The following essay is based on a lecture I gave on April 27th 2016 in Japanese, hence the Japanese slide visuals, as part of a series of open events called "Profero University". The intention is to frame how to think about planning brands in their proper context, and it establishes 7 brand planning principles based on fundamental human psychology: Brands exist in people’s brains as a complex set of memories, relationships, associations and emotions. People tend to think about brands as if they are people with personalities and relationships to other things, like people they know Strong brands are distinctive when they engage your senses and the more senses they engage you through the stronger they are Strong brands are unique and distinctive, so brand communications should … [Read more...]