Heart...Brand.

                                                                            AP photo - Daniel Ocha de Olzo

Other than the fact that each word has five letters, how does a heart and a brand resemble one another?

On the surface they have nothing in common. To the untrained mind they are two different conversations in two different universes. Looking a bit closer...they are more similar than you may think.

The heart is one of the absolutely most important organs we have. Without it, there's no blood pumping into the veins. No fresh oxygenated blood filtering through the system. There's no life being pumped into the body.

A brand is one of the aboslutely most important aspects for a business.  Without a brand you just have a tablet, you don't have an iPad. Without a brand you just have t-shirts, you don't have a Threadless. Without a brand you just have fashion, you don't have a Vogue.

A heart beats 72 times per minute, 4,320 times every hour, and 103,680 times every day. That's 1,900 gallons of blood pumped from midnight to midnight. It generates enough power in a 24 hour period to drive a truck 20 miles...and weighs basically nothing...seven pounds.

Your brand (idea) should pulsate inside the minds of your customers. Not necessarily 72 times per minute or any specific number of times an hour but should pump through their minds when the choice is between you or them. Because that's what a brand does. It helps people make a decision. It helps them understand why your brand is desirable, why you exist, and why you matter. Brand is identity. It is the workhorse that pumps life into your business narrative. And guess what...its weightless, yet should weigh heavily in your strategic decisions.

The heart has four chambers - two superior atria and two inferior ventricles.

A brand has four areas - value, meaning, goals and ambitions.

In the marketplace we hear folks say that brands need to be human (more specifically, need a human touch...). The other important question becomes...does your brand have a heart?

Comments

[Ibrahim]

Fascinating comparison. I really appreciate your connections to things seemingly dissimilar. Really creative, and well thought out.

[Rasul Sha'ir]

Thank you for the comment Ibrahim. That's one of my goals is to connect things that may not seem to be connected. Its my way for identifying/seeing opportunity. It's seeing the 'negative space' that we often glance right over or can't see because it's not obvious
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[Corey Michael Blake]

Love the concept of your brand pumping through the minds of your audience. Awesome!