Oxytobrands. Human brands for an emotional market
© Marcelo Ghio
www.oxytobrands.com
Contact: info@oxitobrands.com

This edition:
2013, Marcelo Ghio
Lima, Perú

Translation
Brooke Shanley

Design & Layout
Márquez Diseño
Claudio Márquez
Diego Sanguinetti
Mateo Flandoli

Love design
Agustín Ghio Kissoyan
Lautaro Ghio Kissoyan

Editing
María Elsa Bettendorff

First edition: 2013

ISBN: 978-612-4070-56-3

Editorial Project Registration: 31401311101630

Clarification of brands and citations: All of the terminology and images in this book, identified as commercial brands, persons or dates, have been duly represented. To clarify, the reference to and use of these serves only to better illustrate the thoughts of the author, who does not express ownership of these nor pretends the commercial exploitation of them. Said terms and images have been utilized by the author as positive examples to illustrate his thoughts and in no way intend to affect the validity of any commercial brand or referenced bibliographic citation. The author along with the editors are not responsible for errors or omissions or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained within this book.

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE

INTRODUCTION. OXYTO WHAT?

CHAPTER 1. IN SEARCH OF THE EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER 2. THE CHEMISTRY OF RELATIONSHIPS

CHAPTER 3. IN THE BEGINNING, THE BRAND

CHAPTER 4. ADDING THE PARTS

CHAPTER 5. COMMUNICATING AND LIVING THE BRAND

CHAPTER 6. WHAT IT IS NOT, TO DETERMINE WHAT IT IS

CHAPTER 7. EMOTIONAL BRANDING FOR HUMAN BRANDS

CHAPTER 8. MANAGING INTANGIBLES AND BRANDING

CHAPTER 9. ITS OWN NAME

CHAPTER 10. HUMAN BRANDS FOR AN EMOTIONAL MARKET? OXYTOBRANDS!

CHAPTER 11. OXYTOBRANDS TERRITORY AND PLATFORM

CHAPTER 12. TOWARDS A HEALTHY ECOSYSTEM

CHAPTER 13. ALL WE NEED IS LOVE (AND ABOVE ALL, TRUST)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FOREWORD

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

Lewis Carrol

In his lucid essay about the battle of Marathon, where General Miltiades, in command of the Greeks, in small numbers and without cavalry, defeated the Persian troops, Yves Zimmerman writes:

“Intention-Design-Strategy. The data provided up to this point on the different aspects of the battle present a picture that reveals, essentially, what Miltiades’ considerations were before the situation he was faced with at Marathon, considerations that make it possible to understand the intrinsic nature of strategic thought, in other words, the process that goes from the formulation of a problem to the conception of its solution.”

“Think different”, Apple has said. Marcelo Ghio, also, thinks differently.

Marcelo was born with a pencil in one hand and a pen in the other. Later he went to the UBA and was received with stubbornness and a lukewarm smile by his teachers. One day, he invented the Encuentro Latinoamericano in the UP and did away with an old myth. He cites Alan Fletcher, “If you can’t ride two horses at the same time, you can’t be in the circus”.

He is an innovator with a theory put to page in this Oxytobrands that presents its second edition, now in Lima from his actual home. Deacon at ISIL, he has the knack, as always, to administer, write, teach, and draw.

Accompanied by Arda, he arrived in Peru as an ambassador of Argentine design.

“Point of view changes the perspective.”

Leonardo Da Vinci

Galvanizing innovation, particularly in Latin America, has not been easy in the last fifty years. The relation between design and the peripheral reality has found itself facing military coups, revolutions, social crises, and economics that have relativized professional practices.

I met Max Bruinsma in the Congreso de Icograda Sao Paulo, Fronteiras 2004. Max lives and works in Amsterdam and has been, among other things, the editor of “Eye” magazine, surely, one of the most important design publications worldwide. There I heard him say that design acts, like in chemistry, as a catalyst.

A catalyst is a chemical substance, simple or compound, that drastically modifies the speed of a reaction, intervening in it, but without necessarily forming a part of the results of the reaction. Catalysts are characterized by the arrangement of the two variable principles that define them: the active phase and selectivity. The activity and the selectivity, including the life of the catalyst, directly depend on the active phase utilized. Webster’s dictionary states: “A substance that initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction. Something that causes an important event to occur.”

Finally, what is this about branding? Hasn’t everything already been said? What else is there? Marc Gobé says that “without the brand, Apple would be dead. Absolutely dead. The brand is its most valuable possession. Its brand helps to maintain its life, while the products are less important.”

If we ask the designers and marketers what makes Mac users so loyal, all of them will have the same response: “The Apple Brand”.

Naomi Klein is an iconoclast. She says that Apple and Benetton only sell brands that fascinate the multitudes with desires, dreams, and longings of success and prosperity.

Clients do not buy cheap semiotics. They only buy solutions with their purchases.

“If your house was burning, what would you save?

The fire.”

Jean Cocteau

Bernard Shaw says that “the greatest problem of communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”

Communicating innovation presupposes before all understanding that to innovate is to replace existing situations with preferable situations. The brand is not the logo. It is a conduct and a promise. When it fulfills its commitments, commercial, institutional, cultural, it constructs the brand.

The logo is, in all cases, the emblem of this promise.

Brands are not fixed. They are being, and effectively, some brands go to heaven.

A virtuous brand is one that fulfills its promises. An efficient brand is one that emits the correct identity. A good brand is one that raises emotions.

The dilemma of the three ‘i’s: Identity, Identification, Image. The first is in the womb of the transmitter. The second is the strategy to transfer this identity. The third is the fantasy that the audience elaborates from the first.

Marcelo has created more than a brand.

He has constructed an idea.

Oxytobrands is the testimony of this idea.

Hail Marcelo, the mortals salute you.

Ronald Shakespear (*)
Buenos Aires 2011

* Ronald Shakespear / F / Segd
ronald@shakespearweb.com
www.webshakespear.com.ar
www.ronaldshakespear.com
Diseño Shakespear Argentina

PROLOGUE

You don’t have to be a branding specialist to understand that great brands, and I’m not thinking only about those that are large or have high revenue, generate emotional bonds with their consumers. It is very difficult for any of us to drink a cola during a funeral, just the opposite, it is much more probable that the consumption of this beverage is associated with pleasant moments, happiness and fun.

It is from this, and many other factors, that we closely follow the behavior of brands. We always wonder, what is the bond construction like? Upon which pillars is it built? With what dynamics? What objectives does it pursue? What corporate culture is behind it? What marketing team and management directs it? How do they plan their actions? How are the results measured, and how, definitively, is the tendency created? Marcelo Ghio, the author of this book, also asked these questions, and glimpsed the answers on an unsuspected horizon.

Motivated by a transversal thought, Ghio explored new territories where anthropological, neurological, and marketing (related to brands) investigations had not been. He proposed to go a little further, to unite under one concept many of the answers that all the communication specialists try to formulate daily.

Oxytobrands’ findings reside in ordering all of the present thought, I believe much of the future, about the relationship, emotional-rational, that is established between a brand and its consumers. Ghio has investigated (I’m sure that he will continue investigating) this theme for at least six years; sufficient time to become a specialist (Besides knowing his professional tone, levels of obsession and commitment to work).

From the perspective of the Branding, Marketing, Publicity, and Communication industries, Oxytobrands is the material necessary to take the step that begins a new debate all of the market should formalize. First, the process of the brand needs to be understood: its personality, its conduct, its objectives. Only afterwards can we think about communication strategies. If you do not have a strong brand, there is not any communication that will sustain it.

In the book “War in the boardroom”, edited in 2009, Al Ries, the other father of modern marketing along with Philip Kotler, defines a brand as a product or service for which the consumers are willing to pay more than for its equivalent commodity. That is to say, the consumer perceives an added value and will pay a higher price to have it.

A large part of the construction process of a strong brand in whichever its category, size and billing, is explained throughout the concept of oxytobrands. It is not a formula, nor a recipe that will resolve the great paradigms of communication, but rather it simply, and there lies its strength, focuses on a problem and provides a solution, a path to follow supported by theoretical and empirical material.

“Branding is coming”, many of the brand specialists shout in loud voices. They see, in these days, the deterioration of the image of brand, motivated by the pockets full of uncertainties. What is certain is that those businesses which did not bet on the sustainable construction of their brand in the consumers’ minds, today, are paying the price for this error.

Branding, as a discipline, has evolved. It does not only imply the construction of brand, but knowing and understanding what happens to the consumer. According to many local specialists, at the actual juncture, no brand constructs prestige per se, but rather it is the view of the other that awards it legitimacy.

* Is a journalist (TEA), licensed in communication (UBA) and has a postgraduate degree in Integrated Marketing Communications (UB). He is the founder and content director of Infobrand magazine. He serves as consultant and freelance journalist, and professor of Palermo university and UB. He obtained the Journalism Development award from Clarín and, until present, has collaborated on more than 20 Argentine graphic mediums as well as production work in radio and TV.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE