Access. Certainly the secret

to a strong brand.

Perhaps. But then tell me why accessibility is too-often overlooked when it comes to the notion of building a robust "brain-mark" on target consumers.

We're led to believe that, on average, no one on earth is more than 100 feet from a Coke machine at any moment. The great chicken-and-egg question is: Is Coca-Cola popular just because the thirsty can quickly and easily get a bottle, or did Coke spend all that money to infuse themselves into popularity?

Both.

It's not a stretch to believe the children of the primitive Mandinka Tribe would choose Coke in the Pepsi Challenge. They've never heard of Pepsi, let alone consumed it. Indeed, to people all over the world, a white ribbon on a red field signifies "cola." Or "sweet" or "fun" or "America" or even "Christmas."

If familiarity generates comfort, the inverse is also true. Putting on my ugly mega-capitalist mask, I recognize immediately that this fact means big-time Lifetime Customer Value, long the holy grail for relationship marketers. To simplify, a customer can feel "at home" with something or someone only after dozens, even thousands, of interactions. (Of course, the product must perform over and over and over again, or putting it in everyone's hands would only expedite its demise.) Translation: $ to the nth degree per consumer brain.

The victory of the Open Source ideology over the proprietary is just another example. So is the global penetration of English, resulting in the first true international language. Everyone's invited to speak English, making it possible for a man in Perth and a man in Edmonton to do business with each other, prosper, and proliferate their own interests together -- as opposed to the French, who lord over the use of their precious tongue as if each word their last Euro. (It's still my next-favorite language, but I digress.)

I've worked nearly five years in the luxury auto sector, and between the accounts I worked on and those of our competitors', one less-than-tasteful phrase rang loudest: "Butts in seats. Butts in seats. Butts in seats."

My job as a marketer is to compel someone to actually put his posterior inside of one of these machines and try it out. +TANGENT: To do that, they have to visit a dealership, one of the few places of business that rank lower than the dentist's office on the comfortometer.+

It's not putting "marketing messages in eyes and ears," the saying is putting "butts in seats." I have to repeatedly beg someone to access the product before I can ask 'em to shell out an immense amount of money to acquire it. And even for makers of the best sedan in the world, without access, the product and the dealer cannot complete the experience cycle. That means no sales, no money, and no manner by which to expand the access net.

So next time you slide (a pocket's worth of) change into a soda machine, ask yourself if you did it -- honestly -- because you were thirsty for that brand specifically, if you were just plain thirsty, or because it was there. You might be surprised at the answer.