Buyology - Martin Lindstrom [50]
Symbols like these can have an extremely powerful impact on why we buy. Think about Jimmy Buffett, the singer-songwriter who, in a woefully depressed music industry, is one of the few entertainers to consistently sell out his concerts year after year—in minutes, too, thanks to his millions of fans (who cheerfully refer to themselves as Parrotheads). It makes no difference that Jimmy Buffett and his band haven’t had a hit record in years—fans still flock to his concerts. So what is this sixty-one-year-old tycoon selling, exactly? In a world where overworked people are handcuffed to computer screens and PDAs even when they’re on vacation, Buffett and his best-known song “Margaritaville” have created a following that’s founded on a handful of highly appealing symbols—sunshine, the ocean, relaxation, spring break, and rum drinks adorned with vivid little umbrellas. These symbols remind us that no matter how hectic our lives, we can all still let go, indulge our fantasies, and enjoy ourselves. It is a brand that Buffett has expanded with a chain of Margaritaville restaurants, books, and a successful satellite radio show.
Mystery, too, is a powerful force in religion. In religion, the unknown can be as powerful as the known—think of how many years scholars have spent pondering the mysteries of the Bible, or the ancient Shroud of Turin, or the Holy Chalice. When it comes to brands, mystery can be just as effective in attracting our attention. Coca-Cola, for example, draws on a sense of mystery with its secret formula—a mysterious yet distinctive recipe of fruit, oils, and spices that the company keeps in a safe-deposit box inside an Atlanta bank. The formula is so mysterious, in fact, that many schemes to obtain it have been attempted. In June 2005, an undercover agent pretending to be a high-ranking Pepsico representative met up with a man calling himself “Dirk” at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. “Dirk” was bearing an envelope containing Coca-Cola documents labeled “Classified: Confidential—Highly Restricted,” as well as a sample of a new product that hadn’t yet been released, and selling these secrets for a cool $1.5 million (tipped off by Pepsi, “Dirk” was later apprehended).
Another story goes that when Unilever was getting ready to launch a shampoo in Asia, a mischievous employee with time on his hands wrote on the label, just for the hell of it, Contains the X9 Factor. This last-minute addition went undetected by Unilever, and soon millions and millions of bottles of the shampoo were shipped to stores with those four words inscribed on the label. It would have cost too much to recall all the shampoo, so Unilever simply let it be. Six months later, when the shampoo had sold out, the company reprinted the label, this time leaving out the reference to the nonexistent “X9 Factor.” To their surprise, they soon received a slew of outraged mail from their customers. None of the customers had any idea what the X9 Factor was, but were indignant that Unilever had dared to get rid of it. In fact, many people claimed that their shampoo wasn’t working anymore, and that their hair had lost its luster, all because the company had dropped the elusive X9 Factor. It just goes to show that the more mystery and intrigue a brand can cultivate, the more likely it will appeal to us. Ever owned a Sony Trinitron? What the heck is a Trinitron, anyway? I’m supposedly the brand expert here, and I haven’t the foggiest idea. I once asked a Sony executive what a Trinitron did exactly, and the response he gave me was so overinvolved that forty-five minutes later, I’d filtered out only a few scraps of it. Point is, whatever a Trinitron is, or does, it’s still a mystery to me—but I want one more than ever.
In the past few years, there’s even been a trend within the global cosmetics industry