Creation of an Emotion-Triggering Brand
A real brand in the business world is a product or service that the consumer has a deep psychological affinity for. The consumer places meaning in the product or service.
First, let's discuss what a brand is and what it is not. Name recognition is not a brand. What I mean by that is that any company with a large advertising budget can gain name recognition. If they advertise enough, they will gain name recognition. Branding is deeper and more elusive than name recognition
What is a Real Brand? This is a key question and often debated in marketing circles. From my perspective, a real brand is:
A commercial entity whose symbol or message when communicated to the consumer triggers a deep emotional response and creates intense loyalty.
For this definition an entity could be a company, product, person... or even your home. That is a brand, not just a product. Intel has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to create their "brand". What is their slogan? "Intel Inside". Simple enough you might say. But what does it mean? The emotional response they are striving for is that "Intel Inside" means performance, stability and reliability. These are pretty important issues when it comes to computing. They are drilling into us that unless there is Intel Inside, you are at peril.
They are speaking to our emotions and they have created a brand. Let's break this down and simplify the components of branding:
1. Commercial Entity
The commercial entity could be a company like Nike. It could be a product like Marlboro cigarettes. It could be a person such as Ralph Lauren. Are these real brands? Absolutely. What emotions or feelings do these brands evoke in us? Just do it as in being victorious, a strong independent macho cowboy and style. Great marketers do not sell products. They evoke emotion. In your case, the commercial entity is real estate, a home. We want to connect your home with an emotion in the buyer.
2. Communication of a Symbol or Message
How is the branding message communicated? It is communicated in one of five ways or combinations of any or all of them.
a. Visual (Images and Words)
The symbol or message can be visual (pictures or print) such as television, print or online ads. If you see a beautiful western setting and a picture of a cowboy riding his horse, what is it selling?
b. Auditory (Sound)
The message can be heard such as on television or radio ads or online wave files. The rumble of a Harley Davidson. The roar of the Twentieth Century Fox lion. What about the use of sound bytes in public relations? Are not’t the PR spin masters trying to evoke some type of emotion with a sound byte? "How do you spell relief?" "The Pepsi Generation." "Things go better with Coke."
c. Kinesthetic (Touch)
The message can be delivered by having us touch something, like a product display in a store. The kinetic experience with a product can be reinforced with a branding message such as "Soft to the touch." "Gentle on your skin."
d. Olfactory (Smell)
The message can be communicated by a smell, such as a fragrance or a household product. Do you recognize the smell of Lysol? Does it evoke a sense of cleansing or freshness?
e. Gustatory (Taste)
The taste of a food product can trigger the emotional response. Take the Pepsi challenge. At least Pepsi is trying to convince us that their taste is different and if you drink Pepsi you will be "in" the Pepsi generation.
3. Evokes an Emotional Response
The key to branding is the triggering of a deep emotional response. This deep emotional response is often the key benefit of using the product that the marketer wants to program into us.
Many times this deep emotional response has nothing to do with the product. What is important is that the desired emotion gets linked to the product.
Let me explain. Have you ever heard or read this commercial message? "You've come a long way, baby." If you have, did it trigger an image? Maybe a tall beautiful woman ... holding a cigarette. This advertisement was communicated in print and on television to sell a brand of cigarettes.
What does this image have to do with cigarettes? Nothing directly. The woman in the advertisement is not telling you that the cigarette is scientifically better than the competition. What she is communicating to you is that you can be like her if you smoke that brand. What is the message that is really being sold here? If you (women in their twenties and thirties) buy these cigarettes than you will be this beautiful woman, who has come a long way on her own and is now this self actualized, self reliant, a strong gorgeous babe.
Wow, what's in those cigarettes anyway? It is about the Trigger.
Companies that have built great brands do this all the time. Nike and Tiger Woods. Pepsi and Michael Jackson or Britney Spears. Nike and Michael Jordan. If you drink Pepsi, you will be like Britney Spears (targeting young women) 
or you will attract someone like Britney (targeting young men and Bob Dole). Does Britney drink Pepsi? Who knows. Pepsi is linking their product to a known trigger (Britney) that evokes a consistent emotion in the desired demographic. After you see the association enough times, Britney becomes less important such that Pepsi by itself will trigger the emotion that was originally created by watching Britney.
Here is how it works: Pepsi = Britney = Strong Positive Emotion
Drill this into the audience time and time again and pretty soon you have:
Pepsi = Strong Positive Emotion
Therefore you buy Pepsi to obtain the emotion. After a while that may fade so what does Pepsi do? They hire the next hot trigger that speaks to their target market and they link their product to him or her.
4. Creating Intense Client/customer Loyalty
Think about Harley Davidson. They have been attempting to trademark their sound, which became a complex legal argument for the courts. The sound of a Harley roaring by triggers the feeling of freedom and independence in their target market.
Does it work? You have to wait months to get a new Harley due to the demand. Is Harley a real brand? You bet.
"I would rather fight than switch." Have you heard this one? This was drilled into the American public years ago by another tobacco company. They know how to create loyalty. In fact, they were attempting to program us to beat people up before we would switch brands. (I am not promoting smoking by the way, but big tobacco is a master at branding)
How Branding applies to you This is how real brands are built. Of course the products and services have to be world class for brands to thrive over the long term, but the key to branding is creating an emotion in your clients/customers.
How does this apply to your home?
I create a story or a theme that will resonate with the buyers emotionally. At least that is the intention. This is advertising and art direction, not listing a home. The two things are different. Most agents are not marketers. You be the judge.