National Public Radio recently aired a great feature with Martin Lindstrom. Lindstrom is the author of a recent book called Brandwashed. Based on the NPR story, I cannot wait to read the whole book.

 Two amazing tidbits from the NPR piece about the power of brands:

• Lindstrom says companies get their hooks into us earlier than we may have thought; he says the average American 3-year-old can recognize 100 brands.
• He says that we talk about brands 25% of the time, and even up to 50% of the conversation around the dinner table.  I can’t wait to test the theory out. How many of our discussions are related either directly or indirectly to a brand.

Lindstrom also wrote a recent article for Fast Company: How Whole Foods “Primes” You To Shop. The article notes that everything about a Whole Foods store is carefully crafted (faked?) to communicate to the consumer. Farm crates holding fruit and vegetables, fresh flowers by the entrance, chalkboard signs, lots of displays containing ice, and more are carefully planned signals planted by marketers.  ”Without a shadow of doubt, Whole Foods leads the pack in consumer priming.”

Lindstrom’s work goes to the core of trademarks and brands and explores why consumers buy what they do and how they brands and marketers influence decisions we make every day.

 Tip:  Given how important brands are to every business today – more important than ever given the speed of communication, the plethora of competition, and the prevalence of social media and other interactive networks – are your brands properly card for and protected?