Martin Lindstrom on branding Philippines, Steve Jobs & Obama

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. — Mark Twain

An audience of over 500 corporate bigwigs and marketing professionals led by National Book Store founder Socorro C. Ramos’s daughter Cecilia Ramos-Licauco, beauty tycoon Dr. Vicki Belo with daughter Cristalle Belo Henares, and Hayden Kho, Philippine STAR columnists Tim Yap and Francis Kong, top trainers and speakers Anthony Pangilinan and Josiah Go, and many others were impressed by world-famous author and marketing guru Martin Lindstrom during his educational and fun symposium at SMX Convention Center on Sept. 8.

Congratulations to Philippine STAR, led by president Miguel G. Belmonte as well as executive vice president for advertising Lucien Dy Tioco, corporate communications manager Jay Sarmiento, Val Andrade, and others for organizing the successful seminar in cooperation with National Book Store, Globe Telecom, Megaworld, Toyota, SM Supermalls, Canon, Body Shop, and SMX.

Dr. Belo said, “I learned so much from Martin Lindstrom. Fear and guilt are some factors that drive many Filipino women to buy stuff. I’m so excited to have attended a talk by my idol Martin Lindstrom. He wrote the book Buyology, which is so mind-blowing.”

Cristalle said, “Lindstrom is impressive. He talked about his research on neuro-marketing with 2,000 volunteers in six countries.”

Just before the start of the symposium where he was the front act, top motivational speaker Francis Kong invited me for coffee and said: “I’m excited to share the speaker’s platform with the world-famous Martin Lindstrom. What a blessing it is for me. He is one of the world’s new generation marketing gurus. He is not theory-based, but science-based. I have been in the speaking business for 18 years and I’m very critical, but Martin Lindstrom is a dynamic speaker. I had attended his talks twice, five years ago in Singapore and October at Radio Music Hall in New York City.”

SLindstrom: “Certain brands, like cosmetics, put addictive things into their products.”

Dy Tioco said, “We at the Philippine STAR believe in bringing only the best and the brightest of today’s thinkers who can inspire, influence and move us all towards progress. It is with great excitement that we brought Martin Lindstrom to Manila. His relevance and expertise earned him a place as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People — a true revolutionary whose groundbreaking work on neuroscience and branding has completely changed the way we perceive and understand the very fundamentals of branding and buying.”

Here are excerpts from our exclusive interview with the Denmark-born marketing genius, top public speaker and best-selling author of five books, Martin Lindstrom:

Philippine STAR: You’re a New York Times best-selling author of five books. Any new titles you’re working on now?

MARTIN LINDSTROM: Yes. I’m launching my new book Brainwashed on Sept. 20. It is based on the biggest experiment of its kind in the world, costing us US$3 million, with a fake house, 35 hidden cameras monitoring one family and how this family can spread word of mouth about products and brands to their new neighbors, friends, family members, colleagues and others. This experiment is partly based on the idea of how we as consumers can be manipulated to make buying decisions we don’t know about. We’ve also studied how royal families are building themselves as brands.

This is similar to the 2009 Hollywood film Keeping Up With the Joneses starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny? What have you discovered?

We’ve discovered that certain brands, like cosmetics, put addictive things into their products. We also discovered that word of mouth we receive from best friends is very effective. We also studied how celebrities and even sex in advertising affect our behaviors. We used brain scans for this experiment.

Any favorite brands in the Philippines? Why?

I think my favorite is Jollibee, but I think it’s so sad to see that they’re not so present outside the Philippines. They can become one of Asia’s biggest fast-food brands if they have more courage to bring their brand outside. Another brand I admire in the Philippines and has been successful here for the past 100 years, though it’s not actually Filipino, is Nescafé. I’m a big fan of that brand. They understand the Filipino consumers very well.

How about Asia’s oldest beer San Miguel as a brand?

Yes, San Miguel is a good brand, but not many people know it’s from the Philippines.

How do you assess the Philippines as a brand?

First of all, it is a schizophrenic brand.

What do you mean?

The Philippines as a brand has unfortunately not been well promoted globally, so most of the world still associates this beautiful country with media reports about political conflicts, typhoons, violence. Why is it the rest of the world rarely hears good news or positive stories about the Philippines? Unlike New Zealand or Switzerland, there seems to be more negative stories coming out about the Philippines.

What can the government or even other sectors do to change that image?

Change strategies. Promote more positive stories about the Philippines. Don’t forget that most of us only remember dramatic things, like if you mention the Philippines as a brand, many people remember the late President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda with 3,000 shoes because that was dramatic or what I’d call a somatic marker. You have to do something really, really dramatic in a positive way to rebuild Philippines as a brand.

Have you given advice to other countries on rebuilding their brands before?

I’ve been involved with Colombia, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland and Denmark. Colombia used to be associated a lot with illegal drugs, kidnappings and lots of other bad stories. Many of those came out in Hollywood films, like that movie with actor Harrison Ford running through the streets of Bogota City, when that was actually filmed in Hollywood! I’ve advised them to work better with Hollywood, to lessen the misrepresentations. If I were a leader of the Philippines, that’s what I’d do.

Any Asian countries or brands that we can learn from?

I think the Maldives are doing pretty well, they have a nice and consistent brand image. Singapore is also doing very well. Among brands, Japan’s Hello Kitty is very successful. There’s also Singapore Airlines, Banyan Tree resort and also the Aman chain of resorts.

Steve Jobs of Apple just retired. How do you assess his legendary brand-building?

Steve Jobs, he had been involved in religion, studied Buddhism, and others before going into business. A lot of his business or marketing ideas are religious-inspired. We have scientifically scanned the brains of Apple users, and we’ve discovered that consumers look at Apple like a religion.

How can a brand be like Apple or similar to, as you say, a religion?

There are 10 elements in most religions, and which we found also in Apple: a sense of belonging, evangelism, rituals, storytelling, mystery, having a clear vision, power from the enemy, icons, appealing to the senses, elements of grandeur (or to think big). In the case of Steve Jobs, he was not in the business of selling personal computers, he was selling a vision based on dreams. His enemy was big bad Microsoft. Is there a better storyteller than Steve Jobs?

Do you believe Steve Jobs copied those 10 elements deliberately from religion?

Absolutely, and deliberately.

How do you assess US President Barack Obama as a brand?

Obama, he’s a fading brand. Unfortunately, the problem is the expectations of the American public are just too high. It’s very hard to turn around an economy in crisis, but everyone nowadays wants instant gratification — that’s the nature of the stock market, of smart phones. The ability to turn around a bad economy in just two to three years, that’s almost impossible. My sense is, Obama and his people had before built up public expectations of what he can do just too high, but if they had not done that before, Obama might not have won the presidential election.

What about the various Republican party challengers like Texas Governor Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and even the still-undecided Sarah Palin?

I think in terms of branding, there’s no doubt that Sarah Palin is a well-known brand, but I think she has no solid backing from the Republican Party, so she might not win the nomination. Donald Trump was a candidate for a while, his brand has a very high awareness, but he fell out in the first round. So even if Obama, the fading brand, may not be the No.1 favorite of most Americans, I think there’s a good chance he will win reelection.

From politics, let’s move on to sex. I read that you once said that sex sells, but that it doesn’t always work in advertising?

Yes, sex won’t work in marketing campaigns if taken out of context, like if we use sex to sell vacuum cleaners or fast foods. If used wrongly, our brains will just remember the sex or the sexy images, but not the product you are selling or marketing.  I have done a lot of studies on the true role of sex in marketing.

What about corporate social responsibility used by some to enhance certain brands?

CSR works for certain companies or businesses, like it did good certainly for Microsoft and Bill Gates, because people feel that Microsoft is less greedy. However, I don’t see a lot of positive effects on brand-building from CSR in general; consumers will not buy more of your lipstick brand because your company or owners are helping the poor in Africa. In the old days, CSR was effective, but not now. In general, people are skeptics and also too many companies and people are doing it.

How do you assess the brand of our President Noynoy C. Aquino, who won an election landslide last year as an anti-corruption crusader?

Sorry, he is not yet famous globally. Let me put it this way: he’s unknown.

Who among past Philippine leaders do you and the world know?

President Marcos, we know that his wife Imelda had so many shoes.

Apart from negative stories, what other things can you associate the Philippines with?

There’s a need to build up awareness. If you ask the average consumer or person worldwide, they’d still think of the Philippines a little bit in terms of exotic beaches, the strong religion, the friendly people, lots of crimes, nasty politics, natural disasters, and call centers.

Any suggestions on what brand image to promote?

I think your President and leaders need to decide what brand image of the Philippines to promote globally, then present this to the media, in Hollywood movies, TV shows, etc. I think the people of this country are passionate. I see that in general. There are also tons of Filipino workers in the Middle East and other countries who are a good, solid work force, and for many people of the world, the overseas Filipino workers are their only and often sporadic contact with the Philippines.

How many times have you been to the Philippines before?

Fifteen times. I first came here 16 years ago to Cebu for a vacation. I was then very affected due to your scary international image, but after a couple of visits here, I’ve changed my view.  Yes, you do have crimes, but I’ve been to Nigeria, Mexico and other places with worse crimes than here. Venezuela also has much higher crime rate than the Philippines, but you have to work harder to change your reputation. I actually love visiting the Philippines.

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