Marketing Hope: How To Build A Brand Movement

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By: Forbes

For most of my career, I’ve been in the business of making lightening strike twice, or with a little luck, even three and four times. My job was and is to make hits happen, and then build brands on the platform of that success that allow for hits to happen over and over again for the same artists. In order to do this, I have to build a cult of personality, and then find a story that connects the artist to some larger idea that resonates with their target audiences.

For Prince, it was freedom, passion and fearless independence that drove his Emancipation to platinum. For Tracy Chapman, it was equal rights, political correctness, and the liberal backlash that was unfolding on college campuses in the late Reagan eighties that created an overnight sensation out of an unknown, coffee bar artist. For Vanilla Ice, it was the suburban appetite for Hip Hop and a growing desire among white teens to be a part of the beat on the street that made Ice, Ice Baby the very first Hip Hop single to hit the Billboard charts.

The common theme in all of these success stories is that these artists found a way to reflect their audience’s vision of a better world. Just as even big companies today have to develop a personal brand approach to communications, consumers now expect their favorite brands to be purposeful, and a vital part of a hopeful movement to make things better. So just like rock stars, and as it turns out, politicians, tomorrow’s brand leaders will be personality driven leaders on a mission.

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