As I sit here at my desk late tonight in a dark and quiet house researching the (awesome) Harley Davidson brand for a project, I am staring at a little bottle of pixie dust. It is half hidden in the harsh shadows of my monitor and Organic Chocolate Stout beer bottle that is now sadly empty. It isn’t really pixie dust…it’s an hourglass shaped bottle filled with glitter left over from a project from long ago, adorned with two gold chocolate covered cherry wrappers formed into two interlocking gold rings. This little bottle of pixie dust is one of my favorite possessions and it’s one of the few things I might think to grab on the way out the door in a fire.
And yet I distinctly remember the day that I threw it in the trash.
It was at a time when I was transitioning from being just a Creative Director to a Business Woman. Life was all about spreadsheets and business plans and budgets and I threw out the pixie dust to make a permanent spot for my very large calculator.
My husband stopped by my office that evening on his way home from work and saw the pixie dust in the trash. He rescued the little bottle before it was lost forever and slid the calculator over to make room for both on my desk. As an accountant and CPA he knows the value of a calculator and a good spreadsheet. But knowing me, he also knows the value of magic. I’m a strong believer in the power of research and strategy when it comes to branding or building a strong financial company. But I have also learned that there has to be a little magic in the process along the way to truly make a brand special and to build that ever elusive trust and affinity.
Magic has to be a part of the story.
When I think about this necessary magic, I think of the story of Peter Pan. I think about Wendy Darling and how she would have never discovered Neverland if she had not believed that the pixie dust could truly help her fly. She took Peter’s hand and lept off the nursery windowsill and flew into the mysterious night sky. She never doubted that the magic would carry her all the way.
I believe so much in strategy that I named my company Fierce Strategy + Creative–with strategy leading creative on purpose. But I keep the bottle of pixie dust ever present on my desk and in my line of sight so that I remember its power, too.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
