ou’ve heard about primal fears, primal screams, and even primal instincts. But primal branding?

According to Patrick Hanlon, author of “Primal Branding” and founder of idea-engineering firm Thinktopia Inc., primal branding is the soul behind the longevity of companies like Nike Inc., Apple Inc., and Lego Corp. Their wizardry comes from brand stories that resonate so deeply with their customers that they have transformed from mere attributes into belief systems. And where there are believers, there is a loyal community.

Behind these belief systems, Hanlon says, are seven common elements that form a “primal code.” Corporate EVENT spoke with Hanlon about these seven powerful assets, and how event marketers can use them to define an event’s soul.

Corporate EVENT: First, what exactly is primal branding?

Patrick Hanlon: It comes from the idea that a strong brand is really a belief system. If you look at a brand as a belief system, it automatically gains a number of advantages: things like trust, vibrancy, relevance, commitment, and so on. Believing is belonging; believing builds community.

I began by looking at belief systems — ideologies, really — and how they come to exist. I found there are seven definable assets that build meaning behind a brand. Those seven assets make what I call the primal code. They are a creation story, or how your event came to be; a creed, or what your company or event stands for; icons, rituals, and sacred words, or the symbols, activities, and language that are unique to your event and inform the experience; nonbelievers, or those who aren’t — at least initially — interested in what you have to offer; and a leader, or figurehead who embodies your event’s intent.

CE: How do each of these seven assets apply to events?

PH: The first thing is your creation story — where you began. That can be the organization’s story, or how the event started. For HP, everyone knows the garage story. The great story in terms of events is the TED conference. Richard Saul Wurman said, “What’s the dinner party I’d most like to create? Who would I invite?” That wish list became the first TED conference.

CE: In your book, you also talk about “external creation stories,” such as someone saying, “I shop at Target because my mom shopped at Target.”

PH: Right. That’s the creation story for a lot of things.

CE: So when the creation story comes from outside — when your customers and attendees have developed their own sense of the tradition and why they participate — how do you leverage that?

PH: It depends on how the event was created. Usually it’s because it’s attached to an association or a big idea. Like Burning Man — that was created by a guy who was getting rid of everything related to an old relationship. No trace left behind. Apparently the idea resonated for a lot of people, because that event grew based entirely on the creative input — the personal traditions — of the people who attend.

Most events aren’t that lucky. Burning Man captured people’s imaginations. How do you capture people’s imaginations, even if you’re hosting a plumbing event? Kohler does it.

CE: The next element is a creed. Is this the same as a mission statement?

PH: The creed is elemental, because it defines why something exists. It’s not a mission statement that is paragraphs long. It should be the one thing that sums up your reason for being, why you go to work in the morning, or why your event exists. HP, for example, has whittled theirs to one word: Invent.

The creed may evolve over time. I spoke at a meeting of biological engineers recently. Their association was formed 100 years ago, but today its focus is completely different. Now, they’re the ones who manage our resources, make sure we have energy, all of that. People won’t care about finding their friends on Facebook if they can’t find clean water and safe food and energy. The association’s creed reflects that reality. For a creed to be relevant it needs to have context.

CE: So the creation story and creed will define an event’s intent. What defines the experience?

PH: The creation story provides the context, but an event’s icons, rituals, and special lexicon, or what I refer to as sacred words, all develop the experience. People tend to think of icons as strictly visual — an event’s logo, or visual identity. But icons involve all the senses: not just sight, but sound, touch, smell, taste, and so forth. These are the touchpoints that create the entire event experience.

CE: Speaking of visual icons, so few events seem to have a visual identity that they carry over time. As a branding expert, what is your thought about that?

PH: You’re absolutely right. I recently looked at a string of the last 10 years of logos for an upcoming event, and every theme was different, every logo was different … there was no real sense that you were going to the same event. People have to have a sense that there is a relationship year over year. That’s part of the continuum that builds trust.

It ultimately goes back to those touchpoints I just mentioned. We always think about the logo first, when we should be thinking about the experience — the rituals and lexicon that create shared experience among your community. Le Meridien hotels has assigned what they call “brand curators” to manage 50 guest touchpoints it has identified, looking for ways to make them different, adding spark and creating buzz.

You arrive at so many events where you walk up to a table and sign in, get your name tag, etc., and it becomes boring. Ritual, without something new and interesting, becomes a boring tradition. But ritual that adds something new to the mix equals fun. Is there a new way of signing in? Can you create a new vocabulary for the pieces of the event experience that are unique to you? Looking back at the TED Conference example, people who attend that event started to call themselves TEDsters. Wurman didn’t make that up; attendees did. These are differentiators. Really, all seven of the points of the primal code are points of brand differentiation.

CE: What about nonbelievers? How does this idea apply to event strategy?

PH: People think there are Mac devotees and PC people, democrats and republicans, and that’s where it ends. If you’re in one group, you’re considered a nonbeliever by the other. But it’s really about defining a group of people who don’t necessarily want to sit “over there.” If you’ve discovered the group that doesn’t want sugar, you can create sugar free. If you’ve found a group that doesn’t want caffeine, you can create decaf.

There are great opportunities in defining who the nonbelievers are, as it helps you to define yourself. But I think the important piece of this is really defining people’s expectations. Exceeding those expectations is what every event marketer is always about.

CE: In terms of defining the primal code for an event, who should the leader be? Is it a company executive?

PH: Well, in the case of Apple and MacWorld, it’s obviously Steve Jobs. But he’s more than a business leader; he’s a visionary. But the CEO may very well not be the right leader for your event’s code. Instead, it might be a speaker you invite every year who has become an institution in your industry for his or her ideas. Or an attendee who sparks provocative thinking and dialogue on a blog or wiki before your event starts. The leader of your event is that person who challenges attendees to push the boundaries of the community and engages everyone in the event’s potential and power.

CE: Should the elements of your primal code be communicated in a very explicit way, or are they internal DNA?

PH: It’s internal DNA, for sure. You don’t want to broadcast, “Hey, look at all the icons and rituals we have.” What you want to do is build them in so that they’re the bones behind the event, the background to the conversations.

CE: At the very beginning of your book, you say, “There are in fact seven brand messages that must be delivered to create preferential brand appeal.” Isn’t that going to completely freak out marketers who, for so long, have been focused on building and reinforcing a single — and singular — brand message?

PH: It’s not really seven messages — it’s seven pieces of the primal code that when woven together define the intangibles of your brand and your brand as a belief system. When the constellation of seven exists, it snaps people’s heads around and makes them take notice. More important, it makes them feel. It creates meaning.

CE: This seems like a reasonable starting point for someone creating an event from scratch.

PH: Absolutely. And the most important thing there, of course, is what’s the creed? Why are we building this? What’s this all about? Why are we different than the other events that are on someone’s plate or calendar? Why should they spend time and money on this one?

CE: What about events that are already in the market? How can you retroactively create a primal code?

PH: You create a story or narrative about why something exists: Here is why we thought this was a good idea, here’s what it smells, sounds, feels like; here’s what we do when we’re there, here’s what we don’t. Start capturing language that is special. Identify key leaders. Just look at all seven pieces, and find out which pieces you already have in place, intentionally or not.

So many events seem to just “happen.” But nothing just happens. When we talk about curating, you are discovering and defining unique differentiating elements. And the outcome of that is you’ve not only built something that we call a brand, but you’ve also made your event unique. The people who are part of that community will want to go again. Most of all, they’ll want to talk about it to their friends.

If you’re in charge of the event, you are the curator. You are in charge of how the event sounds and feels, and the experience people will have. These seven pieces that we call the primal code are really the tools you can use to imagine what your event could become.e