Lovemarks Live

There has been a lot of discussion of Lovemarks in the marketing blogosphere, so it was with great interest that I went to see Kevin Roberts speak earlier this week at the PromoExpo conference in Chicago (I was there to participate on a panel about experiential marketing). I couldn't help but feel I was being "guru-ized" ... you know, when someone comes up with a clever new way to say something that they can get quite a bit of money and notoriety from.

Of course, I like Mr. Robert's focus on emotion ("emotion leads to action, reason leads to conclusion" he said). And I also thought his discussion of mystery, sensuality and intimacy in marketing was interesting, though not groundbreaking by any means. But then he went on to say that brands are dead, after which he showed a procession of TV ads for brands, followed by a discussion of brands as he has re-branded them -- as lovemarks. That's where he lost me.

Here's Johnnie Moore's take on the whole thing: Link: Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Is Lovemarks brilliant?.

Tag: marketing

Comments

[Tom Asacker]

You're right. Nothing new. Even the "emotion leads to action" bit. Here's the quote:

"The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions. Donald Calne, neurologist.

I'm with Johnnie Moore on this one.

[erik hauser]

I was there as well. The man spent an hour speaking about experiential branding. He simply threw a bunch of hearts on everything. I found it very odd that a man said brands are dead, and then spoke for an hour on his branding methodology. I found it even more odd when he would tell brand managers that the brands weren't theirs, but that the brands belonged to the people. SO.... how the hell can he be the one to declare them DOA. The scale he used is in many of books. In the other books they simply used the x and y axis and not cute little hearts. If it sells books..it sells books

[Andy Havens]

Brands are dead? It must be so, as we are still having something of an economic "breather." I'd call it a recession, but someone in the government would find me and poke me with a sharp stick. I teach history of advertising, and one thing can be seen throughout; during hard times, ad agencies' feet are held to the fire by their clients and all the "soft" stuff (art, creativity, branding, etc.) gets dropped, and the hard stuff (direct marketing, research, analysis) gets pumped up. When the market comes back and we're flush with investment capital, brand will be back again. Circle of life, circle of cash.

Maybe we'll even call it something dumber than "love marks." But I doubt it. Love marks. And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks Madison Avenue is out of touch with "regular folks."