Ernie Harker Podcast Transcript
Ernie Harker joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive today’s guest is Ernie Harker Ernie Harker known as the billion-dollar branding guy is a consultant speaker and author of your brand sucks starting his career as a concept artist in 1993 he founded Ernburn.
A production studio celebrated for its work in illustration, animation, video ads, and brand development. Ernie’s expertise includes creating multi-billion dollar brands like Maverick, Adventures First Stop and collaborating with icons such as Chuck Norris. His acclaimed book and workshops reveal the secrets behind transforming companies into remarkable profitable brands known for his dynamic personality and passion for brand development. Ernie Harker inspires organizations worldwide to redefine their brand strategies and thrive.
Well, good afternoon, Ernie. Welcome to the show!
Ernie Harker: Thanks for having me!
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I appreciate you making the time. I know you travel a lot, speak a lot and do these sorts of things. So, again, I appreciate you squeezing in a little bit of time to get on a pod today.
So, Ernie, let’s just jump right into your first question here. You started your career as a concept artist and went on to create multi-billion dollar brands. How has your approach to branding evolved from those early days at ErnBurn to working with global icons like Chuck Norris.
Ernie Harker: That’s a great question.
Well, as an illustrator, our job is to create a visual that quickly captivates attention. It has to stand out and that illustration needs to make sure that you communicate the difference or uniqueness or a message very, very quickly. Branding is the same way. It’s got to get attention and it has to convey some type of message very, very quickly.
Working with Chuck Norris, it’s kind of interesting. Chuck Norris, he’s an icon in himself. You know, the whole world knows Chuck Norris, but he was developing a water brand that was focused on a brand asset of purity. So, everything about this brand was focusing on purity rather than him, which is kind of interesting because he is an icon.
Purity doesn’t really have a strong visual connection.
Brian Thomas: I really appreciate that, Ernie. I understand it’s hard to associate Chuck Norris as an example with a brand of purity. Just doesn’t really mix necessarily. What I liked about the start of your career as a concept artist. Obviously being very visual helps a lot your audience understand or get the message a lot quicker.
So, I appreciate the share. Ernie in your book, your brand sucks. You highlight common branding mistakes. What are the most critical errors you’ve seen companies make and how can they turn these around to create a more impactful brand?
Ernie Harker: I think the biggest mistake brands make, or companies make in their branding is they first approach it as a graphic design exercise. They need a logo. They need a website. And they don’t even start with their brand strategy. And the strategy is really, what is it that makes my company unique, special? I call it your brand spark, that the one point of difference that is unlike any other company. If you start with that, and then you reach to the second level or the second stage, which is, who’s my target audience?
And be very, very specific. Not just anybody who would be willing to buy your product, but like, who is most likely to be interested in my most unique attribute, my brand Spark, and willing to spend a premium dollar for that. Third, is realize your core belief. Why are you in this industry? Bringing your best energy, your best creativity to this industry.
Articulate that because it’s going to help formulate a feeling. around the language and personality of your brand. And the fourth one in the brand strategy is establish your brand adjectives. Like how would somebody describe your company? Not in terms of, you know, I’ve heard things like honest. These aren’t values.
Or integrity or high value. How would you describe the personality of your company? Because those adjectives also describe brand assets like colors, fonts, textures, design, which are employed to create a logo and create a website. So, if you don’t start with that brand strategy first, you might be creating a logo or a website or marketing materials, you That isn’t in line with your brand.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I wish they would teach this in school. You know, I know maybe if you’re a marketing major, you might get some of this, but it seems to be just about everything we learn from the school of hard knocks, it seems. Yeah. And we go through these experiences just to find out, gosh, I just spent all these, all this time, all this money on something that I wish I had known up front.
Ernie Harker: You know, I wish they did because in marketing and business school, they talk about value. Make sure that you offer enough at a lower price to persuade a prospect. Whereas in design, you don’t even think about, you’re not even informed about the outcome, the business goal. Design, you’re just trying to be different, be unique.
And so, when you have two different people who don’t understand the big picture talking to each other, there’s something majorly lost in translation.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Thank you for helping our audience understand that. That’s very helpful, Ernie. You bet. And Ernie, your dynamic personality is a key part of your brand.
How important is it for companies to infuse personality into their branding? And what advice do you have for leaders looking to do this effectively?
Ernie Harker: Personality is everything because it’s personality that creates an emotional connection. To your audience, for me, my energy, enthusiasm, my look, I’m healthy.
I exercise a lot. I wear bright red clothes when I’m on stage. I intentionally create a package for the product called Ernie that elicits as very specific positive emotion. Energetic, enthusiastic, optimistic. The package needs to kind of spark a feeling and branding is no different for a company or any kind of product.
I talk about myself as if I were a product, as if I were a canned, good, a packaged package, consumer product. You have to think of that way. You have to think about yourself that way. If you are the sole proprietor, if you are a solopreneur, if you are the service business and kind of separate yourself. You know, the person you take to pick a home, the person who drives to and from work, that’s a different person.
The person you promote and you market needs to be authentic, yes, but you also need to exaggerate or highlight its most attractive attributes. Kind of like the way hamburger companies, they paint a beautiful picture of this hamburger. They, you know, take a photograph of it and they photo retouch it and they make it look awesome.
It’s not always the same picture you get when you open up your own hamburger. You open up your own carton and the hamburger doesn’t quite look like the ad. Well, the reason we do that is because when we see something that appealing, it triggers an emotion inside of us. So we need to create brands for ourselves, our companies that trigger an emotional reaction because according to science, brain science, marketing science, 95 percent of all purchase decisions are emotionally based, not cognitively, not mathematically where I weigh out the features and benefits to the cost.
That’s how that happens. Way after the product or service is already sold.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. You’re right. You’ve got to differentiate yourself or your company from your competition and sometimes obviously being authentic, as you mentioned, but just having that energy, having something that’s positive that people can look to and maybe resonate with or get attracted to.
I, so I really do appreciate that.
Ernie Harker: You know, like real quick that the Chuck Norris I mentioned, they developed a whole series of branding assets based on the color red. So, their packaging had red accents, the lid was red, and they did that because they wanted to stand out in a ocean, literally, of blue.
Because every water product is kind of blue. Well, the problem was that that red didn’t have a meaning behind the difference. So being different is only half the battle. You have to be different with the meaning and once we associated Chuck Norris ness to the red by using images of Chuck Norris, icons of Chuck Norris, phrases like punch thirst in the throat, that now has, gives the red a meaning behind the difference.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. So, Ernie, last question of the day. You’ve been dubbed the Billion-dollar Branding Guy. In your experience, how does effective branding directly impact a company’s profitability? And can you share a specific example where branding significantly boosted a company’s bottom line?
Ernie Harker: Well, one of the companies I worked for and developed a brand for is a convenience store company called Maverick, the Maverick convenience store chain.
They, they, they now operate about 800 stores. At the time I started working with them, they operated just a little over a hundred, but their brand was an old Western themed, complete with, you know, a cowboy as a mascot, everything about their brand screamed value. And so they developed a reputation over the past like 40 plus years that they were a cheap brand.
Meaning their gas was very poor quality, but it was inexpensive. Their products were kind of low quality, but they were inexpensive. We developed my team and I developed a new brand for them that was an adventure themed brand. It was contemporary. It was exciting It was bold and fun and that brand that new brand theme Influenced everything about the company it influenced their interior design They it influenced their exterior design of the stores.
It influenced the feeling Associated with shopping at a convenience store as a result You While the Maverick stores only made-up 20 percent of the locations in our market, we were selling 25 percent of the fuel in our locations, which meant we had 33 plus percent more business than we did. At our stores than our competitors.
It wasn’t because our gas was any better, or our soda pop tasted any different. Primarily, it was a brand. And that brand ended up growing, when I was there in an 8-year period of time, we saw the company grow in value over 600%. So, no change in the products we sold. A huge change in the brand. So, there’s a pretty clear illustration of how branding affects the bottom line.
Brian Thomas: I love that story. And we hear it a lot. We hear about, gosh, you know, your product might be fine, but it’s your messaging. And I saw something recently on LinkedIn. There was a message. It was like, I don’t know if they were AB testing, but it showed one example of a product. And then another, in fact, I think it was Halo Top ice cream.
I don’t know if you saw it, but they changed the branding on the front. And to your point, I think it increased sales, something crazy like 500%. But yeah, it’s amazing how that works. And I appreciate there’s people out there like you that are helping people along helping business owners. And I really appreciate that.
So, thank you so much, Ernie.
Ernie Harker: My pleasure. My pleasure.
Brian Thomas: And Ernie, it’s been such a pleasure today and I really look forward to speaking to you real soon.
Ernie Harker: Awesome.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Ernie Harker Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
