What’s your favourite brand?

What’s your favourite brand?
“Apple”
“Nike”
“Coca-Cola”

…Yawn.

If you ask someone what their favourite brand is, you’ll very likely get responses like the ones above. While these are undoubtedly great brands, they’re also sensationally boring answers. They’re also more likely to be answers to another question that has less to do with brand and more to do with creative and budgets.

So here are some more interesting answers…

Chaquita bananas. Because there’s no better demonstration of what a brand is, than adding value to the commodity version of something. 

Fender guitars. A very good product, but certainly not the best. Yet it’s insatiably desired by many guitarists for its ability to signal.

Maille dijon mustard. A masterclass in distinctive asset consistency. You probably have some in your fridge or cupboard and when you bought it, you likely reached for it with zero brain processing power. A pure system 1 purchase.

Guinness, Slack, The New York Yankees, Bodyform, HBO, Marmite…these are more interesting answers that say something about understanding segmentation, audiences, positioning, architecture and codes.

Let’s all commit to stop saying “Apple / Nike / Coca-Cola” when answering this fun question (and not accepting them as answers anymore).