I'm basically reposting my comments on this video from my company blog...
The big takeaway is in the first few lines of this video:
"This is a very complicated world. This is a very noisy world and we're not going to get a chance... to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us."
The whole branding/selling thing goes like this...
Lunch pitch ~15 minutes > Bar pitch: ~5 minutes > Elevator pitch: ~30 seconds > ?
That last one is your brand. It's the ultimate quick pitch. You've got 5 seconds, what do you want someone to know about you and what you do for a living?
A company like apple does not have 5 seconds. People know about apple and their products much that they need to.
You give an elevator pitch if you are unknown to an investor. Perhaps a company which is unknown might have 30 seconds to tell the world - if they can afford it - who they are, so that they can get others to remember their brand.
Once their brand is remembered however, you have 30 seconds to maintain your statues quo. Like some Cadbury ads. If you remember the one with the gorilla drumming, it hardly tells us anything about Cadbury, let alone the most important thing. It just makes us feel well good and like Cadbury because unlike other adverts this one was quite cool and so Cadbury keeps being cool.
The big takeaway is in the first few lines of this video:
"This is a very complicated world. This is a very noisy world and we're not going to get a chance... to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us."
The whole branding/selling thing goes like this...
Lunch pitch ~15 minutes > Bar pitch: ~5 minutes > Elevator pitch: ~30 seconds > ?
That last one is your brand. It's the ultimate quick pitch. You've got 5 seconds, what do you want someone to know about you and what you do for a living?
If you don't know you're in trouble.