Micheal Campion: Let's talk about needs and dreams. How do needs and dreams affect brand design, a brand strategy, and can you give me an example of, maybe a client that you've worked with?‍

Bob Sheard: Yeah, the needs and the dreams business. We're selling needs and dreams. It's our rational connection to a brand that affects that we want and need it. It's our emotional connection to a brand that helps shape our dreams and aspirations for ourselves. The needs and the dreams business is very well articulated. I once did this in a luxury conference where I asked the audience to lift their arm in the air if they were wearing a watch, and most of the arms went up. It being a luxury audience, about 99% went up while wearing luxury watches. I then said put your other hand up if you own a phone. And then all the arms went up and literally said you don't need the watch, you have the phone. It tells you the time. So what's the watch doing? All the watch is doing is it's communicating what you're dreaming of being, and so put your hands down if your watch isn't a Rolex. So half the hands went down. The hands that were still up, we know that all those people were dreaming of being the hero in their life story. They're dreaming of them being the Roger Federer in their own life, so it can really portray what we're dreaming of. So when we're doing that, managing a brand when we worked on Suunto, for example, Suunto being the outdoor watch from Finland. We know that if anyone goes into a boardroom and they're wearing Suunto, what they're actually doing is they're saying I need to tell the time, but I'm dreaming of being an explorer or I'm dreaming of being an adventurer. So it's understanding what the consumer needs, but what they're dreaming of can help you define that, and I think Rolex has done that phenomenally. They are the hero's watch. So anyone that's dreaming of being the hero in their story or other people's story, they tend to wear Rolex.

Micheal Campion: Well, the watch industry is a fascinating one for this because, as you said, no one actually needs one anymore, but all the, especially luxury Swiss watchmakers, all they essentially do is storytelling. That's the only thing that kind of differentiates them, Patek Philippe being the obvious one. You never really own one, you're looking after it for the next generation. The most dangerous thing for any any product or service is to become a commodity so shaping that addiction, if you will, is crucial. Can you think of anyone else that's doing a fantastic job of really fighting against what should be a commodity and making it into something really desirable?

Bob Sheard: If you tend to look at watch advertising, it heavily relies on the design cues of the watch to differentiate the brand. So you can see from the design cues that a Panerai is a Panerai. You can see from the design cues that an Omega is an Omega. You can see how different a Breitling is. Fact is, they're all predicated off adventure. A Breitling is aviation, Panerai is diving, Omega is astronauts, so it's, but it's all adventurer as an exploration. So they present their watches very visually and allow the watch to create the design of the watch, to create the differentiation. It's actually very presentational. It's not very persuasive. The pioneer of persuasion in the watch sector is a mentor of mine called Tim Delaney, and he realized that actually the thing you do with the watch is you create legacy and one of the biggest human drivers is existential 'what's the meaning of why I'm here and what will be of me when I'm gone'. And he was the guy that wrote you never actually own a Patek. And he really innovated the idea of persuasive communication within that sector. And so, yeah, he definitely had an idea of what people needed, but what they were dreaming of and in his case, in Patek, it's dreaming of leaving a legacy.