I am excited, I got the answer I am looking for.
I wrote about the impending flip of a Vancouver radio station from Crave to the British mega brand Virgin. And I wondered, “why?”
John answered the call in the comment section and made many good points about how no one cares about Crave but how they might care about Virgin because it is such a dynamic brand. He recommended the book “The Power of Cult Branding: How 9 Magnetic Brands Turned Customers into Cult Followers.”
Um, well according to the book’s synopsis it says nothing about painting another corporations brand on your product. It seems to me the book will tell me 9 ways to:
1) Create a good product that people want or need
2) Passionately grind away for many years delivering on the promise
My favourite part of John’s comment was this:
“Comparing Telus and Virgin are like comparing White Spot and McDonalds. One has only local recognition; the other has an international brand with recognition in just about any country in the world.”
Right. Now, lets pretend I live 60 km to the west. And there are two restaurants side-by-side. One is McDonalds and one is White Spot. Where do I eat?
John is right, Virgin is the McDonalds. I do eat there sometimes, but I am not passionate about it. I don’t follow it like a cult.
But I do have some homework. My next book after Seth Godin’s “Tribes” will be the book that will sell me on the mega brand. And who knows, maybe when I am done reading it, I will be DJ Virgin, the mega DJ!
The Morning After 