THE BIG IDEA: Integrity is the foundation for trust. Trust is the most important characteristic people look for in leaders. It’s also the driving force behind customer loyalty.
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THE BIG IDEA: Seven psychological factors that drive your customers to spread the word about your products and services.
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How do you get your customers talking about your products and services?
You work hard to create amazing experiences for your customers—experiences worth talking about.
Here are seven principles to help you better understand what drives your customers to share the good word:
1 – The Principle of Integrity:
They know that you know that they know.
People know you have an intention and that you know that they know you have an intention. This means they know you are trying to sell them a product. And they know that you know that they know you’re trying to persuade them.
Unless you are very adept at meeting their needs, you’re going to encounter an impenetrable barrier. Don’t think you can deceive them into believing they’re not being coerced into buying a product. People are much better at detecting deception than they are at being the deceiver.
2 – The Principle of Status:
People share what makes them look good.
Both negative and positive information reflect positively on the person conveying the information, as both are useful to decision-making.
Negative information is perhaps more useful because it is perceived as being highly diagnostic. Supplying accurate information benefits the conveyer, as it confers status upon the conveyor. Supplying inaccurate information quickly erodes the reputation of the conveyer.
3 – The Principle of Cool:
Ride in front of the “Cool Wave” or wipe out.
If you see something cool today, you can almost bet it’s on its way out and something else will be cool very soon.
Soon, however, that won’t be cool either. Pogs—the milkcap game that originated in the 1920s—reemerged and was all the rage in the early ‘90s, but has now all but disappeared.
Technological advances in communication shorten the cycles of “cool.” Listen to your customer. In order to be on top, you must know what’s cool before it becomes cool. Just like a wave, if you jump too late, you’re not going to catch it.
4 – The Principle of Groups:
Small groups—the critical few—dictate the large.
Customers can be broken down into two subgroups: the trivial many and the critical few. Avoid focusing on the trivial many and find out who comprises your brand’s critical few. They are the ones who truly influence their subcultures.
The same principle that applies to individuals applies to groups—you need the influence of many small groups to create a movement.
5 – The Principle of Influence:
Everyone is influential—especially on the Internet.
Connectivity changed the landscape of influence. Everyone is able to influence people in some way, on some subject. No one can affect people’s decisions in every category. Those who provide more useful input gain more status, and are more likely to be listened to.
Knowledge is power, especially on the Internet, where normal social cues like body expressions and facial reactions are not in place. As a result, anyone can say what he or she is thinking. Comments are judged by their accuracy and value rather than the person’s background.
6 – The Principle of Meaning:
People talk about what’s meaningful to them.
Listen carefully to the critical few to find out what they care about, and give them something to talk about. If you can find ways to amuse them, surprise them, or give them information that will give them esteem among their peers, they will talk. Everyone else will follow.
7 – The Principle of Surprise:
People love to share what surprised them.
Never underestimate the power of surprise. Let the consumer discover the best thing about you instead of hearing you shout it from the rooftops.
Okay, now go get your customers talking!
THE BIG IDEA: Here are seven benefits for making your best customers the central focus of your organization’s primary directive.
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No matter how big your marketing budget, you can’t market to everyone. The more restricted your budget, the more intelligent your approach needs to be.
Your best customers are your Brand Lovers. Understanding the needs of your Brand Lovers and serving them better than anyone else is critical if you want to outmaneuver the competition and grow your market share.
Here are seven reasons why your Brand Lovers are so important:
- Your Brand Lovers choose you more often than your competitors. To most Mac users, there’s no alternative competitor to choose from.
- Your Brand Lovers spread the word about your brand and create new customers for you. Basically, your best customers are the source of your word-of-mouth stream.
- Your Brand Lovers are by nature loyal customers. Customer loyalty is a better determinant of profitability than mass appeal.
- Focusing on your Brand Lovers gives your organization a singular vision of whom you’re trying to serve. Too many companies chase too many different kinds of customers and dilute their efforts in the process.
- Similarly, serving your best customers can lead to explosive return on investment (ROI). Example: When Apple opened their retail stores they expected to generate $1,000/square foot. They actually generated $4,000/square foot. Ultimately, your Brand Lovers drive the profitability of your business.
- Think about what would happen if you turned just 10% of your occasional customers into Brand Lovers. For large enterprises, this shift can represent a sizeable revenue increase.
- By focusing on your Brand Lovers, you can build a powerful brand that stands for something meaningful to them. This gives you clear differentiation in the marketplace and helps you organically attract more of your most profitable customers.
The bottom line is that serving your best customers is the surest way to grow a strong, profitable business—in any economic climate.
THE BIG IDEA: Executive leaders are faced with a big question: Who should they put first: customers, employees, shareholders, or management? The best answer lies in understanding how each area relates to the other.
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Who comes first in your business?
- Customers
- Employees
- Shareholders
- Management
This is one of those frustrating questions. You can make an argument for each answer:
A. Put Customers First
Customers are the lifeblood of your business. As management thinker Peter Drucker always said, “the purpose of business is to create a customer.”
Many businesses give lip services to the “customers first” idea, but only a few actualize it—L.L. Bean, Costco, Amazon.com, MINI USA, Trader Joe’s, to name a few.
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos says one of their three big ideas that made Amazon successful was: “Put the customer first.” McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc said, “Always put the customer first and success will be yours.”
B. Put Employees First
If you create customers by providing value to them, how do you deliver this value? Through your employees.
Companies like The Container Store, Southwest Airlines, Google, Patagonia, and Zappos are high fliers, in part, because of their “employees first” mantra.
Virgin CEO Richard Branson has a simple formula: happy employees equal happy customers. The converse is also true: unhappy employees create terrible customer experiences and destroy brand equity.
Branson says, “Put your staff first, customers second, and shareholders third.”
Branson’s priorities echo Southwest Airlines’ founder and former CEO Herbert Kelleher: “Take care of your employees and they will take care of the customers.”
C. Put Shareholders First
This has been a popular answer for many publicly-traded companies in the era of shareholder capitalism. Investors often look for businesses that put shareholders first.
Customers, however, don’t care about shareholder value. And this directive doesn’t resonate within organizations either. The goal of “maximizing shareholder value” doesn’t motivate employees or drive high performance.
Interestingly, during a recent workshop on personal finance and consumer behavior, an expert shared a powerful analogy involving the best wallet. The best wallet isn’t the one stuffed with short-term gains or overflowing with cash today; it’s the one that holds tools and resources ensuring financial security for years to come. Similarly, a company’s focus should extend beyond quarterly profits, prioritizing strategies that ensure long-term sustainability and value for all stakeholders. This shift in mindset could motivate employees and foster a sense of shared purpose, ultimately driving high performance across the board.
D. Put Management First
There’s two ways to look at this answer. First, it can be used by selfish, self-interested executives driven by greed and personal gain.
Or, second, it can be based on a profound, but often neglected truth: you can’t effectively serve others if you don’t first invest in yourself.
As PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi explains, “If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you … I cannot just expect the organization to improve if I don’t improve myself and lift the organization.”
Where’s Option E—All of the Above?
The reality of modern business is that you can’t afford to focus on one of these area at the expense of the others.
These four areas form a symbiotic relationship: the role of management is to take care of its employees. Employees serve customers. Customers increase shareholder value, which in turn, elevates management. And the upward spiral continues.
Based on the internal strengths of your enterprise, you may have an emphasis on one of these four categories, but leaders looking to compete in a fast-changing marketplace will consciously drive growth in all of them. Doing so will strengthen your business and increase your chances of long-term market success.
THE BIG IDEA: Archetypes are a powerful and underused tool business leaders can leverage to gain market dominance, improve customer loyalty, and build stronger organizations.
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Archetypes are the secret weapon of an elite group of businesses.
Archetypes operate silently, below the surface, completely out of view of our awareness—until we shine a light on them and begin working with them in conscious and productive ways.
Here are three powerful ways business leaders can use archetypes to grow their business:
#1: Deploy Effective Advertising
Archetypes can be used by savvy business leaders, marketers, brand builders, and advertisers to associate their brands to specific archetypal images that reside in their customer’s mind.
This is unquestionably a powerful use of archetypes that every business looking for a competitive edge should employ.
The use of archetypes generally stops here, but the value of archetypes goes much deeper.
Archetypes have two additional fundamental uses that are more relevant to chief executives than any other leadership role.
#2: Uncover Penetrating Consumer Insights
Archetypes can be used to better understand your customers at a significantly deeper level.
When you know the archetypes that your customers associate to your brand, you can explore the nature of these archetypes through a process psychologists call amplification.
An archetype is amplified through mythological stories, fairy tales, and other associations to bring to life the emotions, drives, aspirations, and tensions your customers are experiencing (on a largely unconscious level).
Let’s say you figure out that one of your business’s archetypes is the Caregiver. When you think of a caregiver, what qualities come to mind? Perhaps altruism, patience, empathy, and compassion.
Which characters personify the caregiver in films? Mary Poppins. Mrs. Doubtfire. What additional qualities or attributes do these characters exhibit?
This process of amplification can provide a depth of customer insights that transcends any form of big data.
These insights can highlight specific actions you can take to move your business closer to the hearts and minds of your customers.
#3: Build a Thriving Corporate Culture
Finally, when you discover your business’s archetypes, you can use them as a homing beacon to attract a certain type of talented employee that resonates with your ethos (the characteristic spirit of your culture).
Archetypes within an organization are most often expressed in a set of core values. These core values establish set patterns of behavior by triggering archetypal images in the employee’s psyche.
Companies with thriving corporate culture like Southwest Airlines, Zappos, Amazon.com, Google, The Container Store, and Netflix have all aligned themselves with specific groups of archetypes that bring core values to life.
When this strategy is used consciously, the effects are usually extraordinary. Arguably, this is the most profound and underutilized application of archetypes in modern management.
Contents
- VW Beetle Quick Stats
- VW Beetle Profile Summary
- Images of VW Beetle Brand Lovers
- VW Beetle Timeline
- Videos created by VW Beetle Brand Lover
- Presentations about VW Beetle as a Brand
- Articles related to VW Beetle
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 | We have tracked businesses with unprecedented brand loyalty since 2001. A Certified Cult Brand is a designation we hold for brands that fulfill specific market criteria, including upholding the Seven Rules of Cult Brands. | |||
VW Beetle Quick Stats
Dr. Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951) was the creator of the bettle
With over 21 million manufactured, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured automobile of a single design platform anywhere in the world.
Henry Ford considers buying VW, but then declined; 24 years later, Beetle would out-sell Ford Model T.
With its sealed floor pans and body, the Beetle could indeed stay afloat for several minutes, as was advertised in the Sixties.
The VW Beetle Herbie has starred in six movies.
VW Beetle Cult Brand Summary
Today the Beetle is regarded as arguably the best-selling car of all time, but back in 1948 it was unknown in the U.S., and many sales types believed no one would ever buy, partly because of its association with Nazi Germany–being dubbed “the people’s car” by Adolph Hitler–still fresh in the public’s mind.
Despite initial failures at introducing the Beetle into America, Volkswagen remained undeterred. They brought twenty Beetles to the U.S. to a private showing in New York City and then to the First U.S. International Trade Fair in Chicago. It wasn’t an overnight success, but it started to get attention from the press and generated word-of-mouth buzz.
Given the opportunity to actually see and drive a Beetle, a significant chunk of the American public soon found themselves in love with the reliable and affordable little, German car. Virtually everything about the Beetle’s design screamed it was a car like no other: its air-cooled engine was mounted in the back, not the front, like every other domestic gas guzzler of the period, a configuration that made it more adept than any U.S.-made car of the time for safe driving in rain, sleet, and snow; it’s exterior design was unique, with its egg-shaped body standing in sharp contrast to the large and sleek, chrome-covered domestic behemoths of the period. The Beetle’s appearance oozed a curious combination of personality and practicality, which quickly helped build strong affection for it among its owners.
In addition to developing a unique design (the look), Volkswagen focused on developing a unique marketing message (the say and the feel) for the Beetle. In contrast to the advertising of the Detroit automakers of the 1950s and 1960s, which was full of slick copy and boastful claims, Volkswagen’s ads for the Beetle were frank, direct, and honest. Some of the more memorable early print ads included “Think small,” “Some shapes are hard to improve on,” and the cult-branding clincher, “Do you earn too much to afford one?”
The combination of unique design elements and honest advertising became a killer combination. By the early 1960s, the Beetle became a magnet for legions of Americans who saw themselves as being different. As Bug Talesauthor Paul Klebahn summed up: “The Beetle tended to appeal to freethinkers. This was the thinking person’s car. Instead of saying, look how much I paid for my car, it was look how much I didn’t pay!”
When Volkswagen launched the New Beetle in 1998, they made a conscious decision not to show any drivers in its ads. They wanted their funky-shaped and lovable car to be the center of attention, not an actor or actress. “In the New Beetle’s initial advertising, we never included people in the ads because we didn’t want a person to say, ‘Oh, that’s who drives a Beetle,'” explained Steve Keys, Director of Corporate Communications. “We wanted you to be able to say, ‘I can see myself in that car.'”
It was a good move: everyone from teenagers buying their first car to aging baby boomers hoping to recapture their youth purchased the car. Volkswagen benefited from not shrinking its potential audience of buyers: No one had trouble seeing themselves behind the wheel of a New Beetle.
VW Beetle Timeline
Timeline provided by: http://www.cqql.net/vw.htm
1933 – Dr. Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951) draws first sketches of a simple little car that even the most common of citizens could own and enjoy on the autobahns.
1934 – Adolf Hitler commissions Porsche to develop the KdF-Wagen (“Kraft durch Freude” or “Strength through joy”), forerunner of what we know today as the Beetle.
1936 – At Berlin Auto Show, Hitler announces that Porsche will design “the People’s Car;” Porsche promises Hitler he will produce three prototypes by year’s end.
1937 – First road test on prototypes
1938 – Thirty prototypes (called Series 30) completed
1939 – May 28: Ceremony commemorates laying of cornerstone of VW factory at Wolfsburg (would later become largest auto factory under one roof)
1940 – KdF-Wagen appears at Berlin Auto Show. Germany goes to war.
1942 – German army vehicles Kubelwagens built; German amphibious army vehicles Schwimmwagens built
1944 – Allied bombs destroy more than 2/3 of Wolfsburg factory
1945 – May: World War II ends. British forces take control of Wolfsburg area. Porsche interrogated by Allied Forces for his alleged connections to Nazis. Porsche is cleared, but then imprisoned in France with son Ferry for two years.
1946 – 1,785 cars constructed, mostly by hand; used as army light transport
1947 – Wolfsburg produces 19,000 cars; exported to Holland. Two hand-made convertibles constructed.
1948 – 20,000th Beetle produced. Beetle modified into convertible.Henry Ford considers buying VW, but then declines; 24 years later, Beetle would out-sell Ford Model T.
1949 – January 17: First Beetle bought in USA by Ben Pon. Max Hoffman becomes first importer.
1950 – 100,000th Beetle produced. 1,000 convertibles produced. Porsche celebrates 75th birthday; finally visits Wolfsburg plant; cries when he sees Beetles on Autobahn… his dream becomes reality.
1951 – January 10: Ferdinand Porsche dies.
1952 – First official gathering of Beetle owners. Canada imports its first Beetle.
1955 – April: VW of America formed. 1,000,000th Beetle produced.
1953 – 500,000th Beetle produced. VW plant opens in Sao Paulo, Brasil.
1957 – 2,000,000th Beetle produced
1959 – 3,000,000th Beetle produced
1960 – 4,000,000th Beetle produced
1961 – 5,000,000th Beetle produced
1962 – VW of America headquarters at Englewood Cliffs, NJ, dedicated. 6,000,000th Beetle produced.
1963 – 7,000,000th Beetle produced
1964 – 8,000,000th and 9,000,000th Beetles produced
1965 – 10,000,000th Beetles produced
1966 – 11,000,000th and 12,000,000th Beetles produced
1970 – Last year convertible Beetle in standard format is available (only convertible Beetles in Super Beetle format are available). Super Beetle produced.
1972 – February 12: 15,007,034th Beetle rolls off assembly line,breaks Ford Model T record for total production.
1974 – June: 11,916,519th Beetle produced at Wolfsburg rolls off assembly line, signaling the end of Beetle production at Wolfsburg plant.
1975 – Last year for Super Beetle production
1977 – Last year for standard Beetle in USA; only Super Beetle convertibles remain.
1978 – At Emden VW plant in Germany, last official German-built Beetle rolls off assembly line
1981 – 20,000,000th Beetle produced (in Puebla, Mexico)
1998 – Production model of New Beetle unveiled at Detroit International Auto Show
1999 – New Beetle turbo available to US dealerships
2003 – July 30: Last Beetle (21,529,464th!) rolls off assembly line (in Puebla, Mexico)
2012 – New VW Beetle design is unveiled at the New York Auto Show.
Images of VW Beetle Brand Lovers
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Videos Created By VW Beetle Brand Lover
Presentations About VW Beetle As a Brand
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Archetypal Branding: Cult Branding 2.0 View more presentations from Cult Branding
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View more presentations from Cult Branding
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2010 Volkswagen Beetle Virginia Beach View more presentations from Checkered Flag VW
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View more presentations from Cult Branding
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Article related to VW Beetle
Buggin’ Out: A collection of VW Owners Gather to Share Their Love
VW Beetle Related Web Sites
http://twitter.com/#!/VWbeetles
http://www.theclassicbeetle.com/
Facebook VW Beetle Fan Page
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=60380013950
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THE BIG IDEA: Today’s article asks executive leaders to take a step back and evaluate their business with some big questions that underlie the foundation of their enterprise.
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If you were asked by someone to define your business, how would you answer?
- Would you explain what services you provide?
- What products you manufacture or sell?
- What makes you different from your competitors?
Management guru Peter Drucker suggests that there is only one true way to define a business: by the want the customer satisfies when she buys a product or a service from you.
Satisfying the customer’s want is the purpose of every business.
What Business Are You In?
How, then, do you answer the question: “What is our business?”
You look at your business from the outside; you take the customer’s and the market’s viewpoint.
Drucker explains: “What the customer sees, thinks, believes, and wants, at any given time, must be accepted by management as an objective fact and must be taken as seriously as the reports of the salesperson, the tests of the engineer, or the figures of the accountant.
“And management,” Drucker continues, “must make a conscious effort to get answers from the customer herself rather than attempt to read her mind.”
Drucker wrote this in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practice, originally published in 1973. Over four decades later, his words are just as relevant—and just as often ignored.
How to Define Your Business
To more precisely define your business, Drucker offers two powerful questions:
- Who is the customer?
- What is value to the customer?
The first question is a master work in itself. How deep you go in defining your customer is an indication of your commitment to serving your customers. Last month, we offered seven customers insights we feel every CEO should investigate.
The second question is very important too. Most business leaders may be certain they know the answer, but, Drucker points out, they are almost always incorrect.
Why? Because business executives tend to define value based on what they perceive as value.
What Do Your Customers Value?
“The customer never buys a product,” Drucker writes. “By definition the customer buys the satisfaction of a want. He buys value.”
For a teenage boy who buys a pair of Vans shoes, that value might be identification with a subculture.
For a 35-year-old mother shopping at Target, that value might be fashion and convenience.
For a 55-year-old executive ordering on Zappos, that value might be breadth of selection.
Different customers value different things. Drucker points out that the question of value is so complicated that management shouldn’t even try to guess the answer.
You have to go directly to your customers.
THE BIG IDEA: The study of Cult Brands reveals a wealth of information about human behavior and the mechanisms behind effective social marketing. Today’s article is a launchpad for chief executives interested in expanding their understanding of this discipline.
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Do you sell products or experiences?
Do you focus exclusively on profits or inclusively as a community?
Do you try to copy your competitors or demonstrate courage and dare to be different?
These are some of the questions that assess if your company is moving closer to your customers or further away.
The topic of social marketing is important to chief executives because it puts a magnifying glass on the companies that most excel at moving toward their customers. This specialized study brings meaning to concepts like “customer loyalty” and “brand loyalty.”
Some of the most successful social marketers are Cult Brands because they draw from the power of humanity. If you’re new to this topic or interested in deepening your knowledge, here are a selection of past articles that will give you the competitive edge:
Social Marketing Fundamentals
A host of defining principles enable businesses to tap into the social and psychological lives of their customers:
A closer look at what Cult Brands are (and what they are not).
All Cult Brands knowingly or unconsciously adhere to these seven powerful principles.
Explores five psychological reasons people join groups and seven steps to creating a cult, tribe, movement—whatever you’d like to call it.
Why Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is Crucial for your Business
Psychologist Abraham Maslow has greatly influenced our understanding of Cult Brands. His categories of human needs help explain both consumer motivation and organizational behavior. Psychologist Clayton Alderfer’s adjustments to Maslow’s theory of motivation are insightful too.
What Social Marketers Do Differently
Customer-centric businesses harness the social forces of their customers in specific ways:
A Big Mistake Most Retailers Make
Cult Brands sell experiences and lifestyles, not products.
How Cult Brands Tap into Higher Values
Cult Brands go beyond just helping customers meet basic human needs to helping them realize higher level needs as well.
How to Draw Power From Your Enemies
Cult Brands sell freedom.
How Cult Brands Create Loyal Customers
Cult Brands give their customers a sense of belonging and more positive self-esteem.
How Cult Brands Create Magical Experiences for Customers
Many Cult Brands set up the conditions for “participation mystique” that enables customers to express a deeper part of themselves and forge strong bonds with each other.
A Masters Degree in Human Nature
In the final analysis, the study of Cult Brands is a study of human beings: their needs, tensions, desires, dreams, motivations, and values.
Reading the above articles won’t win you any business degrees, but it will profoundly alter how you perceive your customers.
It may even alter your organization’s approach to serving your fellow human beings who graciously give you their business (thereby fueling your business).
When this relationship between company and customers is fostered consciously, it forms a symbiotic exchange of value. Both company and customer are elevated. Everyone wins.
Onward!
THE BIG IDEA: Leaders throughout history have used symbols and metaphors to move people to action. This article explores the significance of symbolic imagery and how it can be applied in business for effective communication.
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With wings spanning over six feet long, the eagle soars over the trees. Its powerful, flapping wings sound like the mighty wind. Its strong feet and curved talons comfortably grasp prey twice its size. Landing gracefully, it remains perched at the summit in all its majesty and glory.
The eagle—the king of birds—is a symbol of strength, vitality, power, and omniscience. Its greatness has inspired comparison to the sun, earthly rulers, and imperial nations.
The eagle appears on the United States Presidential Seal as a symbol of power. This eagle holds an olive branch in one talon to symbolize peace and 13 arrows (for the original 13 colonies) in the other, representing the willingness to defend the country.
Symbols and their Meaning
We question things. Our inquiring mind is the distinguishing feature that separates Homo sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom.
We question our existence. Why are we here? What happens after death? What is the meaning behind the phenomena around us?
Through our questioning, we have developed systems of belief. At the core of these belief systems are symbols.
A symbol is a visual image that represents an idea. Water, for example, symbolizes the moon, the feminine life-force, and the unconscious. Fire symbolizes the sun and the masculine life-force that surrounds us.
Every image—everything you can see with your eyes and in your mind’s eye—has symbolic counterparts.
When you see a ladder, your conscious mind sees a tool for climbing to higher places. Symbolically, the image of a ladder serves as a reminder of a psychological climb toward self-awareness or a spiritual climb to a higher truth.
Most of us are not conscious of symbolic meaning. We see a ladder as a ladder. But that symbolic meaning lies deep in our minds, at subconscious and unconscious levels.
The caduceus is the symbol of the medical profession. The center is the mythical wand of the Greek god Hermes who used it to bestow sleep. The twin snakes coiled around the wand symbolize healing and poison, health and illness.
The five Olympic rings symbolize the union in sports of Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. The colors represent competing nations. (One color was on each nation’s flag when the rings were conceived in 1913.)
Symbols in Modern Business
Brand logos is not a new phenomenon. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese all stamped their goods, like bricks, pottery, and bags of herbs, with symbols to indicate who made them.
But in the 19th Century, trademarks became more than marks of origin, they became badges and symbols, representing the personality of the brand.
Southwest Airlines flies its passengers with a big red heart at the belly of their planes. The heart is a symbol of the spiritual and emotional core of a human being, widely associated with love. (Not surprisingly, love is one of Southwest’s superpowers. It’s also their ticker symbol: LUV.)
A few months ago, we discussed the symbolic significance of Apple’s logo. The apple is a symbol of knowledge, awakening, creativity, and beauty.
The three-pointed star in the Mercedes-Benz logo reportedly came from inventor Gottlieb Daimler’s dream of building motor vehicles for land, air, and sea.
But the star itself is an ancient symbol. For thousands of years, stars have oriented humans wandering in the darkness. The star represents something inside of us that is visionary, starlike. It is a symbol of the Self—a higher part of us—of wisdom, guidance, and destiny. Mercedes owners are guided by this symbol whenever they get behind the wheel.
Symbolic Images and Feelings
These symbolic images of our collective nature are found throughout the world, in our myths, dreams, and fantasies. Polymath Adolf Bastian called them elementary ideas. Jung called them archetypes.
For Jung, archetypes aren’t just elementary ideas. They also represent elementary feelings, fantasies, and visions.
Archetypes are simultaneously images and emotions. An image becomes dynamic when it is charged with emotion. Without emotion, the image cannot speak to us.
Symbolic images act as doorways to the inner worlds of both your employees and your customers. This inner world is the home of our fantasies, imagination, and emotions. They are the source of life’s richness. Without emotions, life is, well, lifeless.
Archetypes, Jung explains, “are the pieces of life itself—images that are integrally connected to the living individual by the bridge of the emotions.”
Images tap into the emotions of our inner worlds and give life a sense of meaning. Symbolic images are powerful because they provide this shortcut to meaning.
How Inspired Leaders Use Symbols to Move People
Remember that human beings—both your employees and your customers—are not moved, persuaded, or influenced by thoughts and words. We are moved by feelings, emotions, and images.
Inspired leaders communicate with passion, purpose, and vision. They use metaphors, analogies, illustrations, stories, and anecdotes to convey their ideas. Metaphors, in fact, are how archetypes first express themselves.
A metaphor, if you recall, is a figure of speech that uses an object or idea to represent a specific meaning that is otherwise difficult to convey. A metaphor suggests a resemblance; it uses a symbol to transfer meaning from one idea to another.
A study on presidential leadership and charisma examined the use of metaphors in the first-term inaugural addresses of 36 presidents. Each president was independently rated on their level of charisma. The researchers found that charismatic presidents used nearly twice as many metaphors as non-charismatic presidents.
Metaphors intrigue cognitive scientists because they are so effective at changing the way people think and behave. Metaphors allow large amounts of information to be assimilated, retained, recalled, and applied quickly.
Lincoln and the Power of Metaphor
Aristotle writes in Poetics, “To be a master of metaphor is a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.”
Abraham Lincoln used the persuasive power of metaphor and symbols liberally in his speeches. His Gettysburg Address is a 270-word testament to his mastery of metaphor.
For persuasive impact, Lincoln used metaphors of birth, death, and resurrection in his address. It begins, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
In this powerful opening sentence, Lincoln calls forth imagery of birth in four places (italicized above).
Harnessing the Power of Symbolic Imagery
The right symbolic image or metaphor can evoke a powerful sensory experience in your team members, igniting a desired pattern of behavior. They can help establish a thriving corporate culture, infusing passion into your organization.
The right symbolic images can also become powerful attractors for a certain breed of customers: your Brand Lovers for whom your business is especially for.
Business leaders that harness the power of symbolic images can forge ahead with clarity, humility, creativity, and inspiration.