Watch this TED Talk: it’s amazing and this blog post relies on you watching it.
Warning: the text below has spoilers for the TED Talk above.
In Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk, she demonstrated how our body language not only dictates how others see us, but how we see ourselves. As I watched this video, my first thought was, “all those after school specials were right, you need to fake it till you make it!” My second thought was, “what does body language look like for brands?”
Brands assert their personality and values through all communications, both within and outside of the company. Because brands aren’t physically people, they’re dominance and character is mostly seen through word choices and images/sounds associated with the brand.
The following picture is a perfect example:
- Powerful Yogurt, because Greek yogurt is for weaklings.
I found this shelf of yogurt at the grocery store a few weeks ago and I just died of laughter. Apparently, yogurt companies think that they need to look dominant to appeal to men, and the only way to be dominant is with the color black and toned abs. You can also see the differentiation in brand through the no-nonsense font and the word “powerful”; much different than the more flowery “Swiss” yogurt next to it.
This is a silly example, but big brands really do pay attention to every word choice and every image being released to the public. What ads have you seen that you think show dominance?
Allison Munson 
One reply on “TED: What is your brand’s body language?”
First – I loved the video. Second – I love the association you have made between the video and brand marketing. We often see this association in companies who boast that they are the #1 brand X when they are bringing a new product to market that has not been proven and, yet, we as consumers are drawn to that #1 image.