Firebrand

Passion is what fuels brands.

Whether customers or employees, people who are passionate at the people you want to have around your brand. Passionate people are engaged and energetic. Passionate people give both their time and money to be apart of the community. Passionate people keep things exciting, and are more fun to be around. Passionate people attract other passionate people. Passionate people express themselves more, and are more creative. Passionate people are simply more motivated.

There are product and industries that a lot of people tend to naturally be passionate about. Cars, fashion, electronics, interior design, health, music, travel, literature, food and drink, etc. If you are in one of these industries than congratulations: you have a great supply of fuel for your brand.

But people who aren’t, don’t despair. You don’t need a lot of people who are passionate about your product or service. You only need a handful of people who are really passionate about your offering, and build upon them. Seth Godin makes a strong argument for this in Tribes. Because of telecommunications, the world has shrunk. It has never been easier to connect people so even the smallest nieche of passion is large enough. The true work lies in finding and connecting people.

I once was faced with the opportunity to do industrial design for a barbecue manufacturer. I found this exciting because I knew there were people out there extremely passionate about barbecues. To most people they are just another tool to cook food, but to some people they are the symbolic centre of a lifestyle. I dreamt of creating a community of barbecue enthusiasts that I could call upon to validate or critique designs, and generate new ideas and directions.

The passion, the fuel was there.

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large brands everyday designing displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

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