I’ve always thought of this guy as a pompous windbag – a sentiment cemented in place while working at Saatchi and Saatchi from 2000-2005. So, good riddance.

However, I adore the Lovemarks book. In fact, my copy came straight from his fat little hands and i’ve read it at least five times. It’s not the writing (which kinda sucks) but rather the leap he makes from traditional marketing and advertising assumptions about creativity and selling to something a little deeper. More importantly he manages to package this idea into an easily digestible, pop culture style narrative. Thanks for that buddy.

A sharp value proposition and a pretty picture are still part of the equation but what Lovemarks is all about is how a brand fits in your life, says something important about you to your friends and most of all how it makes you feel about yourself. No, not revolutionary in and of itself but equating our relationships with brands to our relationships with people was a revelation to me. We keep people around us that make us feel a certain way about our own lives – we do the same with brands and products. It’s simple but profound.

But, because this is more complicated a concept than “Sex Sells” or any of the “22 immutable Laws of Branding” people found it stilted and lofty. Then a few years later Apple started rising in the market and interest in this type of concept peaked. Sure enough, the Lovemarks moniker found its way into our collective lexicon.

Anyway, he’s not saying anything different in this resignation announcement – anything different than what’s in the ten year old book anyway. But you know me, any excuse for a rant.

Originally written while working at Akavit – used with their permission.