Learning From 100 Years of the World’s Greatest Brand

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Disney Company, arguably the world’s greatest brand. Most lists put them in an elite category that includes Apple and Coca-Cola.

So this is a good excuse to celebrate the magic of this amazing company and explore this idea — what does it take to be among the world’s greatest brands? Is this something you could achieve?

The basics of the brand

In my book Belonging to the Brand, consultant Evelyn Starr defines a brand as: “The expectation of what you will get when you interact with an entity based on prior experiences with, and impressions of, that entity.”

Ideally, we would like that expectation and emotion to be expressed as trust, respect, and maybe even love.

Branding is critically important in a world overrun with choices. So the emotion attached to a brand creates trust and meaning. It helps create a signal above the noise.

It’s not easy to achieve, but I’ll show today that it’s not all about the money.

So much money, so little brand

To demonstrate the power of the emotional attachment to a brand, let’s do a little exercise.