Most Brands Serve. Then there are just a few that do much more; they serve and they shape. They are famously successful, because they do more than lead, they transform opinion, reshape the way we think and utilise things. They are the Trend Makers, not just ‘setters’. Their truths are beautifully told, in ways that endure, for they know the skill and power of speaking in the common voice of ordinary man. Authority Brands stay with us, they become part of the patina of what we know, like, understand. You hear someone telling of that fabulous time when they had that tomato soup and that now it reminds them of warm nights tucked away from the cold. Or that perfume, delicate rose and lavender perhaps, that reminds them of mother and perfect love. That special chocolate popping out from an ice cream cone – happy, sunny days – the cough mixture you swear by even after thirty years, never mind all the other options – and so it goes on; cocoons of good that personally matter. We all have what some call ‘Love Brands’ – our special products, places, moments that make us feel better – that there are still corners in the world safe, enduring and good. Whilst researching how people relate to Brands, one serious shopper put it this way: ‘An Authority Brand is like a friend or a person I have grown to admire. If suddenly they were gone, never to return, I think I would be left standing, and that ‘missing’ feeling would not go away easily. Most Authority Brands did not, from the outset set out to be the biggest, or the greatest, but to be the very best that they could be. They engineered their reputation from within. These ‘Server – Shaper’ Brands know that there is little credibility in noise itself, for anyone can do that, what matters is how they live their claims; what they truly are. Their focus was – and is entirely and absolutely on what they see as the absolute prize: To be indispensable to those who want them. They understand that there is more to real excellence in today’s cut and thrust world than just feeling good about saying what they do and doing what they say – because that is common language for any good business; they know by example, that saying they bake fresh bread and then delivering upon that is just the start. They know that they have to put themselves out there and promise more. The most delicious bread made of the finest organic produce, or perhaps like the mantra behind a well-known postal service business, ‘we deliver your promises’. For many of these Authority Brands then, it is not so much dramatic change but the excellence of what they do on a continual basis that sets them apart. They are constantly looking for the extra 5% – the magic that somehow makes the 100% of difference.