I first came across the work of Daniel Pink when I was cochairing the FUSE Conference. His lecture presented a revelatory understanding of modern times and the shifts that have taken place in business and culture during the past twenty years. While other business leaders and cultural commentators are stuck in old-thinking paradigms, Daniel Pink gets it.
In his books Drive, A whole New Mind, and Johnny Bunko, Daniel consistently showcases his savvy about what we’re doing, where we’re heading, and where we’re missing the paradigm shift entirely. His insight on brands is especially sharp, and when I interviewed him, he and I spoke about the subtleties of brand relationships in ways that I’ve never thought about before. A brand, says Daniel, is a promise exchanged, and brands derive their appeal from two key factors: their utility—whether or not they fulfill their function or purpose—and their significance—the range of affiliations that a brand generates between a person and an object, whether it be a computer, a pair of jeans, or a television. By making a significant leap forward in utility or significance—Apple’s iPhone might be a good example—companies are able to corner the market in a particular category, at least until the next advance forward.
In our conversation, Daniel created an informal system of assessing a successful brand: It creates products that make its consumers feel good, gives them a sense of affiliation, and has a compelling backstory. With that in mind, a brand promise can prove to be a boon or an albatross. As a boon, brands act as an insurance that we’ll be getting something of quality. When assessing the broken promises of companies like BP, Daniel incisively notes that while the brand itself may recover its sales and even recoup some trust, a lingering problem will remain: Because of the business’s damaged reputation, talented people in the field may no longer want to work for it. That resistance can lead to long-term stagnation in a business’s integrity and innovation, both of which are essential in developing vibrant relationships between consumers and brands.
In addition to his eloquence about brands and innovation, Daniel speaks quite compellingly on the dangers of the “hedonic treadmill,” in which we relentlessly pursue the next branded object that will finally bring us lasting happiness—but inevitably doesn’t. To counter this attitude, he urges a “buyer beware” mindfulness so we can nurture our selfworth without relying on external supports. He suggests that social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook have allowed us to subvert some of these brand mechanics, allowing us to state and affirm our self-worth without relying on the vocabulary of brands. He reflects, “Now we’re going to be left with trying to assess who we are, as we are.”
To begin, I want to ask you, how would you define “brand”?
I would define it two ways: from the sender’s point of view and from the receiver’s point of view. I don’t want to make it overly complicated, but from the perspective of P&G or Dell or any other company, a brand might be a promise: a promise of what awaits the customer if they buy that particular product, service, or experience. From the receiver’s point of view, I think a brand is a promise.
What do you think it’s a promise for?
It depends. It differs from company to company. But it’s a promise of what you can expect if you use the product or service, or if you engage in the experience. When it comes to the Disney brand, Disney is making a promise that if you go to this theme park or see this movie, you’re going to get fun, family entertainment. When you see the Nike swoosh, or you see the word “Nike,” or you walk by a Nike store, you’re communicated a promise that you’re going to get a product that’s going to enhance and enliven the athletic part of your life. If you see one of Procter & Gamble’s brands, whether it’s Tide or Pampers, there’s a promise made that this is going to be a wholesome and valuable product for your family.
Do you feel that people really choose products and experiences in that way?
I don’t think anyone thinks that explicitly. I do think that transactions between companies and individuals—or between brands and individuals—are in their own ways conversations. A promise can be one element of a conversation. It’s what draws people in. I think that’s why the dynamic is different when you look at this conversation after someone has bought the product or the service. I think the brand can operate in a somewhat different way then. When the brand is something that an individual takes home, the brand becomes something different. The brand becomes a form of affiliation, or a form of identification—a form of status. I tend to look at it as a form of affiliation. If I open up my laptop and it has the Apple logo on it, that might make me feel marginally more associated with a group of cool, interesting people than if the computer had another logo on it.
Why is that?
It’s deeply tribal. Yet, in this regard, there are other brands that are irrelevant. If you asked me about my desk phone, I’d have no idea what brand it was until I actually looked at it.
Did you choose it?
Yes, I did.
What made you decide to buy that particular phone?
It’s an AT&T brand phone. I think what made me choose it was a combination of its price and functionality. The fact that it had the AT&T imprimatur on it probably made me marginally more certain that it would work than if it had “Al’s Phone Supplies” on it.
That goes back to the idea that AT&T is making a promise: The company is telling you, “We’ve been in the phone business a long time—our promise is that this phone isn’t going to suck.”
So that would be what we could call a category of “low involvement” for you. And the decision to get an Apple?
That would be a little bit more significant. Using your terminology, yes, it would be higher involvement.
Do you feel like the association is something beneficial to you and to people generally? Does it benefit them in a meaningful way?
I think in small ways. I don’t think it’s that salient in people’s lives. I think it might have a marginally potent role as a formal affiliation.
That’s really interesting. Marty Neumeier wrote a book called The Brand Gap that’s related to this idea. When he’s discussing Nike, Neumeier writes, “As a weekend athlete, my two nagging doubts are that I might be congenitally lazy, and that I might have little actual ability. I am not really worried about my shoes. But when the Nike folks say, ‘Just do it,’ they’re peering into my soul. I begin to feel that, if they understand me that well, their shoes are probably pretty good. I am then willing to join the tribe of Nike.”
Very interesting. That’s the affiliation side of it. Again, when he’s saying the shoes are probably pretty good, that’s a promise. It’s not an explicit promise in the sense of “I promise you that these are pretty good shoes.” But it’s an implicit promise. This is why broken promises are so devastating to companies and brands.
What do you mean by that? Can you elaborate on that idea?
Let’s use BP as an example. The BP brand used to stand for a semi-enlightened oil company that was trying to go beyond petroleum. They even created a logo that was green, as if to say, “Look how forward-thinking and cool we are.” Now that promise is a joke—it’s a broken promise. “We promised you that we were going to go beyond petroleum. We promised you that we were going to be green . . . Oops—sorry about the millions of gallons of oil in the gulf.” That’s a broken promise. Breaking a promise is worse than not making a promise in the first place.
Yes. I think they can. I think the bigger problem for BP is not going to be in its operations. I don’t think its oil exploration around the world is going to be stalled at all—perhaps just a little. It will probably get a bit more scrutiny from the governments around the world that have to approve its oil exploration projects. I don’t really think there are going to be too many consumers who are going to say, “Oh, I’m going to the Exxon station rather than the BP gas station because I don’t like BP.” I think the lasting brand problem for BP is that really talented people aren’t going to want to work there. That’s the problem BP will have over the long haul.
I never thought of that.
That’s branding of a different order. It’s not branding in the realm we’re talking about. To me, that’s a significant problem. And that’s a hard egg to unscramble. Think about a talented petroleum engineer coming out of college. This person has a lot of choices. Is she going to say, “Oh, I’m going to be really proud to work at BP?” No. Or think about people who are at BP now and they go to a barbecue on a weekend, and they meet someone new. The conversation will go something like this: “Hi—what do you do?” “I’m an engineer.” “Where do you work?” “BP.” “Ohhhhh . . .” Not good. I happen to live within walking distance of Fannie Mae in washington, D.C. There was a time when Fannie Mae hired really great people. That has ended. It has nothing to do with Fannie Mae’s capacity to pay salaries. It has everything to do with people not wanting to be affiliated with a brand that is stained.
Brands promise a certain affiliation that we end up benefiting from—the benefits come from the association and the affiliation. Then we can use them to project how we want to be seen in the world.
Yes. We’re talking mostly about consumer brands and product-based brands, but there are many different types of brands. This consideration applies to certain decisions you might make in the business world. If you run a company and you need to hire some consultants, the brand Deloitte makes a promise. The brand Accenture makes a promise. Maybe there’s a degree of “affiliation” that plays a part in this area as well: A company can proudly show off how advanced it is by hiring an Accenture or a McKinsey.
In these situations, there’s an inherent insurance policy that these companies will do a good job for you.
God, yes. I’m convinced that the insurance is a huge part of it. If you’re at a large organization, and you have a choice of hiring someone from Harvard and hiring someone from a small, unknown school that no one has heard of, you’re most likely going to hire the person from Harvard. Not because that person is necessarily any better. You could meet with them and think that the person from the small, unknown school that no one has heard of can make a great contribution. But if you hire someone with a Harvard degree and they turn out to be an idiot, you have a defense: “How was I supposed to know they were an idiot? They went to Harvard!” But if the person who went to the small, unknown school turns out to be an idiot, your boss can say, “What the hell were you doing hiring someone from a small, unknown school that no one has heard of?”
Do you ever listen to the comedian Chris Rock?
Yes—I like him.
He does a whole thing on insurance and says that at the end of the day, insurance is really “‘in case’ shit.”
Well said! That’s a very interesting concept. That goes back to the notion that brand is a promise—insurance itself is a promise. Insurance promises that if something bad happens, the company insuring you will pay. In some ways, the kind of insurance we’ve been talking about—“brand insurance”—is saying, “If something bad happens, you won’t get blamed.”
In your book A whole New Mind, you wrote extensively about the candle business. You explained that, despite the fact that we have plenty of cheap lightbulbs, the candle business is a $2.4-billion industry. Why do we still need to buy candles? How do they enhance our lives? Electricity is cheap and ubiquitous, yet we’re still spending over $2 billion on a product that, for all intents and purposes, lights our rooms much less effectively than bulbs. Why?
I think the candle example is one where the candle itself is more important than the brand. I can only think of one candle brand, which is yankee Candle. I imagine that they’re making the promise that candles will enhance your life. They probably even use language like this: “Candles might help illuminate a room, but, more importantly, they will light up your soul.” What is most interesting about the candle scenario is that it suggests people are looking for something beyond utility. Anything available in a marketplace offers a combination of utility and significance. The item has to work, and it has to provide another benefit: It has to make you feel good, give you a sense of affiliation, and it has to give you a compelling backstory. It has to touch you in an emotional way.
In a world full of stuff, you have two options: The first is that you can make a huge advance in utility—you can come up with something demonstrably better. For instance, my family was recently on a trip, and my thirteen-year-old daughter brought along a Flip camera. Now that’s a huge leap in utility. I remember the day when camcorders were huge, heavy, and cost thousands of dollars. And my daughter has a little purse where she keeps her Flip, and it cost maybe $100. It’s amazing. That’s a huge leap in utility.
The other option is to get your margins out of significance. Brands are a source of significance, and significance has a number of dimensions relating to security, safety, affiliation, or status. If a brand is making a promise, it’s a promise about utility and significance. Let’s go back to the overused example of Apple. If I see an Apple laptop, I know it’s going to work well, but I also know it’s not going to work monumentally better than a PC. But it has more significance: It’s going to look good and feel good, and it’s going to give me a sense of affiliation.
In a TED talk you gave in 2009, you spoke about “contingent motivators”: rewards, commissions, or bonuses that are used to motivate people to achieve. I recently attended an executive education program, where a Harvard professor spoke about our need for achievement. She compared and contrasted it to hunger: You’re hungry, you eat something, and then you stop being hungry for a while. You’re thirsty, you drink something, and then you stop being thirsty for a while. But with high achievers, when they achieve something, they continue to need more. Do you think that brands are contingent motivators? For example, let’s say a person wants a big-screen TV. It becomes a goal, something they’re motivated by. They save up—then they go and buy it. Chances are, after they get the big-screen TV, then they want some big speakers to capture the big-screen TV sound. Is it ever enough? Can we ever be sated by brands, or do they act only as contingent motivators?
This is the dark side of brands. Let’s go back to the analogy of food and hunger. Whether it’s a big-screen TV or a car, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that human beings metabolize these things very quickly. I’m specifically using the word “metabolize” because we’re talking about hunger and thirst. If a big-screen TV is your source of stature and significance, it’s a fool’s game. These kinds of external objects do not provide enduring satisfaction.
If a brand is making a promise that you’re going to feel better about yourself if you buy it, they’re making a false promise. Human beings metabolize their purchases very quickly.
What about fashion or technology brands that have a built-in expiration date? Do you think planned obsolescence is the underlying cause of that metabolism, or the result of it?
This is an element of what social psychologists call “the hedonic treadmill”: If you’re always looking to validate yourself and get satisfaction from buying stuff or having a bigger house, then you’re on an endless, addictive treadmill. There’s no enduring satisfaction to this. If a brand’s only purpose is to get you on that hedonic treadmill, it might be good for business in the short run, but in the long run, you’re doomed. If you look at the components of long-term well-being, it has nothing to do with material goods. Once you’re past a certain level of material well-being, people’s long-term happiness and wellbeing is about having deep personal relationships, believing in something larger than themselves, and doing something meaningful that they enjoy.
This reminds me of being in Japan a few years ago. When I was there, I saw a lot of young women with Gucci handbags. Gucci might not say it’s making this promise, but it could make the promise that if you buy a Gucci handbag, then you’ll feel good about yourself. That’s very much an if-then contingent motivator that has a lot of problems with it. That seems to be a classic kind of “controlling” contingent motivator.
But I think you could argue it either way. If a young woman’s whole sense of self-worth and identification comes from fashion and large institutions that ultimately don’t care about her one bit, that’s the dark side of the way that brands work. There is a contingency here. The promises are contingencies: “If you buy this, then you will feel that.”
But I’m also thinking about my own clothing choices. I just bought two new suits. I buy new suits when my old suits literally wear out. So where did I go to buy my suits? I went to Nordstrom. Why did I go to Nordstrom? I went to Nordstrom because I’ve been there before, and the promise when you go to Nordstrom is that you’ll get high-quality clothes, and it won’t be a hassle. That seems to be a perfectly acceptable promise. Sure, it’s contingent—in the sense of “If you come to Nordstrom, then you’ll get high-quality clothes without a hassle”—but that doesn’t seem such a nefarious contingency.
What are the cultural ramifications of using brands to camouflage feelings of low self-worth, particularly at a time when our culture uses tangible reward systems and brand markers to gauge a person’s place in life?
In some ways, I think individuals can control this. Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “No one can humiliate you without your consent.” If you are using brands as a way to camouflage low self-worth, then shame on you as much as shame on the brand.
So no one can humiliate you without your consent. But what if all you understand is the language of humiliation? Then you don’t necessarily know how to discern anything else. We’re living in a world where this is how we assess our cultural and social standing. We are born into that—we don’t know anything but that. It’s like Stockholm syndrome, where a hostage develops loyalty for his captors.
I think in some ways our ability to communicate with each other on platforms like Twitter gives us more power, because we can tear that curtain back a little bit to reveal that there are other ways to feel self-worth and power. We’re living in an age now where so much of this psychological support we get through brands is falling away because we can’t afford it anymore. Now we’re going to be left with trying to assess who we are, as we are. That would be a good and very healthy evolution in general.
Do you think we’re in the midst of a self-correction?
In a way, it will be very interesting to see if the economy is going to reset brands. You certainly see it in advertising: when the business cycle goes down, you start seeing ads for dollar meals. And I wonder if there will be a deeper reset in brands. I wonder if the deep underlying promise of enduring brands is going to change because of the economic troubles. I have no idea.