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May 5, 2008
Your Personality Is There, Deep Down
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Brand & Identity
I was on the phone with a potential client two weeks ago and he was trying to make a case for why it would be nearly impossible to identify the personality of their business. After discussing the "trace your roots" approach, he blithely responded that the roots of his particular division--they're part of a $10 billion global healthcare provider--go back to an investment holding firm. In other words, their DNA comes from a long strand of profit mongers.
I didn't buy it and I didn't let him off the hook that easy. "Let's look at the DNA of the particular products you are selling," I suggested. This approach quickly returned results of big-hearted scientists and inventors that wanted to save lives and improve the quality of living. Now we were getting somewhere.
I predict that in the coming years, we're going hear an insurgence of conversations about finding and returning to our roots. I blogged last month about Starbucks' current quest and today I bumped into a comment by Nelson Peltz, CEO of Trian Fund Management, former owner of the Snapple brand before they sold it in 2000 to Cadbury Schweppes. Referencing the success Trian had with increasing Snapple sales, Peltz said, "We returned to our roots by winning back the local delis and pizza parlors that first made the brand a success."
Warren Buffet had a similar thought. In response to a reporter's question about how people can know when it's safe to invest when the big financial institutions don't seem to know what's in their portfolio, Buffet said, "They can't, they can't. They've got to, in effect, try to read the DNA of the people running the companies."
Finding your roots. Tracing your DNA. It's all part of identifying your personality.
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Comments
Just got back from the Cause Marketing Forum and a few of these points were discussed. I loved the conference and totally suggest going next year if you are interested in cause marketing.
www.nonprofitshoppingmall.com
Posted by: mi at May 31, 2008 2:36 PM