Introduction

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Brands forgot who they are, why they were born and who they serve. They traded affection for reach. Quality for appearance. Purpose for empty promises. They became wax dolls trying to look like something they are not, to sell what people do not even need.

Branding, that business word covered in glitter, was supposed to be about people. It became a vanity display, with recycled speech and ready made strategies. Everyone saying the same thing, everyone dressing the same way, everyone forgetting to be who they are.

I wrote this book to show how to build brands that are more human and less artificial. A brand like a person, with flaws and with the courage to be misread, as long as it is not empty. This book is not for everyone. It is for whoever understands that a brand is only worth something when it can solve real problems for real people.

From here on, will you find technical study? Yes. With soul, anger and clarity. You will find thoughts that kick the door open without asking. Getting this far is like driving the first miles of a long road. There is no turning back.

Enjoy the read.

A word from the author

Before we go on, I need an agreement with you.

In this book I will not reach for Silicon Valley unicorns or cases that live outside our reality. I will not use examples that only work in billion dollar markets, with endless teams and budgets that do not fit the life of someone building a business the hard way.

Here the examples start from the ground. From what is possible. From what happens in the real Brazil, with people who pay the bills, get it wrong, correct it and carry on. I will use brands I helped create and position. Small and medium businesses that had to learn in practice what positioning, limits, choice and responsibility mean.

They are not perfect stories. They are true ones. They show how to build strong and profitable brands. Even when money is short, time is tight and a mistake costs dearly.

Zé Paulo Gomes, brand designer.

The power of empathy

Picture the scene: you have to buy a gift for a secret Santa and you have no idea who the person is. You do not know what they like, what they need or what they truly value. Hard, right? Now think about it: if giving a gift to someone we do not know is already complicated, imagine creating a product or a brand without understanding who the people buying it are.

Creating with empathy is not self-help fluff. It is a strategy that costs little and is worth a lot! You know that great meal you had at a restaurant and were already planning to go back the following week? That car you test drove and kept wanting for days? Or the service that makes you go back to the same company or the same person every time? That is empathy!

It is not advertising. It is not luck. It is a real experience connecting people. And whoever creates those experiences does not need to be the cheapest one on the shelf to stand out. Whoever delivers what they feel stays out of the price war. They create desire. They create loyalty. They create a living brand.

What if brands could see the world through people's eyes? That is the power of empathy.

In everyday language, empathy is understood as "respecting other people's feelings" or "putting yourself in someone else's shoes". In the dictionary, it can be defined as the ability to grasp the meaning of an object, usually a work of art, such as a painting or a sculpture.

In psychology, it is a tool for interpreting human behavior and emotion. In sociology, it is the means by which a person understands the "social self" through three lenses:

• Seeing yourself through another person's opinion: "what do they think of me?"
• Seeing others through another person's opinion: "what do they think of that person?"
• Seeing others through their own opinion: "what do they think of themselves?"

Etymologically, the word empathy comes from the Greek "empatheia", meaning passion. And that word could be the key to everything here: after all, winning passionate people should be the highest goal of any organization.

But here is what holds many companies back: managers too focused on the numbers end up ignoring the impact of empathy on business.

In the book Empathy (2017), published by Harvard Business School, Daniel Goleman presents the concept of the empathy triad, divided into three dimensions:

• Emotional: the ability to feel what the other person feels. It helps build deep and true connections.
• Cognitive: the ability to rationally understand what the other person thinks, feels and values. It makes communication clear and precise.
• Compassionate: it goes beyond understanding or feeling. It is the ability to act on what the other person really needs.

These three forms, emotional, cognitive and compassionate, are like invisible tools that let people hear with more than their ears, see with more than their eyes and truly connect. If people can develop these skills, so can brands!

Meet the empathy triad of brands

Brands can also apply the empathy triad to see themselves, their competitors and their consumers in more depth.

First, seeing yourself through people's opinion:

• What does the consumer think of the brand?
• What do they value in it?
• What would they like to be better?

Second, seeing competitors through people's opinion:

• What does the consumer think of the competitors?
• What do they value in them?
• What would make them switch brands?

Third, seeing people through their own eyes:

• What are their beliefs and their views of the world?
• How do those beliefs shape their choices?
• What do they value or reject?
• What is their culture, their way of life, their circle?
• Where do their needs come from and how do they show up?

Brands with an empathetic stance reap results beyond the financial. They are loved, valued and able to win people's minds and hearts. Empathy is not only what the market is looking for, it is what makes brands more human. And maybe, in the end, that is what the world really needs.