Rhythm of Love

Friday, 1 April 2011 - Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne Love

Presentation Summary

Speaking at the National Speakers Association of Australia Convention, Melbourne, Kevin Roberts shares 5 big ideas to put you on the path to creating Lovemarks.


‘Stand Up and Stand Out’, this is a fantastic theme, the drive to command a premium as competition swarms.

Commoditization is why brands were invented, it is why we are talking, but it is not why we are here. As speakers, trainers and agents of change we are here to champion the role of business.

  • To create shareholder value
  • To create and grow a customer
  • To make the world a better place for everyone

Speaking is a transformation industry, the industry to move everything forward. Revolution starts with language. Language is its power, and it is your extraordinary gift. When you change the language, you shift the conversation. A good presentation can change people’s lives; a great one can change everything.

The best brands understand the role of business. They are ‘Purpose-inspired’, sharing a dream that is bigger than brand benefit.

Quite a challenge!

I’m going to share some personal experience that led to a world stage, then some ideas to help you become bigger than a brand.  

Success in any enterprise is about the will to win, and in a pro tunnel like tennis, golf, or speaking you need, as All Black Grant Fox told me: “Fire in the belly and ice in the brain.”

I’ve wanted to win since I was a kid and ‘live performance’ has been my catapult to a fascinating life.

In 1997, as CEO Worldwide at Saatchi & Saatchi, Chairman Bob Seelert’s stand-fast advice was: “Every morning strap on a bullet proof vest and water proof back, so when the shi*t flies, it bounces of your front or runs off your back.”

Bob also gave me the best business advice in a lifetime: start with the answer, and work back from there.

Saatchi & Saatchi has been my permission to misbehave. I’ve spoken in 50+ countries to legions of audiences. Ranging from the CIA to Nike to Coke to Starbucks to P&G, Google, Oxford to Cambridge to Wharton to Stanford…

My purpose is inspired by wanting to win, by wanting the forces of darkness not to win, and by being here to inspire you to win, because we share an attitude that can bring victory to all.

Let’s look at how to become bigger than a brand. It’s not about what you do. It’s how you make people feel and their desire to share that feeling.

The world has a VUCA feeling: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Your purpose job is to make VUCA feel Vibrant, Unreal, Crazy, Astounding.

“Like” is not enough, you have to be loved, a Lovemark. The questions are:

  • Do you want to be respected? Or do you want to be loved and respected?
  • Are you price-focused, or priceless?
  • Are you irreplaceable, or could you be irresistible?

Here are some roads that lead to Lovemarks:

Idea #1: The Unreasonable Power of Creativity  

The unreasonable power of creativity is raw energy, the difference between counterfeit and the real deal.

Edward De Bono says, “It’s no good being brilliant at the wrong thing.” Whatever your brilliant thing, it should burn with insight and unleash ideas.

Revelatory ideas surprise with the obvious.

  • Apple opened retail stores.
  • Toyota Prius gave us a button start ignition.
  • Wrongologist Katheryn Schultz, a pro speaker, is expert on being wrong. Good!
  • To develop a pen that could write in space, NASA spent millions on advanced technology. The Russians used a pencil!

Go to the extreme end of your creative range… and then leap. Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast.

Adidas saw its income climb 130% last year through courage to invest in innovation in a tough market.

Reframe-reframe-reframe. Reframe the entire game if you have to. Ideas are the currency of the future.

Idea #2: Light Fires of Emotion

The world comes in a word, as we discovered with “Lovemarks.” The language of emotion pumps premiums, whether you’re ennobling civil rights or designing car curves. Fiat 500 can charge a 30% premium based on sheer exhilaration.

Think about where you are on the Love/Respect Axis.

lovemarks-axis

  • Low Respect. Low Love. Commodities. America’s airlines to Colonel Gaddafi.
  • High Love. Low Respect. Fads. Charlie Sheen on TV to Mel Meninga on radio.
  • High Respect. Low Love. Bland brand land. Toothpaste aisles to Oscar speeches, death of a thousand cuts.
  • High Love. High Respect. Lovemarks. JFK to Martin Luther King. Who else?

To go beyond a brand, build volcanic heat. Reason leads to conclusion, emotion leads to action.

Idea #3: Get Real ROI 

Brands are dead, and so is marketing your brand. In the always-on Screen Age, word of mouse does that for you.

If your idea is big enough it will course through people’s veins, through their networks, through a multitude of delivery systems from in person through to digital, from live event through to social. As Estée Lauder said: “Telephone, Telegraph, Telewoman.”

ERA OF NEW AGE OF NOW
Attention  Participation
Audience  Interaction
One-to-many  Many-to-one
Return on Investment  Return on Involvement

Brand Obama surged into power not with a Marketing Programme, but through a Movement for Participation – and he may need another one!!

Involvement’s accelerator is sight, sound and motion, how you use screens to connect ideas and emotions into what matters most to people.

We remember 80% of what we see and do, 20% of what we read. Sisomo is not techno. It’s Web-loving, TV-led, throbbing emotional content. Internet, TV, mobile, social are becoming a single platform.

The job is to connect screens at warp speed, building excitement in the moment. Let people touch you instantaneously, whenever, wherever, however.

Three questions matter in your business.

  1. Do I want to see you again?
  2. Do I want to share you?
  3. Do I want to improve you?

Idea #4: Turn Three Keys

The door to great content has three keys: Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy.

Mystery is what’s unknown, unexpected and unbelievable. Apple shrouds new product launches in mystery with rumors, hints and limited editions, then blows your socks off.

Icons, symbols and stories – People are nuts for stories. Boy meets girl, the hero’s journey, the prodigal son, rage against the machine, win the battle… Limited formats exist, but infinite combinations, plays and characters can drive revenue. Danish futurist Rolf Jensen: “The highest-paid person in the first half of this century will be the story-teller.”

Dreams and Inspiration – Martin Luther King did not say I have a vision statement, a theory, or a book!

Leaders need followers. You are inspirers. Your job is to challenge yourself and to coach others to achieve what they thought was beyond them, to take them to another place.

Sensuality is Sight, Sound, Scent, Touch and Taste, the enthrallers of emotions. To stand out, get your act across all five senses. From audio books to tasting menus, be super-sensorial.

In South Africa, we marketed a Graduate School of Business with… tea. For UCT’s “full color platform”, our ‘PossibiliTeas’ have idea boosters for meeting breaks. Nice cup of business!

Intimacy is empathy, commitment and passion, where you become expert connectors. Put yourself in the audience’s heart, (not the audience at your heart). U2 re-invented the concert with 360 by putting themselves at the center of the stadium.

Museums are becoming virtual community centers where we decide what we want to see. Get beyond speaker ads and promos to sharing, joy and fun.

Humor is the shortcut to the heart.

Idea #5: Work with the Es

As we dare to be mighty… 5 Es to let freedom ring:

  • Enthusiasm: Be an irresistible force of nature; reject normality; change it with your dreams.
  • Eureka! The average person has 70,000 thoughts a day. Harvest revelations, ideas, epiphanies.
  • Enraged: Challenge and change the status quo. The world needs the antipodean attitude.
  • Execute: It’s the killer app. Don’t get things done. Make things happen!
  • Empathy: From stage to screen, inspire and connect people. None of us is as strong as all us.

Nothing’s Gonna Stop us Now!

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An address to the Magazine Publishers Association of Australia. The magazine industry is under pressure. There’s no better time to step up to the challenge. Magazines are a fingertip away from a complete sensory experience. To evolve great brands to a higher level, magazines need to get local, distinctive and embrace emotion.

A New World

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An address to the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM) and the International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management (IFSAM) World Congress. The complexity of global management requires a transformation in the local/global relationship. People live in the local and the action is at the edge. To achieve sustained peak performance organizations need inspirational players to create the web of cross-border relationships and a love that knows no bounds.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

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An address to the International Advertising Association. This new millennium demands new values and work on the most important relationship of all – Love. Love transforms a relationship from a valued connection to a passionate commitment. The sensuous sting of anise and the sweetness of rose-water syrup give the International Advertising Association some insights on long-term, emotional connections.

Love is in the Air – Borsen Executive Breakfast

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A speech to the Borsen Executive Breakfast. The over-analysis of customers can fragment your business vision. Companies must make the leap to love. Embracing Love and Peak Performance can arouse a long-term commitment – one based on curiosity, imagination and creativity. The Viking spirit and lasting relationships are scrutinised when Lego goes through the Lovemarker.

Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

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A speech to the International Trademark Association Symposium. Forget Brand-Aid. It’s time for brands to reinvent themselves. Making emotional connections with customers, stepping up to Lovemarks and putting emotion at the centre of relationships. Lovemarks are what great brands must become to retain their value in customer loyalty and premium pricing.

What the World Needs Now

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An address to the Cambridge Alumni in Management / Judge Business School. Cambridge University has centuries of world-changing stories: Newton and Darwin, Wittgenstein and Rutherford, Wordsworth and Sylvia Plath, Erasmus and Monty Python. But how well does it go through the Lovemarker?

After the Flood

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A presentation to the CNN, Fortune and Time Global Marketing Forum. At the old spa town of Fiuggi, they’ve been bottling restorative waters for centuries. An appropriate location, therefore, to talk about revitalizing brands. The speech identifies seven peaks to head for, including: emotional rescue, age of women, the local relationships, peak performance and lovemarks.

Thinking Round Corners

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An address to the Nature Publishing Group, no stranger to intellectual transformation – its flagship publication Nature has been thinking round corners since 1869. This speech looks at why transactions must develop into relationships; technophilia must be diverted into creativity; and the global must be transformed by the influence of the local.

Love Machine

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An address to the 12th Annual Automotive Advertising Strategy Conference. One of the great themes of last century was the love affair with the automobile. If this huge, vitally important industry is to sustain a decades-long romance, it has to realise it is not just “moving metal”. The automotive industry must turn marques into lovemarks.

Dance, Dance, Dance

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An address to the American Magazine Conference 2000. Connecting emotionally with consumers must be the number one job of agency creatives and magazine editors. Whether the headlines are fast cars, hot gossip or hard news – emotion is what keeps readers coming back for more.