Dreamers and doers, welcome to Podbrand, a podcast about design, strategy and innovation.

In 2024, we celebrate a remarkable occasion, the 99 years of the Art Deco movement, an aesthetic force that revolutionized design and architecture.

Podbrand, aligned with the principles of innovation and elegance that characterize Art Deco, pays homage to this movement that transcended time, influencing the way we perceive and create beauty.

I am Maurício Medeiros, consultant in strategic design, mentor and author of the book Brand Tree, Simplifying Branding.

Our conversation addresses the dynamic territory of marketing and design, which deals with the construction of brands.

Psychological theories and perceptions about human behavior offer a wealth of insights that can be applied to create deeper and more meaningful strategies.

By exploring the complexities of the collective unconscious of Carl Jung, the archetypes very well defined in the book The Hero and the Outlaw, and the revelations about our buying motivations in the logic of consumption by Martin Lindstrom, we can unveil additional layers of understanding about brands and how they connect with their audience.

And to address this theme, we welcome Ciro Rocha today.

He is the CEO and founder of Brand Innovation.

Ciro brings a unique perspective on the intersection between psychology and branding.

He was elected Professional Highlight of the Year by the Brazilian Design Award, conferred by AB Design, the Brazilian Association of Design Companies, where I had the honor of providing consultancy for a few years.

His training covers administration at the Federal University of Goiás, Extension and Strategic Marketing at the HEC Management School in Belgium, and an MPA in Marketing at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

He is a brand strategist whose ideas and creative solutions transform the way companies build significant differentiation between products and services, increasing perceived value and influencing the consumer's purchase decision.

Ciro, welcome!

Maurício, thank you very much for the invitation.

I'm a big fan of the podcast and your story.

It's a huge pleasure to be here, participating with you.

Excellent, Ciro.

I thank you for accepting the invitation.

It is an honor to have you on the POD Brand today.

Entering the subject, the archetypes, as explored by Carl Jung and later detailed by authors such as Margaret Mark and Karl Pearson in The Hearing and the Outlaw, represent universal patterns of characters that reside in the collective unconscious.

These archetypal figures, which include the hero, the outlaw, the wise man, among others, play significant roles in the brand's narrative, offering a path for brands to connect with their audiences on an emotional and even psychological level.

By invoking these archetypes in their strategy, brands can transcend the simple market positioning to play on the essence of human experiences shared between brands and users.

So I ask you, what does it mean and how do you see the application of the archetypes in the differentiation of a brand's personality?

And also, if you could give us some examples of brands and how they adopted the archetypes to establish this most significant emotional connection with the public.

Wonderful!

I am in love with this subject.

Before taking the course of administration, my great desire was to have done psychology.

So I'm very fascinated.

And I had contact with this methodological structure, this approach of archetypes, for the first time in 2008, 2009, a little bit after Margaret herself does it in the book.

And it's curious because I saw it in a different approach, a service design.

I think it will connect a lot with what we are going to talk about here.

Archetype, in my reading and practical application in everyday life, as you well put it, this collective unconscious reflex, the projections that we have about other people and that other people also have about us in a very unconscious way.

To explain this in a very didactic way for customers, for example, who do not have contact with this approach, I use a lot of animal symbols.

What does a snake mean?

What would happen if you saw a snake right now in front of you?

In terms of feeling.

The first feeling is a threat, a little bit of fear.

It's natural.

I think that regardless of the culture, you who are in Thailand, have a much greater proximity with other forms in which the animal is explored and lives with.

Regardless of that, there is this reading of threat.

The other question is how you would feel with a lion.

What is the perspective you have?

This image of a lion is of power, strength, domination.

It is interesting to look at this collective conscious approach because these two animals, in theory, are very threatening if you are in front of them.

But even more so if you can not run.

So this projection of collective unconscious is somehow explored and starts to be explored in brands, from this incredible publication by the outlaw hero, Renato Oh, to somehow create an emotional or aspirational connection with this audience.

Brands that use this very well are unanimous when it comes to examples.

Like Nike, which brings this very aspirational side.

Just do it!

Go there and do it!

Translating this language of being heroic very well.

You are the great protagonist.

And there are countless ways to say the same thing through this approach of archaic.

I think this helps a lot in this construction of personality.

Brands also build identity from characteristics that are correlated to human personalities.

Hence the relationship between Jung's archetypes and Branden.

So we can say that a brand is more sympathetic, more loving, more affectionate, more welcoming.

We have several examples.

For example, comfort.

There is always a notion of welcoming, of softness, of care.

And then we can have several other examples of what we consume on a daily basis and relate it to people's characteristics.

Exactly.

I think it's an interesting relationship to look at brands and archaic.

This construction of projection.

What does it mean to have a lion inside an office?

It means that feeling of status and power.

In the same way that it means having an image of the Virgin Mary in the office.

You are also passing another message of hope, of lightness.

And the interesting thing about looking at this universe is to understand that the brands we consume are projections of what we are.

The manifestation of our personality or what we would like to be.

Regardless of category.

You told me about comfort.

We can think about Homo.

We were talking about children.

I have two little daughters.

And if I eventually used a powder soap at home, like Surf, for example, by the time my daughter was born, I would change completely.

No, it's just Homo.

Homo also brings this aspect of care, of affection, of comfort, but also under the perspective of freedom.

This is already good.

The choice of a car says a lot about it.

You can have cars in the same price category.

Cars in their R$ 200,000, R$ 300,000.

And it can be a Jeep that will give you a more exploratory image.

You can have a Mercedes at the same price.

To convey this image of status.

You can have, not in Brazil, but outside, a Tesla that will bring this idea of ​​innovation.

Or a Volkswagen car that will bring this aspect of popular car without being.

This is very interesting.

Just to make it clearer for people who don't know about the archetypes built from psychoanalysis, from the study of psychiatry that Corleone did, there are 60 archetypes that distinguish individual characteristics of people.

But they can be more grouped, not grouped, but concentrated in 12, which are the most predominant.

Not grouped, because the 60 are individual.

And these 12 are part of the 60.

However, they are the ones that prevail the most.

The incidence or fashion, not in the sense of aesthetic construction, but the fashion of statistics, which is what prevails the most, are these 12.

And, in fact, the collective unconscious, what Jung brought, perhaps, as the greatest innovation of his thought, of behavior and mind, is what we act and behave in a way that is not consensual to our perception.

And yes, we simply act that way.

Because we believe, and because we have been, over time, conditioned to that situation, to that characteristic.

This does not mean a bad situation.

We can talk about very good situations.

So, just to give a little clearer contextualization for people who have never had contact with this topic.

In your view, what is the challenge in balancing the use of archetypes in brand strategy, without falling into stereotypes or excessive simplifications?

This is a fundamental issue, especially when brands eventually work with different suppliers.

And when themes that are in fashion, not using statistical fashion, but in a trend that has risen, end up being often included within narratives, without necessarily a brand having this elasticity to absorb them.

I would say that a brand is always born from a cause, which will manifest itself in different ways.

From your personality trait, in your communication.

And the archetype will, as you well said, direct how I react to certain issues, both in the world and certain provocations.

And it is very common for this representation of the collective unconscious to be confused with the stereotype.

I think the big risk, when you eventually bring this confusion, is, first of all, not being true.

The main strategy of a brand is, in fact, the truth.

It is fundamental that everyone is very connected to what is happening in terms of the world, the capacity to respond, which is a very important asset for any company today.

But it is not because this has become a theme that you eventually need to deal with.

A brand that has never spoken of diversity, for example, and has always had a more innocent aspect, it cannot and could not raise a flag of diversity, from a more vehement and aggressive point of view.

A brand that has never had an S&G cause or fight as a flag, for example, it cannot overnight become the Greenpeace and go to the streets, saying, look, we need to preserve it in a way that is eventually incoherent with its way of acting.

I think the great risk and the difficulty of balancing this perspective of archetype and stereotype goes a long way through the way the brand will participate in conversations that are fundamental and relevant, themes that are in our day-to-day.

The concept of collective unconscious, which I mentioned before and introduced by Jung, suggests the existence of a part of the mind that is shared, like the inheritance of our ancestors, and contains archetypes and memories that can be said to be universal.

And these theories open doors for a deeper understanding of how brands themselves can resonate at a subconscious level with their audience, touching on themes such as desire and fears, universal, which connect with people.

By levering this collective unconscious power, brands have the opportunity to create messages that not only attract attention, but also anchor themselves deeply in shared experiences.

So, in what way do you think the understanding of collective unconscious, for companies, for brands, can be used to improve the brand's strategy, ensuring that your message resonates at a deeper level with the desired audience?

What a great question, Maurício.

There is in this concept the logic of self, of personality and of shadow, which are precisely these fears.

And it is fundamental for a brand that wants to have a true message that resonates in people's souls, this understanding.

And understanding that many times you expose a vulnerability and fear is also a fundamental strategy, because this will play.

We all have fears.

It is a great challenge in modern life to be able to balance and dive into a self-awareness to understand how to interact with them.

Starting from the principle that the archetype helps us belong to certain groups or project us to certain groups, you can see good examples of brands bringing this balance with message and projection, for example, of power or status.

We are talking about Mercedes, but it is amazing what a blank pen was able to do in terms of message as well.

So, many times, being aware that a person who does not belong to an environment of too much status, of people who are super representative, eventually I will participate in a meeting with very large businessmen, a government public.

The fact that you are afraid of being rejected in this environment, it often finds comfort in putting a blank pen in your pocket or if you send a message that we are in the same position.

This is the biggest fear, fear of not being accepted, fear of not belonging.

In the same way, when you think of more rebellious groups, I'm going to South by Southwest today, which is an innovation event that takes place in Austin every year.

As soon as I arrived at the airport, the first time I went, I prepared a message, keep Austin weird.

So, keep Austin in a strange place.

This is manifested in everything.

So, suddenly, if I arrive like I am here now, with my social outfit, I was in another meeting, in another context, like that, I will feel completely out of the water.

But if I put on an Iban glasses, eventually this inserts me in a context of greater freedom.

If I put on a boot that reminds me of something from rock, it also puts me in the center of belonging to a community.

And this is also a fear.

I think that regardless of the archetype, there is this fear of being rejected in very different ways.

Rejected for the inability to execute something.

Rejected because I'm in an environment where everyone is tattooed and I'm not.

Rejected because someone climbed Everest and the most I could do was take two laps in the park.

So, this balance between fear, expectation, versus the essence, your self-knowledge, is the reflex to create what brands use today.

Who is the person, the image I want to project myself?

And the cool thing about it today is that we project ourselves a lot according to the situation.

The bad thing about it is that brands take a very big risk of not being authentic in their messages, wanting to talk to everyone in different contexts.

I think this is a good example.

The example you brought from Montblanc is interesting.

Brands really lend themselves by the context of the personality created by the brand itself, and even more so by the perception that people have about what this brand means, in what territory they are present in people's minds.

They lend security, status quo, belonging, inclusion of certain groups, of what is then valued.

Then comes the question of collective awareness as an important value within this whole branding study.

There is an interesting example that I used last week to refer to a project.

This project involved SGS causes.

We need to make it sexy to be attractive.

Because there is obviously a central cause to look at the world, but no one buys a Tesla because it is sustainable.

It is not the first definition, it is not the first trigger for decision.

People buy it because there is a car that is beautiful, sporty, fast, and the way to insert a group that makes you a cool person is to be sustainable.

Be a 100% electric car.

You start to build features on the back, like the autonomous car, or a car that is basically all controlled by a panel, a display, to make you a cooler person.

This archetype of the creator, this aspect of a super innovative person that differentiates you from others.

No one will look at a Tesla owner and say, wow, there is an environmental activist there.

People will look and recognize the owner of a Tesla as a successful person, a person who is very on the vanguard, and a person who is detached.

This example is also interesting when we talk about Mont Blanc versus the opposite of that, which is a BIC.

The simple act of signing a document, as was the case with our former president in Brazil, with a BIC, brings a message that I am from the people.

Versus the guy who was from the people, but with a Mont Blanc.

Simplicity.

It is a strategy of simplicity, exactly.

So this is a theme that we could discuss forever here, how it manifests itself in our day-to-day, hours and hours, and that we never, or almost never, realize how we are manipulated in several different ways without realizing it.

This theme is very stimulating.

Actually, it is deep, because it really interferes with how people perceive brands.

Of course, it is a strategy for brands to build a certain positioning, although the brand identity is not the brand that makes it, it is the people who perceive it in their minds.

What brands can do is build a path for this identification to be positive, with their values ​​and everything else.

How can brands navigate the complexity of collective unconsciousness without invading or improperly manipulating people's deepest emotions?

And also, what techniques or approaches would you recommend for brands that want to explore the concepts that we have been talking about now in their communication?

All this based on what you mentioned, on the issue of manipulating, but it can be in a positive sense, of influencing.

Perfect, we also go through the relationship of communication and wanting to participate in certain conversations, without which I understand to be fundamental, and the great challenge of every brand nowadays, which is authenticity.

Using this approach, this concept of collective unconsciousness, basically means understanding very well who my audience is, what they expect from me, what other brands are not doing, and that I could somehow explore.

And the great ethical point that I understand from all this is this exploration to sell, simply, versus exploring it as a strategic approach to actually create a connection.

So, keep hitting the key of how true you are in your convictions, the closer you get to this audience, the more engagement you will be able to have too.

Because you will multiply this cause with people who also echo a cause of your brand that your company also defends.

I understand that talking about collective unconsciousness with people and exploring it also involves, in terms of technique, storytelling, in what different ways can I tell the same story.

This varies a lot.

So, again, looking at this example of a car, any car will take you from point A to point B. And this will always be the functional goal.

Now I can take you from point A to point B with comfort, with style, and then I can sell style to eventually talk about a retro car, how it would be to drive a car from the 50s and launch, for example, a Kombi.

How was it done to convey this story.

Or I can talk about going unconcerned, taking advantage of your time, to a car that will drive for you.

I think this understanding of how you tell the story from a belief and this authenticity is a great strategy.

In addition, using this example of Tesla that we mentioned earlier, to create a sense of community, of course, that helps you tell these stories.

You put it right, Mauricio.

Who builds the positioning, I think it can even be the company, but who maintains this positioning is far from being the company or the brand.

We start, for example, from the principle that there is always an emitter and a receiver, and what happens in the path of the message is pure and simple understanding.

From that point of view, the great advantage of building something together, this sense of community, of bringing people to talk, is that you can have more synergy from that point of view.

I think there are two techniques, if we could say so, of how to work in collective consciousness in a way that is very genuine.

Tell stories that actually make sense and involve your audience in the conversation.

I see two examples that may well illustrate what you just mentioned.

One of them is Apple itself, the sense of community.

Apple has created an ecosystem of relationship between users of devices, but above all of the solution builders, which are the apps, and the people who interact with these apps.

Apple, in this case, is a means of access between third parties, between people who do not know each other, that we do not even know in general who is the idealizer of that app, of that solution.

This is a huge reflection.

And the other one, which I would say is a negative example, which is the risk of being in the market and making the wrong decisions, in the United States, with a completely distorted campaign of what its audience values, which is the American root, the Texan, the citizen of the interior, who drinks a cold, pleasant beer and everything else.

He is not worried, on the contrary, he is worried that this thesis does not enter schools, or that it ends up influencing children, small children, things like that, that people can make these decisions related to gender and other issues in adult life.

And then comes this question of manipulating versus authenticity and wanting to force the bar.

It would be much more authentic, for example, for Ambev, to create a new brand aimed at this audience.

And it happens, if you have never defended this business, and suddenly an agency hired, a new brand manager decides to ignore it, and this happens a lot nowadays, decides to ignore what is the root, what is historical, what is the truth of a brand that was built in the collective unconscious of several people, and says, from now on we are this, from now on this is our director.

It has to match with other people, that's why this sense of community is so fundamental.

In Brazil we had a case, also with Volkswagen and Polo, also a brand that never, I imagine, a very traditional German brand, Volkswagen, which had never raised these points, and suddenly it brings this to a car that also did not dialogue with any theme of diversity.

So, again, these are naturally fundamental issues, and it's good that brands are getting involved in this, that companies are bringing this to their daily lives, but if this is not authentic, if it is not genuine, the risk is very high, as you put it.

I think this example can illustrate very well the importance of companies hiring a design company, branding, to help in the process of construction and consolidation of a brand with value.

Many times marketing actions are very intrusive, they reflect visibility, and this is not necessarily related to the root of the brand, the essence of the brand.

Coincidentally, I mention this logic in my book The Tree of the Brand, that I make an analogy between the constitution of a tree and its parts, and the construction of the brand and its dimensions.

So, the whole process is analogical, which facilitates understanding, so people don't need to understand branding, they need to make an analogy between what is the root, the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the flowers, the fruits, everything that is related to this, and then they understand.

So I think it is relevant for companies to hire branding companies to support this process.

I think this analogy of the tree is very happy, because in practice what we are talking about, the root and the fruit, I can't make an apple tree to give an apricot tree from day to night, because this is rooted.

So, this root, these values, they end up bringing this.

If in the collective unconscious I understand that an orange foot will give an orange, I'm not going to just make an insert here, suddenly this orange foot will start to give me a lemon.

That's not how it works.

So, you commenting on this approach of the tree, I think it is fundamental, very, very, very interesting.

You will be receiving my book soon, when you return from South by Southwest, the book will be there.

I'm looking forward to it.

Exploring the avant-garde of consumer behavior, which was the study and which resulted in the book The Consumption Logic, by Martin Lindstrom, introduces a revolution in understanding the motivations behind purchase decisions, through neuromarketing.

And we've been talking about this for years.

This technique, which was innovative at that time, which combines neuroscience and marketing, allows an analysis, at the time without precedents, of the understanding of the consumer brain, revealing subconscious triggers that influence the buying behavior.

And these studies, possibly the greatest innovation in the field since Jung's theories of archetypes, they reveal a dimension in the way brands can connect with the public.

So I ask you, how can the insights from the Consumption Logic, from Martin Lindstrom's thesis, be applied to unravel the real motivators that are behind the purchase decisions?

And how does this influence the construction of an effective brand strategy?

Vili, it's very interesting for you to talk about how this actually transformed the market.

I met Martin Lindstrom by chance, in 2009 or 2010, or maybe 2008 before that, I don't remember.

At an event held in São Paulo, called HSM Sport Management.

By chance, this guy I didn't know, he was giving a lecture next to another fantastic person that I also didn't know, Daniel.

Both talk about behavior.

And when I watched exactly what was the release of this book at the time, I was completely fascinated.

Because, of course, consumption, the subtitle is lies and truths about why we buy some things.

Something like that.

And he was presenting in this lecture how we are actually manipulated, both for good and for bad, to make certain decisions.

And I can run the risk of not citing exactly the logic of consumption, because I read all Martin Lindstrom's books, I'm fascinated by everything he says.

It involves a lot the aspect of sensations.

He gives some examples of things that I was shocked at the time, like the effort of a laboratory in the United States to produce the crunch of cereals, so that the cereals could have the noise, the crunch, when chewed, that no other morning cereal would have.

So it goes through this point.

Everything is very thought out.

And another interesting example, he talks about his sensations, and how to explore this, when you enter a McDonald's in the whole world, and you have the same smell.

And Mauricio, telling my experience in Thailand, we stayed in Thailand for almost a month, there came a time when my wife said, let's eat something else, because everything here has curry.

We ordered a pizza, and the pizza was seasoned with curry.

The next day, I said, for God's sake, let's eat something without curry.

And I enter McDonald's.

I enter McDonald's and have exactly the same familiar smell, which is the smell of what I see, for example, in Goiânia, or São Paulo, or any other place on the planet where I have already entered a McDonald's.

This brings not only the feeling of familiarity, but that certainty that, wow, I'm home.

It's a relief.

He talks a lot about it, and he unfolds this theory in several different elements, from colors, and how color influences the distinction of a brand within a universe where everything looks very similar.

For example, how Nubank managed to be so distinctive in an extremely competitive market, dominated by big players, reinforcing a purple color in a universe of blue, yellow and red, which, theoretically, pass credibility.

He deconstructs this view that red and yellow don't make you hungry, because you've seen McDonald's doing this for a long time in your life.

So, absolutely everything is very manipulated in our vision, and the fascination of this book, for me, comes from that.

How can I think about each point of contact, so that each point of contact reinforces a specific message?

For example, the smell of McDonald's with this familiarity, the photo of a Big Mac to show that it's really big, or the special sauce of the Big Mac to bring this secret aspect behind, this is highly valued.

Or the fact of fighting Burger King to create enemies, to also value my brand, a strategy that is widely used by Nubank itself.

I'm an enemy of the banks, or of Pepsi with Coca-Cola.

So, this book is really fascinating, and I would say that watching these two transformed my life a lot, and gave me the conviction that I wanted to do exactly that, since forever in my life.

And my desire to study psychology as a graduate came exactly to look at this universe of consumer behavior, and I didn't know it existed as a profession.

So, for me, it was a giant surprise that I had in my 20s.

The studies within this field have evolved a lot.

There is a depth of theories, studies and analysis by eye-tracking, which is the observation of the movement of the eyes, including in shop windows, devices and applications that are used to be able to identify a standard behavior, or the reflection of people in relation to a certain situation, and then be able to adjust.

In retail, it has evolved a lot, especially food retail, like supermarkets, which were perhaps the precursors of these studies of more scientific consumer behavior, let's put it this way, in practice.

This has been going on for a long time.

A long time.

He mentioned in this first study that he was starting to test the brain's reaction to calendars and photos.

How does the brain react to certain photos?

Even with sensors.

Imagine a person sitting watching the electrodes.

And I think that was the beauty of talking about marks back there, of awakening feelings.

This has everything to do with our theme of collective consciousness and archetype, because I actually enter the vices of feeling, projection and fear, and I feel that this has been lost.

Because today it is always the cup that sells, it is always the same formula to do something, and in fact it sells, but engagement is not built in this way.

Here at Enredo we have a division of architecture, which is focused on corporate architecture and retail design, where everything is based in this aspect of smell, brands, where we want a client to go on a journey, and that he doesn't even know he's following and visiting.

You're going to start here.

Retail always has a lot of this, as you put it, supermarkets, that M&M's at the end, when you're at the top of the box, you buy by impulse, all of this is thought out and is a fascination.

Yes, this importance of environment design, of retail, above all, which has a direct interaction, a very intimate point of contact with people, it has a very great relevance.

I'll give you an example.

At a certain opportunity, we hired an architect, a very famous architecture company that is responsible for all the creation of Prada and MiuMiu stores from the beginning, in which Prada entered this new management of MiuMiu-Prada, which is the Bakiok studio, which is in Arezzo, in Italy.

So when we went there to make the meeting, to brief our store project, it caught my attention a detail that for them has a lot of relevance.

There is a floor that only has access to some architects and the Prada team, because there are not only new stores being created, but there are the models, the real prototypes, in real size of the stores, which will be launched in two, three years.

Maybe this time is getting shorter and shorter, because nowadays we are looking for faster solutions and they are not in the long run.

But, in short, access was prohibited to anyone who was not part of that context, given the importance of construction.

That's impressive, isn't it?

Because when we see something being launched, we have no idea of the volume of hypotheses that were raised, of the level of study, of the things that could have been avoided, but they were not, because the context was simply different.

This speed is very impressive.

Suddenly, a theme enters...

I think it gains a very large density, a very large relevance, from day to night.

In the same way that it ceases to be in two, three months, and, eventually, when a brand is launched, a store is launched, it is obviously thinking, looking at the trend, but it is always a risk.

I think this is a difficulty for everyone who is involved in all kinds of projects, management of brands and companies.

It is very strong.

The merchandising look of the retail is decisive.

Well, we have now started the PingaFogo.

There are three questions that I ask all the guests.

What are the virtues of a successful entrepreneur?

Look, I think for every entrepreneur, he should be successful, because it is a great pain.

I think the main virtue is to believe in what you are doing, leave the financial part in the background.

It is always a consequence for everything in life, and you don't give much attention to what is happening around you.

It is very common for us to get lost, for an entrepreneur to get lost in a plan or a goal, because he sees someone doing a certain thing, or someone said something that is not a planned action for that moment.

Then you will eventually enter several micro-paths that will take you to the same places, but with a greater distance and a much longer time.

What I learned over 12 years of entrepreneurship is that timing is fundamental.

If you planned something, probably this plan needs to happen within what you predicted, in one way or another.

So, resilience, right?

Dream, sweat and resilience, Maurício.

Very well.

What differentiates dreamers from doers?

Courage.

Courage.

It is a micro-interval between deciding to get up from the chair and actually getting up.

I think courage is fundamental.

And the last one, what is design?

I'm not going to bring any academic definition, but for me, I'm not a designer by training, and for me, design has always had a fundamental function of balancing expectation and functionality.

So, basically, what is the expectation that I have about something, or about a store, about a product, and how this is actually delivered and reflected in my feeling.

I think design has a lot of this function, we can take the etymology, the designation, etc.

But I think design has a very great power to transform something into what it was born to be, and that maybe it didn't even know.

Excellent.

We now enter one of the most researched sessions on our website, which is the reading indication.

Which books have impacted your career, Ciro?

Well, Martin Lindstrom's The Consumption Logic, which is one that we talked about here, and I brought one here, if I'm not mistaken, it's his second book, called Brand Sense, also by Martin Lindstrom.

Here he goes deep into what brand means in everyday life.

Looking at every entrepreneur too, I think the entrepreneur needs to understand a lot about management and business.

Brand strategist even more.

It's impossible to talk about brand strategy without understanding business strategy.

And then I recommend a book that is a classic, called High Output Management, by Andrew Grover.

He's Intel's CEO, who decided to change the whole business.

He brings a lot of management framework in Brazil, it's high performance management.

I have a big list here, Maurício.

Excellent.

Presumably Irrational.

This book wasn't a book in the past, it was an article that ended up becoming a book, by Dan Rielly.

He's a person who, in practice, experienced what it is to make a decision versus someone making a decision for him.

A guy who decides to dedicate himself to behavioral studies, and then behavioral economics, when he's still a teenager, he has his whole body burned out, and spends years in a stretcher in a hospital, and every day the nurse had to change the bandages.

And then he couldn't talk, with his whole body burned out.

The nurse always told him, I'm going to take it off quickly, so you can feel less pain.

And in his head he said, damn, but taking it off quickly hurts a lot.

And he starts to dedicate himself to the study, people prefer an intense pain, during a short period of time, or a more moderate pain, during a longer period.

So it's a book that talks a lot about how our unconscious ends up making decisions, and trying to justify these decisions with rationality.

It's a very interesting book.

Another fundamental book for everyone who seeks to understand behavior is Misbehaving, by Richard Taylor, also very interesting.

The Power of Moments is a really cool book by Chip and Dan Heath.

I think it's a great book.

And then there's another book I recommend, a book that I presented to several friends, called The Hard Side of Hard Situations, by Ben Horowitz.

He is one of the great names in Silicon Valley, and he tells the difficulty and loneliness that employers eventually have and go through to make decisions.

It's a very authentic and visceral reading.

It's not a book made to sell, it's a book as if you were exchanging an idea with a mentor.

And I find it interesting that each chapter opens with a snippet of some American hip-hop rap song, talking about this hard side.

It's an analogy.

Understanding a lifestyle is a delight, but it's hard as hell.

There's another book by Richard Taylor, called Nudge, which is very interesting.

It talks about triggers.

It also talks about triggers in our own lives.

Everything about behavior, based on what we make decisions, and this book helps us identify in which situations we are being manipulated or induced.

So, I think my list ends there.

Excellent!

This has already generated a huge curiosity in me, it has already increased my list of books to be unread.

Speaking about reading in particular, since this is a session, I read a lot, since I owned a Kindle, for example, I think I read a lot about very different topics.

I think thinking about brand, I think thinking about strategy construction, goes less through theoretical frameworks, which do need to exist to validate each decision, but it's a dynamic of understanding absolutely everything, not in depth as a specialist, but this dynamic of behavior, business, strategy, decision, I think it's fundamental to work with things that change all the time.

Behavior remains with the same motivations for many decades, there are only different ways of manifesting it.

I also value this transdisciplinarity of knowledge.

The design itself as a discipline that we work on is transversal, so this in itself puts us in a position to seek the knowledge of different complementary areas, or that bring inspiration, or that bring reflection, like this book that you just commented on.

A message for those who watch us, to facilitate everyone's access, we make available the links of these books directly in the description.

In addition, I invite you to explore our book section on the website podbrand.design, there we gather a curatorship with more than 300 books recommended by our guests.

Be sure to check it out, and the link is also in the description.

Well, going to the end, I bring the question from Roberto Palmeira, who is the idealizer and director of dreams at the Rope Institute.

It is a voluntary project, and which is dedicated to fulfilling dreams of people affected by the imminent risk of life, especially for diseases such as cancer, and who was last week at the Podbrand.

He formulated this question without having any idea that you would be our next guest.

His question is, what is your dream?

It's kind of a question that we never have an answer to, and reflecting on it, it actually changes a lot, according to our moment of life and age.

I think my dream is somehow very ambitious and very simple, Maurício.

I would say that it is to continue living with energy and health so that I can also explore as much as possible an authenticity of the life I am living.

I think this is perhaps the greatest human ambition, to enjoy life with its beauties, understanding that it has its challenges, and not to fall into the temptation to stop being yourself, because the world charges you 100% in situations that are not like that.

I think my great ambition and dream would be that.

To have health, energy, to continue doing what I believe, helping directly and indirectly thousands of people.

And if you could ask our next guest a single question, what would it be?

Perhaps it goes through my answer.

I am 37 years old, I think I have two small daughters, so my life and my view of the world have changed a lot.

Perhaps back there, if you had asked me what my dream was, my dream would be to have countless series and make a lot of money.

And who knows, I already wanted to be, for example, Dave Grohl.

I love music, I'm a big fan of Foo Fighters.

And when I read his biography, which is also incredible, I see that everything that this guy went through in the end, it was only himself.

So, many times we are maybe projecting something future or past, several ifs, to try to be someone we are not.

But I'm curious, what would it be like to spend a day on Dave Grohl's skin?

What would my day be like?

So my question goes through that.

If you could choose anyone in the world to live a day in their life, who would it be?

Cool question.

It's surprising.

An unusual question throughout these 70 episodes that we are completing today.

Curious.

I'm curious too.

Well, Ciro, it was a privilege to address all this topic of branding and consumer psychology with you today.

Your perspectives and your own experience have greatly enriched our understanding of the interaction between brands and minds.

I thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us and for engaging with the purpose of Podbranding, which is to help people reach their best version.

Thank you.

I am very, very honored, very happy with the conversation.

A great conversation.

And, in fact, sharing a lot the purpose of helping more and more people.

I am very pleased to be with you.

Thank you.

Thank you to everyone who watches and follows us.

Excellent.

Until the next opportunity.

A big hug, Ciro.

Bye, see you next time.

Dreamers and doers, I hope this episode with Ciro Rocha has inspired each one of you to look at brands and design in a deeper and more connected way.

I invite everyone to visit our website podbrand.design to explore this and other content from the episodes of our previous guests.

All people and brands and design connect in some way.

So don't forget to subscribe to our channel and share this episode.

Your participation is essential so that more stories like today's can reach and inspire even more people.

See you in the next episode, where art finds the strategy to create the extraordinary.

Here at Podbrand, the design podcast.