Contents

CHAPTER ONE: START ME UP CHAPTER NINE: THE HUMAN TOUCH

Here’s what I learned from five great businesses I’ve worked The five senses–sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste–make
for: • Always surround yourself with Inspirational Players Lovemarks real in the world. Leading sensualists show
• Zig when others zag • Get out of the office and into the how they move us. INSIGHTS: Dan Storper, Putumayo
street • Live on the edge • Nothing is impossible. World Music; Masao Inoue, Toyota; Alan Webber,
Fast Company magazine
CHAPTER TWO: TIME CHANGES EVERYTHING
The journey from products to trademarks, from trademarks CHAPTER TEN: CLOSE TO YOU
to brands. A quick look at why brands are running out Intimacy is the challenge of our time. Intimacy demands
of juice as they confront the Attention Economy. time and genuine feeling, both in very short supply. See
how businesses deep into intimacy can create empathy,
CHAPTER THREE: EMOTIONAL RESCUE commitment, and passion. INSIGHTS: Sean Fitzpatrick,
Why I believe emotional connections can transform brands. sportsman; Clare Hamill, Nike Goddess
If you spend your days reviewing data, read every word of this
chapter. Twice. INSIGHTS: Maurice Levy, Publicis Groupe CHAPTER ELEVEN: ACROSS THE BORDER
The Love/Respect Axis is your first step. By plotting
CHAPTER FOUR: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE where you are today, you can trace where you need to go.
Taking brands to the next level depends on one four-letter Using the Love/Respect Axis, Kodak shows how they
word: L-O-V-E. INSIGHTS: Sean Fitzpatrick, sportsman; reinvigorated themselves with the youth market.
Tim Sanders, Yahoo! INSIGHTS: Eric Lent, Kodak
CHAPTER FIVE: GIMME SOME RESPECT CHAPTER TWELVE: I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW
Love will change the way we do business but only if it The reinvention of research. Xploring, power listening, and
is built on Respect. No Respect, no Lo ve. Simple. Let’s powerful new proof that Lovemarks are what matter most
celebrate what respect has achieved. to customers. INSIGHTS: Malcolm Gladwell, writer; Peter
CHAPTER SIX: LOVE IS IN THE AIR Cooper, QualiQuant International; Jim Stengel, Procter
Okay, so how do you create loyalty beyond reason? & Gamble; Clare Hamill, Nike Goddess
INSIGHTS: Alan Webber, Fast Company magazine CHAPTER THIRTEEN: I’LL FOLLOW THE SUN
CHAPTER SEVEN: BEAUTIFUL OBSESSION An Inspirational Consumer is precious beyond measure.
So what are Lovemarks? They inspire loyalty beyond reason Saatchi & Saatchi people share their most inspiring
through their obsession with Mystery, Sensuality, and consumer stories. Tell me yours at www.lovemarks.com
Intimacy to create a premium. Here are our first ideas about INSIGHTS: Tim Sanders, Yahoo!; Malcolm Gladwell, writer
putting them into action. INSIGHTS: Jim Stengel, Procter CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ROLLING THUNDER
& Gamble Lovemarks in action. Real life client stories from Olay, Tide,
CHAPTER EIGHT: ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM Lexus, Cheerios, and Brahma beer showing the power of
Understand how Mystery can transform relationships with Mystery, Sensuality, and Intimacy.
consumers. Great stories, mythic characters, the past, CHAPTER FIFTEEN: WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW
present, and future together, dreams and inspiration. Be The role of business is to make the world a better place for
inspired by the ideas and actions of great Mystery makers. everyone. Becoming a Lovemark has to be the destination of
INSIGHTS: Dan Storper, Putumayo World Music; Cecilia every business. Step up to the challenge. INSIGHTS: Dr. Arno
Dean, Visionaire magazine; Maurice Levy, Publicis Groupe; Penzias, Nobel Prize winner; Jim Stengel, Procter & Gamble;
Sean Landers, artist Sandra Dawson, Cambridge University

FURTHER READING

INDEX
 I was born an optimist.
I always looked for opportunities where others faced
up to threats or weaknesses. I believed if you were
going through hell, the only option was to keep going!
During my childhood in Lancaster I always believed that nothing was impossible. Where better to find
myself than as CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, the Ideas Company that made this belief
a founding declaration.
I’ve been lucky to have been guided by exceptional people who have mentored me. Inspirational
Players. People who believe that to dream is as important as to act, and that winners are powered by
passion and emotion.
By the time I was ready to enter the world of work I wanted to go somewhere that was top of its
class. Somewhere that relied on passion and inspiration as its driving force. Who better to work for
than the most inspirational businesswoman of the sixties, Mary Quant?
 For both businesses and consumers, trademarks
Products to trademarks are a sign of continuity in a constantly shifting
environment.
In the beginning products were just, well…
products. One was pretty much indistinguishable As Kate Wilson, a prominent New Zealand patent
from another. Get hit over the head with Jake’s attorney once told me:
club or Fred’s club, the headache was much the
same. Trade was kept in the family. Making the ‘Patents expire, copyrights
right choice was easy.
eventually run their course,
But people being people, even in such a simple
trading system, trademarks made an early entry. but trademarks last forever.’
There are trademarks on pottery in Mesopotamia Trademarks are not exempt from change. SPQR
(now Iraq) dating as far back as 3000 B.C. gets thousands of hits on Google, but most of
There is a cafe I go to named SPQR. It is named them are not for the Senate and People of Rome
after one of the most feared and respected trade- but for a popular computer game–SPQR: The
marks the world has Empire’s Darkest Hour!
ever known. Four The history of trademarks is littered with once-
letters that told you famous names that have gone generic. Bad news
the mighty Roman for them, as all the value they have created with
Empire was at hand. consumers can be sucked up by just about anyone.
Over the centuries, trade increasingly stretched Band-Aids, once a trademarked name, is now
past local boundaries and the importance of trade- the generic term for any bandage that sticks over
marks increased. It’s fine to trust the local village a small wound. Jell-O and Vaseline have been
blacksmith. You could check out the forge, bite pushed down the same route. And the process
the metal, ask around. But the weird guy bringing is still happening. In some countries, unique
in iron implements from the next village? Not so product names like Rollerblades and Walkman
easy. So trademarks moved up a notch from have recently been accepted as the given and
simple name tags to marks of trust and reliability. defining names for in-line skates and portable
music players. Promotion to dictionary status
From a business perspective, trademarks play great
is no promotion at all.
defense. They offer legal protection to the unique
qualities of your products and services, and declare Just holding a trademark doesn’t guarantee
your interests. Trademarks define territory. successful differentiation, but it can be a great
start. Over the 20th century some trademarks
That’s how it works when you are in charge of
have grown into enduring icons.
a business.
The MGM lion first roared in 1928 for the silent
To consumers, the picture movie White Shadows of the South Seas. Work out
the technology on that one! And if you have ever
looks somewhat different. wondered what
it says in the
They care about a trademark because it offers circle that frames
reassurance. ‘With this, I’ll get the quality I paid for.’ the lion, try Ars
Gratia Artis–Art
for Art’s Sake.
They can’t stand out in the marketplace and 4. Brands struggle with good
they are struggling to connect with people. old-fashioned competition
Here are six reasons why. The more brands we invent the less we notice
them as individuals. If you’re not Number One
1. Brands are worn out from overuse
or Two, you might as well forget it. It’s like kids in
Michael Eisner of Disney has called the word
a family. You might remember the names of three
brand ‘over-used, sterile, and unimaginative.’ He’s
kids, even five. But ten? And the greater the
right. As the brand manual grows heavier and
number of brands, the thinner the resources
more detailed you know you’re in trouble. Making
promoting them. You get a treadmill of novelty,
sure the flowers in reception conform to the brand
production value, incremental change, tactical
guidelines just shows you are looking in the wrong
promotions, and events.
direction. Consumers are who you should be
paying attention to. What matters to them. 5. Brands have been captured by formula
Otherwise, you’re hiding, and you’re in trouble. I lose patience with the wanna-be-science of
brands. The definitions, charts, diagrams, and
2. Brands are no longer mysterious
tables. There are too many people following the
There is a new anti-brand sensibility. There is
same rule book. When everybody tries to beat
much more consumer awareness, more consumers
differentiation in the same way nobody gets
who understand how brands work and, more
anywhere. You get row upon row of what I call
importantly, how they are intended to work on
‘brandroids.’ Formulas can’t deal with human
them! For most brands there is nowhere left to
emotion. Formulas have no imagination or empathy.
hide. The information age means that brands are
part of the public domain. Hidden agendas, sub- 6. Brands have been smothered
liminal messages, tricky moves–forget it. For most by creeping conservatism
brands it is a new age of consumer savvy; at the The story of brands has gone from daring and
extremes it’s the attacks of Naomi Klein and the inspiration to caution and aversion to risk.
anti-global gang. Once the darling of the bold and the brave,
brands are relying on the accumulation of past
3. Brands can’t understand the
experiences rather than the potential of future
new consumer
ones. Headstones are replacing stepping stones.
The new consumer is better informed, more
If the antics of Richard Branson cause a riot
critical, less loyal, and harder to read. The white
(and they do), how bland and boring has
suburban housewife who for decades seemed to
everyone else become?
buy all the soap powder no longer exists. She has
been joined by a new population of multi-gener-
ational, multi-ethnic, multi-national consumers.
Human beings are
powered by emotion,
not by reason.
Study after study has proven that if the emotion centers of
our brain are damaged in some way, we don’t just lose the
ability to laugh or cry, we lose the ability to make decisions.
Alarm bells for every business right there.
The neurologist Donald Calne puts it brilliantly:

‘The essential difference between

emotion and reason is that
emotion leads to action while
reason leads to conclusions.’
You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to get that. The
reality we face does not require mastery of arcane
terminology, and it’s not about evaluating competing
theories about how the mind works or how it is structured.

The brain is more complex, more densely connected,

and more mysterious than any of us can dream. That’s
as much as we have to know. Emotion and reason are
intertwined, but when they are in conflict, emotion wins
every time. Without the fleeting and intense stimulus of
emotion, rational thought winds down and disintegrates.
‘Consumers who make decisions based purely on facts
represent a very small minority of the world’s population.
They are people without feelings, or perhaps people who
put their heart and emotions in the fridge when they are
leaving home in the morning, and only take them out again
when they go back home in the evening. Although even
for these people, there is always some product or service
they buy based on impulse or emotion.’
–Maurice Levy, Chairman, Publicis Groupe, Paris
 The Lovemarks of this new century will be the brands and businesses that
create genuine emotional connections with the communities and networks
they live in. This means getting up close and personal. And no one is going
to let you get close enough to touch them unless they respect what you do
and who you are.
Love needs Respect right from the start. Without it, Love will not last. It
will fade like all passions and infatuations. Respect is what you need when
you are in for the long haul.
Respect is one of the founding principles of Lovemarks.

Management loves the idea of Respect. It sounds serious and objective,

easily measured and managed. In fact, Respect has been prodded and
squeezed so often over the last century that its real power has been
undervalued. Respect is the foundation of successful business.
At Saatchi & Saatchi we decided one thing was mandatory from the
get-go: No Respect. No Love.
But Respect needs to be reinvigorated. We need to understand what it
demands. We need to expand our Respect metrics from financial and
production performance to take on the deeper demands Respect makes
of us. Respect looks to performance, reputation, and trust as its organizing
principles. Within each of these principles I believe there is an inspiring
code of conduct to lead you forward.
Perform, perform, perform Nurture integrity
Respect grows out of performance. Performance The corporate shake-ups of the last few years have
at each and every interaction. Peak performance put the spotlight back on integrity: the integrity
as the ultimate table-stake of all table-stakes. of your people, your products, your services, your
financial statements and, most importantly, your
Pursue innovation personal integrity.
Innovation is kaizen, continuous improvement,
for consumers. Every business today is expected Accept responsibility
to innovate, and to innovate meaningfully while Take on the biggest responsibility of all–to make
creating value. the world a better place for everyone, creating
self-esteem, wealth, prosperity, jobs, and choices.
Commit to total commitment Quality is the measure by which you exceed
Going the full distance is the price of Respect. expectations. Quality is all about standards. Keep
The new active consumer judges you at every it simple: set high standards and then exceed them.
encounter, every touchpoint, and will punish Meet, Beat, Repeat.
failure by not coming back.
Never pull back on service
Make it easy Service is where transactions are transformed into
The increasing complexity of many goods and relationships. Where Respect meets Love. It is the
services has raised the stakes. The equation is first moment of truth.
simple. If it’s hard to use, it will die. Good-bye
VCR. Hello DVD. Deliver great design
Attention Economy 101. Competition is hot
Don’t hide and getting hotter. If you’re not aesthetically
People can only respect you if they know who stimulating and functionally effective you just
you are. Remember, in today’s Internet environ- merge into the crowd. You have to be different,
ment there is nowhere you cannot be found. not just act different.
Don’t even try.
Don’t underestimate value
Jealously guard your reputation Not just real dollar value but the perception of
Built over a lifetime. Destroyed in an instant. value. Only when people perceive the value they
Consumers today are ruthless if you let them are getting as higher than the cost will they respect
down. So don’t. the deal you offer. Sam Walton built Wal-Mart,
the biggest retail empire in the world, by a relent-
Get in the lead and stay there less focus on best value.
To be out-front can be lonely and uncomfortable,
but remember, the lead husky gets the best view. Deserve trust
Consumers want to trust you. They want you to
Tell the truth remain true to the ideals and aspirations you share
Be open. Front up. Admit mistakes. Don’t cover with them. Practice what you preach. Never let
up, it will get you every time. Believe in yourself– them down.
at times like this it may be the only thing you
have. And at times like this your reputation is Never, ever fail the reliability test
your premium defense. Expectations skyrocket: cars always start first time,
the coffee’s always hot, the ATM is always open.
Today reliability is the door charge for Respect
before the show begins.
My ideas were based on work we had done comparing brands and what were emerging as Lovemarks.
The best brands were Trustmarks, we had decided, but the great ones were Lovemarks. We charted
the differences:

BRAND
lovemark
Information Relationship

Recognized by consumers Loved by people

Generic Personal

Presents a narrative Creates a love story

The promise of quality The touch of Sensuality

Symbolic Iconic

Defined Infused

Statement Story

Defined attributes Wrapped in Mystery

Values Spirit

Professional Passionately creative

Advertising agency Ideas company

I said in the article:

‘I’m sure that you can charge a premium for brands that people love. And I’m also sure that you can only
have one Lovemark in any category.’
Looking for Love
As we started to shape Lovemarks
at Saatchi & Saatchi we saw how
the Love/Respect Axis could help us
work out where they fitted.
 Without Respect there is no foundation for
The Love/Respect Axis any long-term relationship. Without the sharp
delineation of the Axis format, it was too easy for
Saatchi & Saatchi’s Chairman, Bob Seelert, is our ideas about Love to float off into feelings
a smart man and a great sounding board for with no practical edge. Okay if we wanted to be
ideas that are struggling to realize themselves. psychotherapists, but somehow that was not where
We were waiting at Auckland airport late one we were headed! Bob brought Love to earth.
evening on our way to Los Angeles and I started
on my Love rap. Bob had heard most of it Respect is the key
before but this time I pulled out a napkin and
drew a horizontal line showing Love at one end to the success of many
and Respect at the other.
I showed Bob how it might work. How everything
of our biggest clients.
was telling us that brands had run out of juice. Such success should
How they had to evolve into something more.
And how I would place this new kind of brand not be devalued;
moving beyond Respect and up into Love at the
top of the line. Products would live at the bottom it’s just no longer enough.
of the line and standard brands would be at the
lower end. Companies like big-time Saatchi & Saatchi
clients Toyota and Procter & Gamble have
The goal would be invested billions and won astonishing Respect
for their products and brands. And they have
at the top of the line. done it through sustained feats of focus and
self-discipline. Whatever we called the new
High on Love! generation of brands, it was going to need
Respect–and a lot of it. Respect, it was clear,
Bob looked at it for a couple of minutes. had to be table-stakes. No Respect, no admission.
‘There’s another way to show this to more
effect,’ he told me. Taking the pen he drew
a second line, this one crossing over my
Love/Respect line midway. My line was
transformed in an instant into an axis.
Bob was right. The axis format immediately
showed Love as a goal above and beyond Respect.
Now we could clearly show the ongoing importance
of Respect and the urgency of moving into a
relationship based on Love. Love of design,
Love of service, Love of customers, Love of life.
 Stuck in the middle
with you
Above the low Respect line on the left are most brands.
COMMODITIES
This is where the efforts and investment of the last 50
years have gotten them.
But many brands risk falling into the sand trap
below–tough competition, tight margins, and lack of
individuality turning them into “blands.” Others have
built up high levels of Respect based on sound
management and continuous improvement. But what
they have earned in Respect has little emotion. Sensible
and well-measured, it’s hard to tell one from another.
FADS
The high life —
In the top right the sun always shines: high Respect,
high Love. Why wouldn’t you want to be there?
You know who belongs in this quadrant by instinct.
Virgin is there. United would like to be. The iMac? Yes.
BRANDS
The ThinkPad? Don’t think so. It’s home for Disneyland
but not for Seven Flags. Make your own list.

LOVEMARKS

Love
Lovemarks made immediate sense. Every person we deal with Great Stories
is an emotional human being and yet business had been treat-
ing them like numbers. Targets. Statistics. Past, Present, and Future
Respect was something that Saatchi & Saatchi understood.
Over the years we had put a lot of time into building our Taps Into Dreams
clients’ products into some of the most highly respected
brands in the world. Now it was time to focus on what made Myths and Icons
some brands stand out from the crowd–what made some
brands loved.
Inspiration
When it came to working out what gave Lovemarks their
special emotional resonance, we came pretty quickly to:

Mystery
Sensuality
Intimacy Sound
These didn’t sound like traditional brand attributes. And they
captured the new emotional connections we were seeking. As Sight
I have already mentioned, we were convinced from the start
by a very important idea that became the heart of Lovemarks.
Smell
Lovemarks are not owned
Touch
by the manufacturers, the
producers, the businesses. Taste
They are owned by the
people who love them.
From there it was easy to agree that you only get to be
a Lovemark when the people who love you tell you so.
But just sitting around waiting for consumers to tell you
Commitment
you’re a Lovemark could mean a very long wait.
Love is about action. It’s about creating a meaningful Empathy
relationship. It’s a constant process of keeping in touch,
working with consumers, understanding them, spending
time with them. And this is what insightful marketers,
empathetic designers, smart people on the check-out and
Passion
production line do every day.
Now we were ready to create our principles.
lovemarks the future beyond brands

Kevin Roberts, CEO Wo r l d w i d e , SAATCHI & S AAT C H I

Foreword by A.G. Lafley, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive, Procter & Gamble

Can business make the world a better place? Of course it can. Will business take
up the challenge? It is in our best interests to do so, and let’s face it, our best
interests have been a powerful driver for many centuries. What can inspire us
with the emotional urgency required to undertake this epic task? The creation
and rewards of Lovemarks.
Kevin Roberts passionately believes that love is the way KEVIN RO B E RTS
forward for business. In his second book, LOVEMARKS: THE is CEO Worldwide
FUTURE BEYOND BRANDS , Roberts recounts the journey from of ideas company
Products to Trademarks to Brands—and the urgency of taking Saatchi & Saatchi,
the next step up—to Lovemarks. one of the world’s
Roberts offers a lively, critical assessment of brands and largest and most
the problems that face them in an increasingly competitive successful creative
world. His argument is straightforward. Brands have simply run organizations work-
out of juice. ing on more than
The solution? The creation of products and experiences fifty of our most valuable global brands. Heading a
that have the power to create long-term emotional relation- team of more than seven thousand people in
ships with consumers. eighty-two countries, Roberts led Saatchi &
To get there, Roberts advocates infusing brands with the Saatchi to become both Advertising Age and
fundamental Lovemark elements: Mystery, Sensuality, and Adweek magazines’ Global Agency Network of the
Intimacy. Mystery enters by drawing on the past, present, and Year in 2003.
future, the value of myths and icons, and the power of inspiration,
and by tapping into dreams. Sensuality and the five senses can ‘Kevin’s passionate belief in
be used to find touchpoints with consumers. Intimacy is created building brands consumers love
through commitment, empathy, and passion. The power of these is inspirational and effective.’
dynamic forces is captivatingly presented with lively anecdotes,
living examples, and graphic illustrations drawn from the world —A.G. Lafley,
CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT, AND
of advertising and beyond.
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, PROCTER & GAMBLE
The idea that consumers, not companies, own Lovemarks
is fundamental. This book shows that not only business B U S I N E S S / A D V E RTISING THEORY
Hardcover, 8 x 9.75 inches, 224 pages,
mavens, but the special people that Roberts calls “Inspirational four-color illustrations throughout
Consumers,” can shape the future of commerce. ISBN 1-57687-204-1 $27.50
(Cnd $39.95)

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