We were intro­duced to Saat­chi & Saat­chi’s Love­marks awhile back now via Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saat­chi & Saat­chi World­wide, who’s a reg­u­lar cus­tomer of Coulson Macleod.

It’s a fab idea. Saat­chi & Saat­chi say that brands have “run out of juice”. Most of us have grown to expect great per­form­ance from products, ser­vices, and exper­i­ences. And most often, we get it. Cars start first time, fries are always crisp (bear in mind Love­marks is Amer­ican), dishes shine.

A few years ago Saat­chi & Saat­chi asked, ‘What makes some brands inspir­a­tional, while oth­ers struggle?’ And they came up with the answer: Love­marks: the future bey­ond brands.

So how do you know a Lovemark? Lovemarks tran­scend brands. They deliver bey­ond your expect­a­tions of great per­form­ance. Like great brands, they sit on top of high levels of respect, but there the sim­il­ar­it­ies end. Lovemarks reach your heart as well as your mind, cre­at­ing an intim­ate, emo­tional con­nec­tion that you just can’t live without. Ever. Take a brand away and people will find a replace­ment. Take a Love­mark away and people will protest its absence. Love­marks are a rela­tion­ship, not a mere trans­ac­tion. You don’t just buy Love­marks, you embrace them pas­sion­ately. That’s why you never want to let go. Love­marks inspire: loy­alty bey­ond reason.

At the core of every Love­mark is respect. Simple as that.

And the best bit of all (hint, hint) is that you can nom­in­ate your favour­ite com­pany to become a Love­mark. So if you’ve bought our typo­graphic art, or just love us, you can nom­in­ate Coulson Macleod if you fancy.

• Tell the world about the emo­tional con­nec­tion you have with Coulson Macleod.
• A Love­mark story is based on your per­sonal experience.
• The min­imum word count for a text-based Love­marks story is 26.
• Each per­son is entitled to one Love­mark text com­ment per nomination.

If you want to read more about Love­marks, Kevin Roberts has writ­ten two books,

Love­marks: the Future Bey­ond Brands is the evol­u­tion­ary story of products, trade­marks and brands — to Love­marks. Kevin relates the inspir­a­tion behind the idea, and shows that by build­ing respect and inspir­ing love, busi­ness can move the world.

The Love­marks Effect: Win­ning in the Con­sumer Revolu­tion, fol­lows up from Love­marks: the Future Bey­ond Brands. This latest offer­ing con­tains inspir­a­tional stor­ies from Love­marks Inspir­a­tional Own­ers and Con­sumers, met­rics, prac­tical advice, big ideas and examples of great work.

Related art­icles:

• Saat­chi & Saat­chi Boss Buys Coulson Macleod
• The Rich And Fam­ous Buy Coulson Macleod

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saat­chi & Saat­chi has bought sev­eral of Coulson Macleod’s Love prints.

Kevin Roberts very kindly gave Coulson Macleod per­mis­sion to use his name.

In fact Kevin (yep we’re on first name terms!) sent me a hand­writ­ten note that basic­ally said well done and that the world needs entre­pren­eurs. He also said that I could tell the world that he’d bought our art and that if I sent him our story, he’d put it on his blog.

Saat­chi & Saat­chi is one of the world’s lead­ing cre­at­ive organ­isa­tions, and Kevin leads a team of 6,000 people in 150 offices across 86 coun­tries.  And yet  he some­how found the time for Coulson Macleod. It’s nice to have friends in high-up places.

Saat­chi & Saat­chi cre­ated Love­marks. They wanted to know what makes some brands inspir­a­tional, while oth­ers struggle?  Their answer was “future bey­ond brands”. They write on their web­site, “Love­marks tran­scends brands. They reach your heart as well as  your mind, cre­at­ing an intim­ate, emo­tional con­nec­tion that you just can’t live without. Ever. Love­marks are a rela­tion­ship, not a mere trans­ac­tion. You don’t just buy Love­marks, you embrace them pas­sion­ately. Love­marks inspire.”

Now we like to think Coulson Macleod is a Love­mark. And maybe, just maybe, so does Saat­chi & Saatchi.