Malcolm Gladwell & Branding

Malcolm Gladwell was invited recently to give a talk at a seminar in Singapore for business and marketing people. His presentation can be found here.

I want to talk about his talk from a communications aspect. Now, seminars such as the one I've mentioned tend to be really dry and yawn-inducing. The endless powerpoint presentations with tables of data and charts of all shapes and sizes could really test an attendee's endurance. For me, it makes me want to slit my wrist.

Anyway, he came in to talk about branding. Okay, what could this Canadian journalist/author know anything about branding?

But when he opened his presentation by talking about Fleetwood Mac, I thought, "Hmm, he might not know much about what he's talking about but he certainly knows how to communicate and sell."

Why do I say this? First, he starts out talking about something that on the surface has no relation at all to branding. Fleetwood Mac? You can almost see everyone become more awake, eager for Gladwell to make the connection. Aaaaaah....the joy of having a captive audience...every marketer's dream come true.

He even manages to delicately plug his Outliers book.

He goes on to list the building blocks to branding success; time, compensation for weakness, experimentation and having the right partner. New terminology to tickle the interest of all the seasoned marketers in the room. Oh, how we love new terminology!

And that folks, is how someone who's not really an industry expert can give a talk about branding to a bunch of industry people. Be a well-known brand yourself, tell a story with an interesting hook, throw in some interesting, cool-sounding terms and voila! Captive audience.