Trust, Storytelling, and the Future of Brands  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast]] - Full Title: Trust, Storytelling, and the Future of Brands - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/575d1c90-441f-41f4-a29f-9cc8c67e84ba ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Trust As Brand Currency** - Trust has become a brand commodity that drives consumer choices in an era of misinformation. - Value is meaning and worth is what the market will pay, so meaning determines brand value. Transcript: Ernie Ross Absolutely. Actually, I would go as far as saying trust is a new brand commodity. Yes. We live in a world where it's hard to determine fact from fallacy anymore. Whether it's AI generated or it's being generated by a human being that is manipulating us. That's one of our imageries on social media. So here's an example that if you take a look at what's happening either politically or with a product or brand, it is difficult to discern whether that image or even the spokesperson Is actually real. It's very difficult for us to determine that. Or in reality, if something goes wrong with a brand or a company, within a fraction of seconds or a minute, that image and those opinions, whether it be internal or external to your company, Goes viral. So that we live in a world where intangible values matter more than ever. And if there's anything I want your audience to take away today, John, it is the cornerstone of the principle of intentions. And that is something only has value when it holds meaning to you. Nothing in life, whether it be a physical asset or a human relationship, is what I call derivative meaning. It only has a value because of the meaning you attribute to it. Worth, on the other hand, is a little different. Worth is what the market is willing to pay for it. But value is determined by meaning. So what determines worth? The extent to which you believe in the value, which takes you through what I call the circle of consumer sentiment back to meaning at the end of the day. ([Time 0:02:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b1d74770-9c44-4630-8091-6bae3009531d)) - **Back Stories With Authentic Actions** - Manifest your brand's intangible value beyond advertising by supporting related movements or programs. - Show consistent actions that align with your story to earn lasting consumer trust. Transcript: Ernie Ross You would pay around $11.5 million for a one-minute ad in the Super Bowl, transient medium. And there's an ad I always like to refer to for a particular brand that I would pause after 58 seconds of its television commercial. And I would ask the audience, tell me what story is being told because you never see the product being referenced or used at all. And the ad is really about the relationship between a father and his child. The entire ad just shows fathers interacting with their children. And after 58 seconds, if you had spent $11.5 million of your client's money and said, this is what I think you should run, he'd think you were crazy. And finally, in the last two seconds, the logo comes on for Dove Men's Care. But it was more than that. You can't just tag a logo to the end of an ad like that. They launched this movement called That's Care.com, which supported paternity care for men and championed the cause of men as parents around the world. You can imagine which still I use, by the way, as a single ad. So it's really about not just showing up by having an intangible value and putting it in a commercial, but manifesting that value and being true to it. ([Time 0:05:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2eb5adfd-9271-4ff9-9d23-a008322fd87c)) - **Fatherhood Ad That Became A Movement** - Ernie describes a Super Bowl ad that shows fathers and only reveals Dove Men's Care at the end. - The campaign extended into That'sCare.com to support paternity care and proved the power of embodied purpose. Transcript: Ernie Ross A particular brand that I would pause after 58 seconds of its television commercial. And I would ask the audience, tell me what story is being told because you never see the product being referenced or used at all. And the ad is really about the relationship between a father and his child. The entire ad just shows fathers interacting with their children. And after 58 seconds, if you had spent $11.5 million of your client's money and said, this is what I think you should run, he'd think you were crazy. And finally, in the last two seconds, the logo comes on for Dove Men's Care. But it was more than that. You can't just tag a logo to the end of an ad like that. They launched this movement called That's Care.com, which supported paternity care for men and championed the cause of men as parents around the world. You can imagine which still I use, by the way, as a single ad. ([Time 0:05:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6e7fe279-1cf7-4106-bc97-f55d75e51833)) - **AI Can't Truly Feel** - AI can mimic emotions but cannot truly experience human feelings like love or grief. - Human-created work retains unique intangible value that AI cannot authentically replicate. Transcript: Ernie Ross You're absolutely right. While I'm not a critic of AI, I think it has a phenomenal impact on how we're going to develop as a species. But here's a different speak that I'd like to carve out a bit. Artificial intelligence is not artificial intelligence. It can mimic human emotions, but it cannot actually encounter an experience. It cannot encounter love or grief or hate or anger or fear. So that's what's unique about us. If you gave me a work of art, John, and I loved it, and I said, well, John, this is incredible. I'm going to hang it on my wall. And you said, well, it was created by artificial intelligence. It would be diminished in its value to me, or a piece of music for that matter. Those are expressions of our humanity. That's what makes us real. And nothing can mimic that. So that artificial intelligence is limited by the fact that it is not human. It cannot encounter those human emotions. ([Time 0:07:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/58c78caf-28a1-4487-ba73-234bbc3eb493)) - **Storytelling Drives Emotional Choice** - Emotionally compelling stories make brands memorable and drive most decisions through feeling rather than logic. - Storytelling connects brands to human memories and creates resonance beyond product features. Transcript: Ernie Ross Telling an emotionally compelling story, any narrative of that kind, makes it memorable. It connects you authentically with you. We're essentially, as human beings, sentient beings. Most of our decisions are being made by the way we feel, not by logic as much as we'd like to think it is. And we're engaged by stories. And it is the essence of who we are. It is what we're created of memories, memories that are made of stories. So providing a brand is embodying an intangible value woven together through an emotionally compelling story. While that is happening, that will certainly be a point of resonance. Once the shared intangible value has been embodied in that particular offering, here's an example. If you and I were going into the beverage industry and I said, John, I've done everything with this product. I think it's going to do remarkably well. It's not particularly attractive in its color. It's black. It has no nutritional value whatsoever. I'm not going to sell it on flavor, but I'm going to guarantee you 1.9 billion units every day around the world. You'd think I was crazy, but that's exactly what Coca-Cola does. And it's woven together by these really emotionally compelling stories that don't sell it in flavor, taste, feeling, open happiness, real magic, all themes over the last 10 years. ([Time 0:11:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0e5c2b3c-a2c7-4b84-aac6-c4029b56429f)) - **Three Questions To Discover Purpose** - Start by asking who you are, what your purpose is, and how you'll be remembered to find your brand's truth. - Make messages relevant, credible, and deeply resonant to create viral conversation currency. Transcript: Ernie Ross There are three schools of thought that make up the tangents. The first is called Pillars of Purpose. It's an introspective process that asks the most three probing questions you can ask of a brand or of yourself. Question one, is who am I? Question two, and is who am I to you? Question two would be, what is my purpose? What greater purpose do I serve to you? And the last question is, how will I be remembered? What lingers with you after interaction, whether you see the packaging or an ad that was run, what stays with you? And out of those three are like signposts to take you to what I call the universal truth. Something that is your brand ethos that is universally acceptable. As an example, if you were a brand of water, it could be no one in the world should ever go thirsty. So that would be building the brand architecture in an emotional space. Notice it's not what is it, it's who am I? What is my purpose? How will I be remembered? And then the second school of thought is what is called currency of conversation. How do you make the message viral? How do you get the message out there? And that lands in three principles. Is the message relevant? Do I have a high regard from where I'm hearing or is coming from? And does it resonate with me at a deeply fundamental level? The final school of thought would be the science of human connection, which are the techniques and devices you're using to be able to create that connection based upon purpose. Passion, or do you get a passion following, or what I call a polyphonic understanding of the marketplace. Polyphonia, coming from a musical term where an instrument can play more than one note at the same time. In much the same way, you have to track what's happening with emerging trends, changes in attitudes, consumer behavior, and so on, to be able to travel ahead of your headlights, so to Speak, so that you can measure the response that you need to have in your brand storytelling. ([Time 0:14:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8bb42e19-b46f-4903-80f9-6595dadd3a72)) - **Cracked Mirror That Challenges Reality** - Ernie shares an office art installation that looks like a cracked mirror to show reality is perception. - The piece reminds visitors we see the world as we are, not as it objectively is, shaping how brands must question audience reality. Transcript: Ernie Ross In our offices, as you come into the building, there is a very unusual object that reinforces this. It looks like what appears to be a mirror with a crack in it and there's a broom perched against it. A lot of people come into the offices and say, why do you have this object here? And I say, you tell me. And they look at it and they talk about maybe the frailty of life. And I said, no, it's just what it looks like. And it is done by, it's an installation done by an artist from Argentina called Leandro Ehrlich. And it's actually an illusion. He's just created an open space, put a frame of metal running across it and makes it look like a crack. He's put a broom in the front and a broom at the back. Now, you can see right through this object, John, you don't see your own reflection. I know 10 people stand in front of it, including me when I first got it, and see a mirror. And it's based upon the whole principle, you know, that we don't see the world the way it is, we see the world the way we are. It reinforces the idea that we have to question this version of reality. So to your point about what works in what part of the world, it's about that point. Being able to question the reality as determined by the audience that you're reaching to, what is their version of this reality, before you begin to authentically connect. ([Time 0:17:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7a408ce1-a191-4260-8f11-83cec44e7116)) - **Intangibles Outweigh Physical Assets** - The majority of company value today is intangible and derived from meaning, not physical assets. - Brands like Uber and Amazon show market worth is built on intangible architectures like names and networks. Transcript: Ernie Ross As an example, if you took all the companies traded in the S&P 500, the value of it is about $28 trillion. And if you sold every physical asset, you wouldn't even get to 20% of the $28 trillion. So it's all intangible assets and defined through an intangible meaning. So the world exists. What is one of the world's largest transportation companies? Uber. How many cars do they own? What's one of the world's largest retail companies? It's Amazon. How much mortar and stone do they actually have? And if you look at all the major brands in the world, every single one from Apple to Microsoft or to Coca-Cola, they have charts done by their accounting firms that are measuring their Intangible value greater than that of their tangible value. If I sold you the Coca-Cola company today and I give you all the factories and all the buildings and I kept the name, I would be the one to win the game. ([Time 0:19:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e051f60e-6776-478a-b0ae-2c6489fd4f41))