JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

For the ‘intangience’ of it

by

BOBIE-LEE DIXON
1697 days ago
20201201
Ernie Ross Ross Advertising CEO  and founder of ReThink

Ernie Ross Ross Advertising CEO and founder of ReThink

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

Through pro­found ex­pe­ri­ences, both per­son­al and ex­ter­nal, the hu­man-cen­tred, ex­pe­ri­en­tial brand ‘Re­Think’ was born. With the tagline Trans­form­ing Minds, Chang­ing Lives, its founder Ernie Ross of Ross Ad­ver­tis­ing ex­plained that Re­Think’s con­cept was sim­ply but ef­fec­tive­ly about shift­ing per­spec­tives—look­ing at the world the way it is not the way we are.

To en­cap­su­late his the­o­ry, it’s about those mo­ments in life that force one to re­think and breathe the start of es­tab­lish­ing true iden­ti­ty, dis­cov­er­ing pur­pose and cre­at­ing a lega­cy of in­tan­gi­ble val­ue.

On these fun­da­men­tals, added now to the al­ready ex­ist­ing res­onat­ing body of work done by Re­Think, was the in­ter­na­tion­al suc­cess of its ini­tia­tive “In­tang­ien­ce,” a method­ol­o­gy re­cent­ly cer­ti­fied by the Unit­ed Na­tions Uni­ver­si­ty for Peace and in­cor­po­rat­ed as bona fide cer­tifi­cate pro­gramme.

Over the eight years of its ex­is­tence, Re­Think con­cep­tu­alised ini­tia­tives all based on hu­man con­nec­tion, like its hap­pi­ness work­shops and kind­ness cards, and its T&T per­spec­tive on the UN ob­ser­vances—World Kind­ness Day and In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Hap­pi­ness—in which tai­lored ac­tiv­i­ties were de­vel­oped to im­part not just a mo­ment of kind­ness, but the trans­for­ma­tion of a mind­set that can be passed on.

It in­cludes ini­tia­tives like The Gift, a ran­dom bless­ing of gifts to peo­ple, but not with­out en­sur­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal food for that much-need­ed shift in per­spec­tive. In­side those gifts, three ques­tions are al­ways posed to in­duce in­tro­spec­tion:

1. Who am I?

2. What is my pur­pose?

3. How will I be re­mem­bered?

Of this mile­stone achieve­ment, Ross told the sto­ry of how the “in­tang­ien­ce” phi­los­o­phy came to be, in­spired by the words of a dy­ing man, and what it is poised to ac­com­plish.

He said his late broth­er-in-law Bri­an was a man who em­bod­ied and lived out the true mean­ing of hap­pi­ness. It was from Bri­an’s hos­pi­tal bed these words were spo­ken: “He said to me, ‘Ernie, you know what you’re do­ing is in­tan­gi­ble right. There is a world of brand­ing but then there is a brand­ing of in­tan­gi­ble val­ue’.”

The night be­fore Bri­an died he re­searched ma­te­r­i­al and sent it to Ross to show him he was al­ready do­ing in­tan­gi­ble brand­ing but was not aware.

It forced Ross to re­think: “I looked at what I was do­ing and I re­alised the very same three ques­tions, I had put in­to the gift is what I was do­ing in my work.

De­pict­ing the “in­tang­ien­ce” phi­los­o­phy as a sci­ence—the mak­ing of cre­ative de­vices linked to hu­man con­nec­tion—Ross said over the years it was in­tan­gi­ble brand­ing that gave gi­ant brands like Co­ca-Co­la, Nike and Star Bucks, their bil­lions.

He said more than a so­da, cof­fee or ath­let­ic footwear, they all fig­ured out how to sat­is­fy the crav­ing of hu­man con­nec­tion which man­i­fest­ed in their slo­gans, cam­paigns, pro­mo­tions etc. He said it the key was per­son­al­is­ing the brand and mak­ing it re­lat­able to its au­di­ence.

But for in­tang­ien­ce or in­tan­gi­ble brand­ing to suc­ceed, Ross said there must be the cur­ren­cy of con­ver­sa­tion—rel­e­vance, re­gard and res­o­nance.

It was while in Cos­ta Ri­ca, that Ross’s in­tang­ien­ce phi­los­o­phy be­came known to the Unit­ed Na­tions Uni­ver­si­ty for Peace af­ter it was pre­sent­ed at the Glob­al Hap­pi­ness Sum­mit.

Fol­low­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, a friend sug­gest­ed he have the method­ol­o­gy val­i­dat­ed. Ross reached out to the uni­ver­si­ty to take a deep­er look at the pro­gramme.

It was sub­se­quent­ly re­viewed and with the guid­ance of the co-founder of the uni­ver­si­ty, Ross learned how to de­vel­op his phi­los­o­phy in­to a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme which was lat­er val­i­dat­ed, cer­ti­fied and brand­ed by the uni­ver­si­ty. It is cur­rent­ly been taught to the uni­ver­si­ty’s stu­dents and busi­ness­es glob­al­ly. The uni­ver­si­ty is al­so us­ing it as a mod­el to de­vel­op its in­tan­gi­ble brand­ing.

The In­tang­ien­ce Cer­tifi­cate pro­gramme can be ac­cessed on­line through the uni­ver­si­ty. How­ev­er, Ross said through Re­Think he will al­so be of­fer­ing the course free of charge to any emerg­ing busi­ness.

“If you can es­tab­lish proof to us that you are an emerg­ing brand, some­one who lost a job, some­one look­ing to set up a new busi­ness but you don’t have the back­ing and sup­port, we will pro­vide that to you free of charge,” he said.

Among sev­er­al stages Ross is ex­pect­ed to present on, he is sched­uled to speak at the Glob­al Hap­pi­ness Sum­mit in March 2021.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored