People Listen with Ther Gut

I had a conversation with Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times and author of many books, including the best seller, The World is Flat. The central theme of his book is that as a result of many things, including exponential advances in communication and technology, communication and software, the world has become flat. This allows us to do business and almost everything else with billions of people across the planet, faster and more easily than ever before

Among the many things Tom writes about is the intersection of business and politics, the people, events and the global implications. He talked to me about his experience traveling across this flat new world and what he discovered as he talked to corporate, cultural and political leaders. “People listen through their stomachs, not their ears,” Tom said. “ If you connect with people on a gut level, they’ll say, ‘Don’t bother me with the details, I trust you with my gut, go ahead’. If you don’t connect with them on a gut level, you can’t offer them enough details or statistics to bring them around. You have to connect on a gut level first.”

“GE gets it,” Tom told me.” “Jeff Immelt, their CEO gets it. He’s got a huge multi-faceted, multinational organization with thousands of employees and hundreds of products. But he has boiled down what GE stands for into a simple, gut-level idea that everyone can connect with, inside the company and outside. ‘We’re going to be about imagination. It defines the culture and it’s believable. Why? Because coming from GE, imagination is credible. It’s authentic, and doesn’t feel contrived. If you promise something that seems inauthentic, people can smell it from 100 paces.”

Tom told me the same thing applies with politics and politicians.“The best politicians out there know they have to reduce their platform to a simple message – something that connects on a gut level in an authentic way. You have to believe the message and the messenger. There is nothing wrong with complicated ideas, but if you want to convey a complicated thought to a mass audience you have to first condense it into something digestable and believable. Once you grab someone’s attention, you can pour in the details.”

“You have to be able to understand something in its complexity to be able to express it with simplicity. The best political leaders, the best business leaders are able to simplify the essence of things without dumbing them down or making them silly.”

The lesson learned from Tom’s comments is that complicated ideas don’t work in politics any more than they work with brands. People need a simple message. Think of it as a literal and figurative bumper sticker of an idea. ‘Peace and prosperity in our time’. ‘Don’t swap horses in mid-stream’. It’s not just the simplicity part he was talking about, or that I’ve been talking about. It’s that your brand idea distilled to a simple, actionabl

“People Listen With Their Gut”

I had a conversation with Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times and author of many books, including the best seller, The World is Flat. The central theme of his book is that as a result of many things, including exponential advances in communication and technology, communication and software, the world has become flat. This allows us to do business and almost everything else with billions of people across the planet, faster and more easily than ever before

Among the many things Tom writes about is the intersection of business and politics, the people, events and the global implications. He talked to me about his experience traveling across this flat new world and what he discovered as he talked to corporate, cultural and political leaders. “People listen through their stomachs, not their ears,” Tom said. “ If you connect with people on a gut level, they’ll say, ‘Don’t bother me with the details, I trust you with my gut, go ahead’. If you don’t connect with them on a gut level, you can’t offer them enough details or statistics to bring them around. You have to connect on a gut level first.”

“GE gets it,” Tom told me.” “Jeff Immelt, their CEO gets it. He’s got a huge multi-faceted, multinational organization with thousands of employees and hundreds of products. But he has boiled down what GE stands for into a simple, gut-level idea that everyone can connect with, inside the company and outside. ‘We’re going to be about imagination. It defines the culture and it’s believable. Why? Because coming from GE, imagination is credible. It’s authentic, and doesn’t feel contrived. If you promise something that seems inauthentic, people can smell it from 100 paces.”

Tom told me the same thing applies with politics and politicians.“The best politicians out there know they have to reduce their platform to a simple message – something that connects on a gut level in an authentic way. You have to believe the message and the messenger. There is nothing wrong with complicated ideas, but if you want to convey a complicated thought to a mass audience you have to first condense it into something digestable and believable. Once you grab someone’s attention, you can pour in the details.”

“You have to be able to understand something in its complexity to be able to express it with simplicity. The best political leaders, the best business leaders are able to simplify the essence of things without dumbing them down or making them silly.”

The lesson learned from Tom’s comments is that complicated ideas don’t work in politics any more than they work with brands. People need a simple message. Think of it as a literal and figurative bumper sticker of an idea. ‘Peace and prosperity in our time’. ‘Don’t swap horses in mid-stream’. It’s not just the simplicity part he was talking about, or that I’ve been talking about. It’s that your brand idea distilled to a simple, actionable brand handle must be perceived as internally driven. Not delivered my head to your head, but from my gut to your gut.

Great Brands, Strong Brand Drivers

Strong brands have strong Brand Drivers. The people who work with and for these brands have taken hold of them and it shows in the way the branding signals have been brought to life. These signals resonate with anyone who's made the brand a mental brand file. They motivate and mobilize. The associations click. The brand idea registers spontaneously without need for explanation. We get it.

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