Alexei Orlov Talks Brand Fusion
According to Alexei Orlov, most brands serve, but only an elite few go beyond. These brands create the trends along with bearing the responsibility of setting them. They serve and reshape. Success and notoriety come because they do more than lead. They transform opinion and reshape the way we think. These truths are told in enduring ways since they understand the necessity to speak in the familiar voice of the everyman.
Authority brands create staying power. These transcendent brands become part of the patina of what you know. Do you remember a moment, any moment, where someone was telling you a story about the time they had something like tomato soup, and that soup specifically reminded them of the warm nights they stayed inside and away from a cold, snowy winter night. It could even be that perfume, delicate rose, or lavender that reminds them of their mother and perfect love. Or the storyteller asks you to imagine that special chocolate popping out from an ice cream cone that reminds you of a happy, sunny day. Alexei Orlov believes in spotlighting the goodness wrapped up in these sense memories that personally matter.
Love Brands
Everyone has what they call “love brands.” It could be unique products, places, or moments that make us feel much better. The idea is that there are still corners in the world that are safe, enduring, and good. In particular research about how people relate to brands, Alexei Orlov quoted one serious shopper who said that an authority brand was like “a friend or a person they had grown to admire. If suddenly they were gone, never to return, they would be left standing, and that missing feeling would not go away quickly. It is like a connection that develops towards a specific brand and stays part of someone’s life.”
Authority Brands Make Good on Promises
According to Alexei Orlov, most authority brands did not, from the outset, plan to be the biggest or the best, but start hoping only to be the best version of themselves possible. They create and then arrange the pieces that eventually make up their brand, and they do it with planning and precision. These game-changing brands do not create noise just to make any noise or call attention to themselves. Any brand can do that. The random noisemakers usually come across to consumers as empty and hold little sustainability.
So, what matters the most for brands? Alexei Orlov knows that the one thing authority brands do is live up to the claims they’ve made. This action of making good on promises made to consumers shows us exactly who they are at the core.
Alexei Orlov reminds us that the authority brands’ focus always remains on its quintessential prize. It was the best way of becoming necessary to consumers who wanted them. Orlov pointed out that these brands understand absolute excellence in today’s consumer-driven world. It is not about saying what they do and boasting about that but instead doing what they say. Notably, most businesses will try to market themselves by any means possible, and most of the time, they promise what they know that they can never achieve. It is a common practice since a brand, in an example Alexei Orlov uses, can say they bake fresh bread and then deliver upon that, but know that this is just the beginning.
Brands understand that the market has become significantly more competitive. It makes them want to put themselves out there, and the best way to do that is by promising more. Alexei Orlov continued with his previous example, adding that a ‘brand might say that theirs is the most delicious bread made of the finest organic produce or perhaps like the mantra behind a well-known postal service business, ‘we deliver your promises.’
Authority Brands are What They Do
For many authority brands, it is not so much a dramatic change. What sets them apart is the excellence of what they do continually. They are always looking for that extra 5%. That is the magic that somehow makes 100% of the difference with other brands.
About Alexei Orlov
With experience spanning 30 years, 40 countries, and 50 brands, Alexei Orlov has made life his business and business his life as a seasoned leader in Global Marketing. Alexei’s passionate and dynamic leadership has been a driving force throughout his career, a proven specialist in global brand strategy, marketing deployment, and operational change management. Alexei Orlov is the Founder and Global CEO of MTM choice, a boutique network of skilled practitioners specializing in high-precision brand activation and media optimization. Bolstered by market-enabling technologies, MTM agencies seek to help brands excel at the “moments that matter” for their customers and consumers.
