Are you UNDERthinking your brand enough?

Good marketers overthink things. 

How they segment the market. Their target. Their product or service offering. Their pricing. Their packaging and distribution strategy and partnerships and promotions. And they should. This stuff is hard.

But when it comes to connecting with buyers, great marketers UNDERthink it too.

F’rinstance, take the Government Employees Insurance Company. Founded in 1936, it grew for a while, then plateaued. To rev things up, they launched an ad campaign with an animated mascot. 

What did they pick? A soaring eagle? A protective lion mom? A hulking, strong elephant? You know — something meaningful when it comes to an insurance company that protects you.

Instead, they did some underthinking. And they went with a gecko. Why? What do geckos have to do with insurance and protection and danger? Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

But the beauty is, a gecko is one. letter. away. from their brand name: GEICO.

And then they gave it a Cockney accent. Why? Again, it’s nothing to do with insurance and EVERYthing to do with our brains. We have leaky, lazy brains, and GEICO needed something sticky to get their brand stuck to our brains. What’s stickier than a gecko for GEICO? How about one with a Cockney accent? THAT’S underthinking it.

Caveats, of course. I mean, maybe you don’t even NEED a mascot (tho Stef Hamerlinck would disagree fiercely. And I wouldn’t be mad; just disappointed….)

But it behooves you to steal at least a little bit from the brilliance that is the GEICO Gecko.

Some lessons:

🍊 After you overthink your marketing UNDERthink your marketing.
🍊 Make your brand EASY and STICKY for people. 
🍊 ”Irrelevant” things my be just the thing, in fact, to make your brand stickier.