When I conduct branding research for my non profit client, after establishing what the interviewee perceives the values of the NPO to be, I probe to see what human associations the person makes with the values. I give an example. I say “When you think ‘nonviolence’ you may think ‘Gandhi’. 30% or more seem to make absolutely no association. Truth. Freedom. Democracy. Whatever the value, no connection is made with an individual. Yet the rest are passionate about their connections. They are very real to them. Those people are able to think abstractly, metaphorically while the 30% perhaps can not.
Every year on October 2nd (International Nonviolence Day) people adorn this statue of Gandhi with flowers and leave offerings of cookies at his feet. As if this were the real man, wafer thin, walking barefoot across India to create his nation. Yet this is but a rigid stone figure in Union Square, New York, 2007. And the rats will probably get the cookies.
We straddle a seesaw of magic and reality; of compassion and pragmaticism. We are continually putting human faces to abstract values. Every day. Understanding this perception as it relates to the values is an important part of branding – in the NPO world, especially – where values are the essence of our work.