Welcome to “Brand Champions,” where we dive deep into the art and science of building unforgettable brands. Join us on Advertising Champions TV as branding gurus share their secrets to creating brand loyalty and driving impact. Discover the strategies behind iconic brand stories and learn how to stand out in a competitive marketplace. Today, our host, Olivia Rouse, spoke with Howie Chan of The Behavioring Company.
Howie Chan
Owner of The Behavioring Company
Website address: https://www.howiechan.com/
Short company description:
We bring the power of brand thinking and influence psychology to change human behavior for good.
How do you help a brand maintain consistency across multiple channels and platforms?
Embed the promise of the brand into the organization and stand up relevant brand systems.
What strategies do you use to build and maintain brand loyalty in a competitive market?
I prefer to use the term trust – it’s earned and maintained through 4 traits and it builds in drops and lost in buckets.
What’s your approach to navigating a brand crisis and rebuilding trust with audiences?
Don’t waste a good crisis; go above and beyond.
Transcript:
Olivia:
Hi, and welcome back to another segment of Brand Champions, where we highlight the brilliant minds behind brands today. This is your host, Olivia Rouse, and I’m so excited to have Mr. Howie Chan with The Behavioring Company with us today. Howie, how are you?
Howie:
I’m great, Olivia. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Olivia:
Absolutely. We are so excited to have someone as brilliant as you on the segment today. I want to ask first, what’s been bringing you joy in your work recently?
Howie:
Well, my joy is to be able to sort of spread the message and educate people about what brand is. I think a lot of people misunderstand what it is. Typically it defaults to your logo, your color. I mean, that’s all great and fine, but that’s not just what brand is.
Olivia:
No, definitely not. And so before I kind of dive into what you really do talk about in influencing and behaviors, I want to dive a little bit behind who you are. How is it that we know the version of you today that is so pivotal in the brand space?
Howie:
Yeah, I actually started out as a stem cell scientist.
Olivia:
No way. And, right.
Olivia:
What is what is story? My gosh.
Howie:
Yeah. I actually started as a stem cell scientist. I was into science. And, lo and behold, I figured out that I wasn’t really going to, you know, invent a cure for the next, you know, great big cure for cancer or something like that. I mean, I was good at the job, but yeah, but I wasn’t going to be that person.
Howie:
And I’m probably the most extroverted person in the lab, in a laboratory. So I realized I wanted to do something different. And that led me by opening a bunch of different doors, doing some different work, and ultimately landed in a place where I loved, which is the intersection of human behavior, of behavioral science, but also the art of communicating.
Howie:
So that’s where I fell in love with brand and brand strategy. And this whole idea of how can we get to know people better in terms of how they behave and shaping and influencing human behavior?
Olivia:
Wow. I mean, there’s so many beautiful things that you touch on there, from the art of communication to understanding people and being able to facilitate under a deep understanding, which I think is just the core of really our existence. And then how do we leverage that for the betterment of ourselves, our brands, our communities, everything. It kind of amplifies out, you know, from that individual and that understanding.
So tell me a little bit more about Influence Anyone, your podcast and newsletter.
Howie:
It brings me a lot of joy. So Influence Anyone is really an educational platform, not just for my audience but also for me. So I’m able to talk to experts around the world about what makes people tick, why do we do what we do, and to apply that to be able to, again, influence someone to do something.
Now, the most important thing to understand is everything that you want requires someone to do something. Think about that. Everything you want. Your goals, Olivia. My goals as a business owner. My goals as a parent. Yeah. You need other people to do something, right?
And so the base understanding is that we are emotional creatures who think. We’re not thinking creatures with feelings.
Olivia:
So great.
Howie:
Most of our decisions are made because of emotions. Actually, about 95% of our decisions are made subconsciously because our brain is really good at being super efficient and doing things in an automatic way.
Olivia:
Wow. I mean, it’s just incredible to see how you’re able to navigate all of those rabbit holes in psychology and that understanding and understanding really how decisions get made, and then how do we leverage that for everything that we’re looking to do from a brand.
I know you work in the medtech space, and that was so look for nerds and entrepreneurs. So tell me a little bit about the challenges that they tend to face, and how does what you’re able to educate them on from your platform allow them to make the most out of what they’re trying to get?
Howie:
Yeah. I feel like when someone approaches me with an issue, a problem is typically, “Hey, Howie, I need to build a brand. I need to get my word out there. I need to get the company out there. I need to have my authority and be credible so I can either look for a job or go write a book.”
But fundamentally, there are many levers to pull to influence human behavior. Brand is actually one of the hardest ones. It’s going to work the best for you over time. Because what is a brand? I define a brand as a network of memories that help inform the person to make a future decision about you.
Howie:
Right. It’s memory. Whereas there are other things that you can do to influence human behavior quickly.
So, for example, one of the things that you can do that is highly effective is leveraging this idea of social proof. It’s a principle from Dr. Robert Cialdini, a famous psychologist. But basically, it’s about helping people understand that, hey, a lot of people are doing that same thing. You should go do it too.
So that’s why there are a lot of reviews online. You look at reviews and you’re like, “Oh man, look at this thing I want to buy.” And there’s thousands of reviews, you know, 4.8. I might as well just do it because I don’t have time to go look at all the other different options.
Howie:
So that’s like a very specific one. Yeah. But it’s a lever that you pull that doesn’t stand the test of time or over time. So if you don’t see that review anymore and somehow you don’t get to have it front and center, you’re not going to make that same decision.
And that’s where branding comes in. That’s where brand comes in.
Olivia:
Absolutely. I mean, I love how you paint the picture of the levers because it really is so many individual factors. And then understanding for each individual that varies and being able to leverage it accordingly with the times as they change.
And I mean, even in today’s space, with AI entering every facet of business and especially branding and how that evolves, I wanted to ask you a little bit about what makes you excited for the future, especially seeing how the digital landscape is evolving so quickly and how influence also changes but yet stays the same. So what excites you about that?
Howie:
Yeah, Olivia, I think one of the key things to understand is that because of AI, there’s a democratization of creative. Right. So anyone can type in something and have an image, and all of that can be very quickly produced.
But understand that as humans, we’re very good at tuning out the noise. So what this means is that you’re going to see a proliferation of content, and if people are not continuing to be thoughtful about the content, it’s all going to start sounding the same.
Howie:
Yeah. And you can quickly see this on your platforms, whether you’re on LinkedIn or whether you’re on TikTok. If people are using just AI to produce content, you’re going to see the noise.
And as a brand strategist, as someone who lives and works in this space, there’s a tremendous opportunity to again push against all of that noise, to do something that helps people remember you.
You think about sort of three things. It’s encoding memory. It’s consolidating the memory. And then it’s retrieval of the memory. So you’re starting to put these memories in people’s minds so they can think about you when you’re not there.
And it requires differentiation. It requires relevance.
Olivia:
Wow. So eloquently put. It requires those things, and I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Where can we stay in touch and follow all the great things you’re doing on your platform?
Howie:
Absolutely. So Influence Anyone is a podcast. So look anywhere where you get your podcasts. You’ll find that. Go to howiechan.com. Find Howie Chan on LinkedIn. I’m very active there. I post something daily, so find me there.
Olivia:
Awesome. Well, thank you guys, so much for tuning in for another segment of Brand Champions. You will find more about Howie and the great work he’s doing on IndustryChamps.com, and we look forward to tuning in to the next segment.
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