Business Week (posted 27 May 2009) interviewed the CEO of Zappos.com (Tony Hsieh) about why his company is successful and among the reasons are “(I’m inspired) to learn more about the science of happiness” and then apply this to his corporate culture and customer service.  Hsieh focuses on a personal touch and knows that as long as his brands appeal to (positive) emotions people are inspired to buy.

Taking branding out of the context of business, as I write listening to Deva Premal, eating my bagel with hummus and some seasonal fruit, I ask myself what emotions create the Michelle Payton brand to my family, friends, work associates/associations, clients’?  What brand impressions are projections that aren’t about me/I shouldn’t own (created by those with filters that don’t foster growth) or should understand more fully to enhance my and others’ lives? 

When looking at Astrology, Numerology and Birth Order (Birth Mix Patterns), our cosmic personality mixes brand us as listeners, talkative, leaders, followers, analytical, loners, social butterflies… but regardless of these labels we reinforce (or not) these brands by our actions.  Neuro-linguistic programmers will tell you that 55% of communication is body language, 38% is tonality (voice), and only 7% are words.  So saying it does not make it so–our visual and audio actions, less our words, create our brands on all levels.  With that knowing, this also means that if we want to change impressions it takes patience and consistent behavior (in essence campaigning) to create new brands.

Are you content with the emotions you conjure?  What are they?  Do you love your brand?  If you summed up your brand in a few short words, what would they be?