At a Boy Scout ceremony last weekend, one of the new Eagle Scouts reminisced about building fires as a scout. So many fires of all kinds of wood. You could feel that he had loved every fire and he said that those fires would continue burning throughout his life as a result of his scout experiences.
In just a few seconds, a few sentences, an 18-year-old young man made the whole audience nostalgic for campfires. We could picture him as a young scout learning how to build those fires and we could imagine him as an older man, building fires with his own sons and grandsons, and sharing memories with them.
We felt something.
It’s an evocative branding story and the campfire is a significant icon of the scouting brand. The scouts are all about teaching boys life skills and every camping trip includes one of those campfires. That campfire is a key part of the brand experience for scouts: they work hard, they play hard, and when darkness comes, they gather, cook around a flame and keep that fire going for hours – for warmth, for entertainment. It wouldn’t be a scout camping experience without that campfire.
What is the campfire of your brand?
What is the centerpiece of your brand experience that draws people in?
How are you making people feel something about your brand by creating an experience?
Maybe you don’t have a raging fire or even a spark yet. There’s nothing wrong with picking up kindling to get started.
photo credit: zaps06
My friend, David Cohen, is offering a very affordable teleclass next week about personal branding (not an affiliate link). He’s the person who struck the match of branding for me and sparked these ideas about brand experience (stop me, Metaphor Police!). If you want to become intentional about your own brand, take his class and prepare to shift how you think and how you connect with people.
Related posts:
- Graduation Day
- Conversations with Smart People: Personal Branding with David S. Cohen, Part 2
- Is Your Brand Hand Knit?
By Laurie Foley
I'm Laurie Foley and I help solo professionals like you discover your natural brand so that you can get clear, get noticed and get clients. Please request your free copy of The Inner Brandifesto, my popular guidebook full of brand-building exercises.
