What Great Brands Do

4. A great brand invents or reinvents an entire category.

The common ground that you find among brands like Disney, Apple, Nike, and Starbucks is that these companies made it an explicit goal to be the protagonists for each of their entire categories. Disney is the protagonist for fun family entertainment and family values. Not Touchstone Pictures, but Disney. Apple wasn't just a protagonist for the computer revolution. Apple was a protagonist for the individual: anyone could be more productive, informed, and contemporary.

From my experience at Nike, I can tell you that CEO Phil Knight is the consummate protagonist for sports and the athlete. That's why Nike transcends simply building shoes or making apparel. As the protagonist for sports, Nike has an informed opinion on where sports is going, how athletes think, how we think about athletes, and how we each think about ourselves as we aim for a new personal best.

At Starbucks, our greatest opportunity is to become the protagonist for all that is good about coffee. Go to Ethiopia and you'll immediately understand that we've got a category that is 900 years old. But here in the United States, we're sitting on a category that's been devoid of any real innovation for five decades.

A great brand raises the bar -- it adds a greater sense of purpose to the experience, whether it's the challenge to do your best in sports and fitness or the affirmation that the cup of coffee you're drinking really matters.

5. A great brand taps into emotions.

It's everyone's goal to have their product be best-in-class. But product innovation has become the ante you put up just to play the game: it's table stakes.

The common ground among companies that have built great brands is not just performance. They recognize that consumers live in an emotional world. Emotions drive most, if not all, of our decisions. Not many people sit around and discuss the benefits of encapsulated gas in the mid-sole of a basketball shoe or the advantages of the dynamic-fit system. They will talk about Michael Jordan's winning shot against Utah the other night -- and they'll experience the dreams and the aspirations and the awe that go with that last-second, game-winning shot.

A brand reaches out with that kind of powerful connecting experience. It's an emotional connection point that transcends the product. And transcending the product is the brand.

6. A great brand is a story that's never completely told.

A brand is a metaphorical story that's evolving all the time. This connects with something very deep -- a fundamental human appreciation of mythology. People have always needed to make sense of things at a higher level. We all want to think that we're a piece of something bigger than ourselves. Companies that manifest that sensibility in their employees and consumers invoke something very powerful.

Look at Hewlett-Packard and the HP Way. That's a form of company mythology. It gives employees a way to understand that they're part of a larger mission. Every employee who comes to HP feels that he or she is part of something that's alive. It's a company with a rich history, a dynamic present, and a bright future.

Levi's has a story that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush. They have photos of miners wearing their dungarees. And every time you notice the rivets on a pair of their jeans, at some level it reminds you of the Levi's story and the rich history of the product and the company. Ralph Lauren is trying to create history. His products all create a frame of mind and a persona. You go into his stores and there are props and stage settings -- a saddle and rope. He's not selling saddles. He's using the saddle to tell a story. Stories create connections for people. Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience.

7. A great brand has design consistency.

Look at what some of the fashion brands have built -- Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, for example. They have a consistent look and feel and a high level of design integrity. And it's not only what they do in the design arena; it's what they don't do. They refuse to follow any fashion trend that doesn't fit their vision. And they're able to pull it off from one season to the next.

That's just as true for strong brands like Levi's or Gap or Disney. Most of these companies have a very focused internal design process. In the case of Nike, between its ad agency Wieden & Kennedy and Nike Design shop, probably 98% of every creative thing that could possibly be done is handled internally, from hang tags to packaging to annual reports. Today Nike has about 350 designers working for it -- more than any company in the country -- to make sure it keeps close watch over the visual expression of the brand.