161: You Make The Brand Not The Other Way

<p>My eyes are slowly closing.  I am sitting in the front row but I am struggling to stay awake.  There is something about this presentation that is not working.  I thought, it must be me.   I must be tired.  Later however I realized the problem.  I was being lulled into sleep by the monotone delivery of the presenter.  Now there was no excuse for this, because the language was English.  We know that Japanese is a monotone language, so you can sort of understand that this is going to lull you to sleep, unless the presenter is on their game.</p> <p> </p> <p>The brand by the way is spectacularly gorgeous.  This is seriously high profile, a name that everyone knows and respects.  The name alone triggers images that are all first class.  The slides and videos he presented were all high quality and professional.  These people have money and they know everything about marketing very high end products.  They have been doing it for a very long time too and they do it globally.</p> <p> </p> <p>Our speaker had all of this powerful support going for him, yet the actual presentation was coma inducing.  Why was that?  The brand is a passion brand, but there was no speaker passion.  The brand is a great story, but the storytelling was bad.  The delivery was wooden.  Measured, calm, considered but wooden.  The person delivering it comes from a country, language and culture that is flamboyant, exuberant, intense, bombastic, enthusiastic, passionate. He showed none of these traits.</p> <p> </p> <p>Fortunately for the firm, despite his lifeless delivery, the brand is so powerful it can survive his attempts to murder it.  But what a wasted opportunity.  It is not as if this brand doesn’t have sexy competitors.  There are many and they are also appealing to high status, rich, exclusive, well healed clients.  He needed to stand out amongst a very intensely contested field, infecting that audience that evening with his passion and belief in the brand.  He is their guy in Japan, so that is his job, every time, everywhere.</p> <p> </p>