September 28, 2004

mark love

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"Mark Love™. Basically a Love Mark in reverse."

A "Love Mark" is a newish, faddish term for a brand that commands a disproportionatley high amount of love and respect from the people who use it. You could say Apple and Harley Davidson were two classic examples.

OK, so...

A Mark Love™ is basically a term for a product that was made with a disproportionately high amount of love and respect for the end user.

Unlike the Love Mark, it's not about what the consumer thinks of the product. It's about what you think of the consumer, and how your product acts as a conduit to express that. It's 180 degrees from the Love Mark.The energy travels from the product (i.e. you) to the end user, not the other way around.

It's about Values. Purpose. Belief. Integrity. Compassion. All that good stuff.

You'll notice a lot of Love Marks started life out as Mark Loves first.

Ergo:

( Step 1) Create the Mark Love and (Step 2) the Love Mark will soon follow.

You want the lady in the shopping mall to love your product? Easy. Love her first.

The trouble arises when companies want to get to Step 2 before they've gotten to Step 1.

It's so frickin' obvious.

PS: This is a rewrite of the "Love Byte" post which was SO APPALLING I deleted it. However, some of you might be already picking it up on your RSS feeds. Sorry. Please ignore it. Thanks.

Posted by hugh macleod at September 28, 2004 2:26 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I like this version beter then the first (love byte) version ;-)

(Kind of nice to see your creative mind at work...)

Posted by: Gideon at September 28, 2004 2:43 PM

Yeah, "Love Bytes" was appalling. Had to delete it. (Sorry, Gahlord)

Posted by: hugh macleod at September 28, 2004 2:44 PM

Digging the 'what you think about the consumer....' aspect.

Posted by: Piers Fawkes at September 28, 2004 9:06 PM

Very astute observations . . .

Posted by: Barry Ritholtz at September 29, 2004 4:39 PM

Uhh, I think you need to put a </i> tag at the end of your postscript.

Just sayin'.

Posted by: Alan Bostick at September 29, 2004 10:40 PM