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In the future, the strongest brands will be those that ensure every decision and action reinforces the brand's positioning, ushering in an era of Implicit communication', Peter Buckley explains
In recent years, our understanding of how humans make decisions has improved considerably, but this has had little impact on most brand planning. Messages and persuasion are still central to the majority of briefs.This paper proposes a new way of looking at brand communication by broadening the perspective from explicit messages to implicit signals. Viewing brand communication through the lens of messaging can result in brands missing opportunities and, at worst, contradicting themselves with their behaviour. Brands need to consider how they communicate implicitly and ensure that these signals reinforce their values in every way possible.
"The most important thing in communication is hearing what is not said " - Peter F Drucker1.
INTRODUCTION
"Ever since the arrival of television, brands, their owners and their advisors have been obsessed with what brands say at the expense of what brands do "-Jeremy Bullmore2.
In the late summer of 1904, the New York Times reported on a German horse that could do "almost everything but talk".The subject of the article was Clever Hans, a horse that could perform arithmetic and intellectual tasks at the level of a nine-year-old child. His owner, Herr Wilhelm von Osten, would ask Clever Hans a question and then provide a number of answers; at the correct answer Clever Hans would tap his right hoof (Figure 1). An investigation by the Prussian Minister of Education confirmed that no tricks were involved.
Not everyone was convinced; a psychologist called Oskar Pfungst decided to investigate. Pfungst discovered that the key to the horse's intelligence lay in involuntary and unconscious cues displayed by the questioner when they reached the correct answer. Without knowing it, the questioner would unconsciously lean forward slightly at the correct answer. Pfungst proved this by showing if the questioner themselves did not know the answer, Clever Hans did not know either.3
Clever Hans may not have been such a clever horse, but he can teach brands an important lesson: unintended non-verbal implicit communication is often more powerful than the carefully composed message. While all brands communicate implicitly, only some currently plan to...