Drive Them Wild: The Principles of a Brand That Customers Obsess Over

As Marketers, we spend a lot of time thinking about how we can become the next “it” brand, the name on everyone’s lips. We want to be more than household names-we want to define our categories, to become not just brands but verbs. Think about Google-it’s so much more than a brand name. We don’t tell each other to “search it”-we say “Google it!”

There are other brands that have infiltrated the public consciousness like this. We tell people to grab a Kleenex, not a tissue; you’ll take a Tylenol, not an acetaminophen tablet. You’ll buy a Coke, not a cola.

You get the picture. These brands become so engrained people don’t even think of their products as separate from their names.

More than that, though, we want to become brands that our customers obsess over. We want them to actively think about us and what we offer them. We want to be not the default choice, but the active choice. So how do we achieve that? We can use the following principles to drive our customers wild and create a new obsession with our brands.

The Five Principles of Brand Obsession

Any brand obsession will spring from these five principles. When we lay the groundwork, we can build brands that our customers want to make part of their…