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1. An Iconic Founder
Nothing builds a self-expressive benefit brand more effectively than the
constant personification of the brand in the form of one person, especially the
founder. CEOs come and go, but founders are forever. As a poor teen in the
1830s, Louis Vuitton
walked
three hundred miles to Paris, barefoot. He
established himself as an expert box maker, and before long was crafting
exquisite trunks for the empress of France and wife of Napoleon III, Eugénie
de Montijo.
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Vuitton was the prototype for the iconic founder. These entrepreneurs have
life stories with compelling ups and downs, along with a skill set that is more
commonly found in museums than in stores. Art, and the democratization of
art (artisanship), fuels and sustains their brands. These founders usually rise
from the artisan class. They are blessed/cursed with knowing early what they
must do with their lives: make beautiful things. They have no choice.
It’s easy to be cynical about bling and the frivolity of the sector. However,
drive a Porsche 911, see your cheekbones pop with NARS Orgasm Blush, or
find your gaze more intense, your objective more resolute, because you are
the guy wearing Brunello Cucinelli. That’s why artisans have created more
wealth than any cohort in modern history. “Some people think luxury is the
opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity,” said Coco
Chanel.
To grasp the power of Steve Jobs as the icon for innovation, think of young
Elvis. If he had died in his twenties after the Sun Studio sessions and before
he left for the army, we never would have seen him waddling across Las
Vegas stages in white-bangled bell bottoms. Elvis exited before he hit forty.
If he had hung around a few decades longer, he’d be doing oldies acts on
retirement cruises, and Graceland would be a mobile home park. Dying
removes the icon from the inevitable judgment of everyday existence,
including aging, and elevates persona to legend—ideal for a brand. Imagine
what the Tiger Woods brand would be worth to Nike if, instead of fading into
mediocrity, the once-iconic golf star had been run over by his wife that night
she discovered he couldn’t keep his putter in his bag. That’s arguably one of
the few upsides to a public figure passing away—it inoculates them from
foolish acts that destroy their reputation and, worse, aging. We know that the
Founding Fathers of this country were quietly relieved when George
Washington shuffled off this mortal coil—because he was then past the risk
of tarnishing his sterling reputation.
It doesn’t matter if the iconic founder was a jerk in real life. Apple proves
this. The world has created a Jesus-like hero worship of Steve Jobs. In reality
it appears that Steve Jobs was not a good person, and a flawed father. He sat
in court and denied his own blood, refusing to pay child support to a daughter
he knew was biologically his, even though by then he was worth several
hundred million dollars. And, as already noted, he also appears to have
perjured himself to government investigators regarding the stock option
program at Apple.
Yet when Jobs died, in 2011, the world mourned, with thousands posting
shrines on the internet, at Apple headquarters, and company stores around the
world—and even in front of his old high school. This marked the deification
of the iconic founder, moving from stardom to sainthood—a shift made even
easier by Jobs’s increasingly ascetic look in his final years.
Since then, Apple’s brand has burned brighter. There are few better
examples of what Pope Francis refers to as an unhealthy “idolatry of money”
than our obsession with Steve Jobs. It is conventional wisdom that Steve Jobs
put “a dent in the universe.” No, he didn’t. Steve Jobs, in my view, spat on
the universe. People who get up every morning, get their kids dressed, get
them to school, and have an irrational passion for their kids’ well-being, dent
the universe. The world needs more homes with engaged parents, not a better
fucking phone.
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