Man at the edge: Kevin Roberts on building 21st century brands

Source: Exec Digital UK

Date :11/02/2008 11:16:01

Kevin Roberts says living on the edge is inspiring; that’s why the CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi moved to live at the ‘edge of the earth’ and it’s why he thrives amid the gutsy individualism that drives great brands.

By John O’Hanlon

The problem was that there are so many great ideas. Kevin Roberts is a big personality, and a man who has enormous faith in his vision. His light is hidden under no bushels – for example the Saatchi & Saatchi website is the only one I know that has, right at the top of its home page, direct links to its two top leaders, Roberts and Worldwide Creative Director Bob Isherwood. You can read all his speeches on his site, or go on to the Lovemarks site, which explains his revolutionary but magnificently lucid thinking that has changed the way the world thinks about branding.

Lovemarks are the brands that create ‘loyalty beyond reason’, he once said. Trademarks are all about defending your territory from predators who might steal your ideas, but Lovemarks go out there and capture the ‘mystery, sensuality and intimacy’ that touch people emotionally as well as rationally.

Persuade, excite and inspire

Having lived my entire life on the border between mystery and reason, I wanted to hear more about how that sells stuff. Intimacy and sensuality are surely much more personal things though? “Emotionally retarded Anglo Saxon poms like you may well find it difficult to get your head around emotional capital, John,” he quipped. “But people are driven by emotion.

Donald Calne the Canadian neurologist summed it up beautifully when he said the difference between rationality and emotion is that rationality leads to conclusions and emotion leads to action. And if you’re in my job, you are in the action business. The only reason and purpose for advertising is to sell more stuff. We have got to persuade, excite, and inspire someone to act and buy something, whether it’s an idea or a diaper.”

That brought me down to earth. Roberts is listened to when he talks about the environment, education, social justice and reputation because he is so good at selling stuff, and has grown Saatchi & Saatchi’s revenue year by year since he joined the firm in 1997. Robert’s career began at 16 when he was asked to leave Lancaster Royal Grammar School after his girlfriend became pregnant. “The head at the time was a very strict type, who told me that I’d either have to give up the girl or leave the school. That was a no-brainer.”

At the height of the sixties he went to London and worked with Mary Quant, the design brand of the sixties. As his ‘unofficial’ biography says: “I worked with Mary as she added style and colour to one of the most fabulous decades of the last millennium. I then took the stuff I had learnt about branding to some of the most highly regarded companies in the world.”

He took his disruptive – one might almost say transgressive – streak with him. “I have never believed that extraordinary results come from ordinary actions so I am attracted by extremes,” he says. “I demonstrated the point when my Canadian Pepsi Team blew away Coke to become number one in the market. We celebrated by machine-gunning a Coke vending machine on stage at a conference. Risky? Yes. Stupid? Possibly. Memorable, inspiring? You bet.”

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