Erotic capital and why that’s not branding

Heard of the concept ‘erotic capital’? It’s taken from the book ‘Honey Money – The Power of Erotic Capital’ by Catherine Hakim, which puts forward a thesis that erotic capital is an over-looked asset which combines beauty, sex appeal, social skills, liveliness and presentation. A group of attributes we’re all programmed to repeat are superficial but secretly wish we had more of!

It’s been a long time since communications were talked about in such superficial terms. Communications today have to be strategic, substantial and evidenced. They just won’t stand up to the scrutiny of your many various stakeholders if they don’t provide lots of solid good reasons for them to trust you.

But it’s easy to assume every organisation is on the same page with this – that they understand a brand has to be based on essential truths about their business and that a re-brand isn’t just about prettifying how they look. Because prettiness, after all, can fade, but who you are and why you do what you do lives on.

Nonetheless a recent meeting with a professional services firm revealed they just wanted to be pretty as a way of elevating the perceived greyness of what they do. Whilst in the next breath they criticized the big players whose content didn’t stand up to scrutiny even though it looked good and got lots of people’s (read clients’) attention.

Therein lies the annoyingly insubstantial truth about erotic capital – in our field of work called stunning looking communication – it gets you that essential first bit of attention needed to then reel people in further.

But be warned. Only few people put up with vacuous beauty for long and they’re probably not the ones you want to attract to your business anyway.