Fork Off Lovemarks

I've just finished reading LoveMarks, so now I'm a world authority on the subject.
It's real simple.
If you want to become an Advertising Exec, then read LoveMarks and take the right fork.

Part of the problem is, of course, when an adman starts talking about "Love", one's first instinctive reaction is a combination of humour, pity, suspicion and contempt. The people I know who've done quite well on Madison Avenue wouldn't know what "Love" was if it jumped on their lap and peed on them. GapingVoid

If you have a heart, and a soul then fork left along the long and winding Cluetrain route.
The right fork is a simple route for simple souls, with a simple message.  Love is the answer.  Or let's say something disguised as love.  Love in Sheep's Clothing.  As Johnnie calls it, Lust!

I just don't believe Kev.  Tom Peters can talk just as much "passion" in a similar style, but I believe him.  Why is that?
"New Zealand is no longer a LoveMark."  Of course it's not Kev, it's a left-wing totalitarian state.
Deep south USA is the place for you.  People will love you down there, and will love your Head and Shoulders, your Tide, and your Cheerios.  And so will Proctor and Gamble and Toyota.  Though I suspect Toyota won't put up with the "Love" for too long, because their main focus is good functional cars.

Kev is probably right.  LoveMarks is the next advertising thing.  It's the way of branding commodities and ordinary products, beyond the ordinary, so that ordinary folk can feel good and loved (and be loving).  The only way to look at this branding thing is to be a foreigner looking on another country, and its crazy lust of a brand like Tide or Cheerios. 
However, insult my Sugar Puffs, and I'll kill you!

Go read the book and be either dazzled or annoyed by it. 
It depends which fork you're taking in the road. 
Left or Right?

Comments

[hugh macleod]

I can't quite figure Tom Peters out.

His ideas are very "Cluetrain", but his style of delivery is very "Lovemarks".

In a recent post, I talked about a possible hybrid Lovemark-Cluetrain compromise, for people who can't quite make up their mind about which fork to take.... "The Lovetrain".

"So which camp are you betting on? Perhaps you don't think taking sides is necessary? Perhaps you think there's a "Third Way", a solution that borrows the best of both worlds? Y'know, something kinda sorta cutting-edge and kinda sorta Cluetrain-savvy that still manages to afford your company's iMacs, Aeron Chairs and pert, young receptionists? You could call it the "Lovetrain" or whatever...."

Link: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/001126.html

Anyway, Tom Peters is Mr. Lovetrain to me. I see his constituency as people who want to feel "ahead of the curve", but at the same time quite like their comfy little armchair world they're living in.

Thoughts?

[Tony Goodson]

I agree. I love Tom Peters! And I love what he's always said about Branding and Design. Some of the LoveMarks chapters could have been written by him.

I suspect the problem is with the messenger being Kevin Roberts. It doesn't quite smell right, especially with the Saatchi overlay and sucking up to clients. He seems too compromised and it's become a Saatchi advert.

The best answer Johnnie Moore and I could come up with is for Kevin to have a weblog and then we get to hear his voice. He won't be able to fake it if he writes regularly.

I do love good design and branding (or I should say Brands!), so I agree with you on LoveTrain. Tom Peters is my guide.
Where I agree with Johnnie is the idea that commodities can somehow be dressed up and made important. It's fun to have beer differentiated, it's just when self-important self-proclaimed know-it-alls like Kevin Roberts start to tell us about the love for detergent, that my teeth start to grind.

[John]

I agree, Tom Peters is tops, one of his books turned me on in a big way. The guys been around, born again with Cluetrain, but I seem him slipping up on lovemarks.
Hard to get the old time religion - fixation on products - out of your veins, and Lovemarks has a weird blend of reivisonism that is inviting people through the back door and back into their old fixations. I expect ephemeralizaiton ( and commentary) should clean this mess up.