A hope for a better future is what great brands sell. They sell it to the children in all of us, and not the adult. The brands that become great brands are those who set us free and not just help us do better in the social mirror. This is pretty much what Mike Byrne implies in his talk at the PSFK conference last year, and I completely agree with him.
Great brands are things that bunches of people create and manage to bring hope for a better life to other bunches of people.
Mike Byrne Creative Director of Anomaly made a great case for brands being the purveyors of physical manifestations of 'Hope'.
He showed three ads as examples of brands selling hope. A Nike 'Just Do It' ad, an Apple iPod ad, and the Coke 'Happiness Factory' ad.
Here's the Nike Ad,
and the iPod ad,
and here's the full 1 minute 31 second version of the Coke ad,
All great examples of inspiration and hope, and great benchmarks of engagement, talkability and cultural phenomenon creation, or whatever new description fits this kind of universally resonant great work. What I find interesting about the ads too,is when you read the comments people make about them on YouTube and the like. They are mostly, if not completely, very positive and many people are clearly inspired, and re-inspired in a timeless way.
The connection doesn't age, and the warmth created between brand and consumer is like the friendship of a trusted old friend that you haven't seen in a while. Even though masses of time has past, one re-putting in the head, or in effect the smallest re-minding, brings the emotional attachment to the brand right back to near original levels of, 'thanks, that's made me feel a really good feeling' in the viewer. What a fabulous thing for a brand to achieve.
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