What’s the best brand essence ever?
Faster. Higher. Stronger.
Daft Punk? Kanye West?
Correct answer is Pierre de Coubertin.
In 1894, during the formation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Coubertin suggested 'Faster, Higher, Stronger' as a motto to encapsulate the spirit of what was to become the modern Olympic Games.
The original suggestion was, of course, in latin: Citius, Altius, Fortius
Just like Veni, Vidi, Vici, it’s a marvellous piece of copywriting!
Uses ‘the magic of 3’.
Imbued with positivity.
Easily remembered.
Rolls off the tongue.
Well done!
And the English translation is even better… unless you’re currently relaxing in your garden on the Amalfi coast and wondering how fruitful this year’s lemon crop will be.
Well, if life gives you lemons...
But, how many companies would kill to have a brand essence today as simple, inspiring and memorable as faster, higher, stronger?
It’s gold.
Not silver or bronze.
Slight problem… The IOC has just changed it.
Rebranding the Olympic Motto in 2021
Now, you have: Faster, higher, stronger - together
PPA Columnist of the Year 2021, and passionate no-bullshit marketing maestro, Mark Ritson speaks often of the inherent damage resulting from rebranding.
He recently wrote a must-read article on the topic: Don’t Rebrand, Revitalise
Is it a copywriting sin to mess with such greatness?
You can see what the IOC did there. Bolting on ‘together’ at the end is understandably being seen to be doing something.
A reaction to the monumental difficulties that the world is in right now as Tokyo tries to launch their event. Basically, it’s a no-win situation.
Would the IOC have been better off with an approach of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?
Maybe leave the primary brand alone and get Tokyo to take on the burden of acknowledging the current social demand.
What Tokyo needs is a brilliant beyond brilliant slogan to get the world fired up for this.
The Tokyo Olympic Games official motto is: United by Emotion
Hmmmm.
It’s not exactly “Diamonds are forever” (DeBeers), “We try harder” (Avis) or “Just do it” (Nike), is it?
However, in the spirit of fair play and trying to help (“Every little helps”), let’s consider the mottos of previous host cities to see if they went down in history as a winner.
Hold on a minute! Can anyone name even one motto from a specific Olympic Games?
The phrase that was meant to embody the spirit of that host city.
The logos are probably a lot easier to recall.
Maybe the logo of an Olympics from your childhood springs to mind, or a visual branding more recent like London 2012.
Some of the logos have been a bit special.
Logos of all Summer Olympic Games
The Tokyo 2020 logo tips its hat to the Munich design and is really very nice indeed.
Logo-wise, my all-time fave is Munich 72 for its gorgeous avant-garde chic.
And I was probably nudged a bit by the Von Restorff Effect.
In fact, Munich really went for it on the unique front, as they were the first to introduce their own motto: ‘The Happy Games’.
Unfortunately, Munich 1972 would not be remembered for happiness, as the Games was notorious for the terrorist incident that sent horror headlines around the globe.
But, did any Summer Olympic Games create a motto that did actually capture the global imagination so well that it would live on in history?
What are the mottos of all the Olympic Games?
Los Angeles 1984 - Play a part in history
Seems like they weren’t really trying
Seoul 1988 - Harmony and Progress
Way too safe. But maybe years ahead of their time. This wouldn't seem out of place attached to almost any corporation today.
Barcelona 1992 - Friends For Life
Different. Like it. Probably helped by having a killer theme tune alongside with similar sentiments (which other Olympics had a song? Thank you, Freddie Mercury!)
Atlanta 1996 - The Celebration of the Century
Sounds like an American game show where you can win a faux-leather sofa
Sydney 2000 - The Games of the New Millenium. Share the Spirit - Dare to Dream
Bit of a mouthful. What did this look like before the editing process?
Athens 2004 - Welcome Home
Showing off! :)
Beijing 2008 - One World, One Dream
Is that Freddie Mercury again? It’s the opening line from One Vision, isn’t it?
London 2012 - Inspire a Generation
Had a go, I suppose (but see below)
Rio 2016 - A New World
Must do better. See me after class.
It might just be the Copywriting Mount Everest to create one of these.
Copywriters assemble!
Can you whip up any alternative versions of the above?
Could you remember any of the above mottos?
Be honest.
In researching this article, I asked 18 friends from London who are big into sport, to see if they could remember the London 2012 motto.
10 of them were actually spectators at the 2012 Olympics in the spanking new stadiums around London.
None of them could remember the motto at all.
Not one.
So, why do the Games bother with a brand motto?
The precedent has been set, so we have to continue
You can imagine the enormous copywriting man hours, iterations and stress that goes into it. Olympic sized, I bet.
The fact that the awesome ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ was not introduced until the 1924 Paris games (7th edition), 30 years after initially suggested, feels like it had to go through endless rounds of corporate-like approvals.
Do the mottos exist now simply because the precedent was set?
Even though it must be one of the most difficult copywriting tasks imaginable to create an Olympic motto… it’s got to be much less taxing than proving to the powers that be that you shouldn’t have a brand essence in the first place.
Imagine the colossal amount of data, projections and market research you would have to conjure up to convince a board of directors that NOT having an essence is the way forward.
Do customers care about brand essence and purpose?
But do customers really give a hoot about brand essence or an Olympic motto?
My focus group (albeit tiny) on London 2012’s motto certainly shows that their essence wasn’t remembered.
But that didn’t reduce those spectators’ enjoyment…. or coming back for repeat business in the subsequent games.
Currently, there are so many podcasts, articles and LinkedIn posts on the future of business being all about needing to prove your credibility, worthiness and authenticity to their customers.
If your brand purpose isn’t aligned to the values of the zeitgeist, you’ll soon be in trouble, they say.
Your business must have a socially conscious purpose… and it better be authentic too!
But, do you?
Is brand purpose and essence truly that important to us, the customers?
If you’ve got a car, do you know what your car manufacturer’s slogan is?
The last beer you drank. Can you name the brand’s essence?
Your phone. Remember the company’s tagline?
Me neither.
Do any of the Starbucks customers feel (or know) the branding of "Rewarding everyday moments" every time they purchase?
Or do they just want a coffee to wake up a bit?
Rory Sutherland on Brands
As Rory Sutherland puts it, customers have brand loyalty not because they believe the brand is amazing and share their values.
Loyalty is there because the big brands have too much reputational skin in the game to risk making a crap product.
Customers employ a heuristic that a product from a known big brand is a reliable indicator of non-crapness.
So from Rory's perspective (and it’s always pretty bang on), there’s no customer that’s mentally checking-in with the brand essence before they purchase.
With brand choice, the primary B2C customer heuristic is avoiding buyer's regret.
Incidentally, Rory says that the primary heuristic driver in B2B purchases is avoiding blame. :)
Is Faster, Higher, Stronger the best brand essence ever?
Brand longevity is probably a good heuristic helper for non-crapness (in Rory’s words).
Faster, higher, stronger has been around for almost a century. That's a pretty amazing lifetime for a branding device.
Perhaps then, it is a contender for the best brand essence ever.
Will the updated ‘Faster, higher, stronger - together’ version still be around when we get to the Brisbane 2032 Olympics?
The IOC has possibly stepped through a one-way door with this, as they don’t strike you as the most super agile organisation on the planet.
Branding lesson for marketers?
But it might be worth noting for marketers that it took virtually a century for the IOC to update their essence.
Think of the Olympics.
It’s very difficult not to think of the 5 rings or maybe a flame.
Noise of individual Games’ logos, probably doesn’t come into the picture.
And almost certainly not the mottos (that some poor copywriter gave a good portion of their soul to).
That Olympics rings visual immediacy meets the challenge of the most important aspect of marketing.
Mental availability, cognitively ‘coming to mind’, being present in customers’ memory, is the ultimate challenge for contemporary marketers to overcome.
The mottos, the essence, of each separate Games play a very much reduced role.
As Mark Ritson says, customers don’t care about purpose or essence, and rebranding exercises to update essence happen far too frequently.
Maybe the right way to think about brand essence is to get it right the first time via quality research and copywriting.
And then abide by the maxim: ‘Longer, longer, longer’.
