It is not surprising that I will not be able to tell 10 black raven apart in a line up. They are all perfect. And that is really annoying. But should there be one raven with a wing that keeps slipping out of position, or if his voice was slightly higher, I would zero in on him and would definitely remember him the most.
A quirk is all I ask for. It is the hook that attaches to our memory and helps us recall an object, a brand or a message. Now would this not be a really powerful memory aid for any brand? There are brands that do this of course. The now famous Got Milk campaign ran for 20 years in the USA and its signature recall was the milk moustache on the faces of celebrities. It was quirky, relevant, charming and absolutely unique. It converted a commodity into a loveable brand. Sadly, it has now been replaced by the new Milk Life campaign using ordinary people doing extraordinary things with the milk splash doing things as a pneumonic. A burr or a pneumonic could be a sound, a visual or just a misspelt word that quirks up a normal sentence.
Taking this further, would it not be great to build our personalities on the same logic? Analyse our core strengths and filter it to one powerful, unique quirk that sums you up? People tattoo themselves in strategic places. People leave a streak of white in their hair. Some people have ponytails in a crowd of short haired people- I’m not saying who!
So how does this work. Using a metaphor to explain- it is all about giving something a handle so that a person’s memory has something to hold on to. The quirk is attached to the whole and when the quirk is recalled the whole message or person is magically reassembled by the target audience.The music and film industry thrive on this. From an artiste’s signature look- read Miley Cyrus, Kamala Hasan, Freddy Mercury, you get the point.
Steve Jobs got this with his signature product design and interface. Now of course most products align to the formula and we are back to square one. Google has it right. And the GoPro range of cameras achieved cult status with its form and function. Spawning a new genre in extreme sport film making.
So, if you have a brand, give it a relevant quirk that your target audience can lock in with. If it is a creative piece of work, find that style that says it’s you. Mario Miranda, MF Hussain and RK Laxman epitomise the persistence of their brand recall.
Cedric Serpes is Associate Professor at the Goa Institute of Management. He sports a pony tail and says ‘sup to random passers-by.
