than my competitor.” But in communications, consumers aren’t that much seduced by those kind of arguments. They are much more interested in your intentions.
In the book “Hero Brand”, I have explained the parallels between becoming a public hero and becoming a brand. One of the things we learn from heroes is that they rarely talk about how good they are. You never heard Superman say: “look at my biceps! I am so strong! I can lift a building!”. Nobody ever heard Einstein say: “I am much better at inventing theories about the universe than anybody else!”. Real heroes talk about something else. They talk about why. Why the things they do are important for a better world.
As i describe in the book, if Phil Knight had been an engineer, we'd probably know now how he put air in those soles of Nike. And maybe Nike would have been called Air-o-Sole or something like that. And maybe nobody outside Portland would ever have heard of Nike at all. But Phil is a communicator. And he has wrong friends like Dan Wieden, who know why people react to advertising.
In the Ted presentation above you hear Simon Sinek explain Apple’s success. It is not about How you do things. It is about Why you do things.
