Bermuda can bolster its appeal as a tourism and business destination by focusing on the things it needs to do to become a “lovemark”.That is the view of Kevin Roberts, worldwide chief executive officer of Saatchi & Saatchi, who was in Bermuda yesterday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the global marketing firm’s agency in Bermuda.Mr Roberts proposed the “lovemark” concept, referring to products that inspire “loyalty beyond reason” and wrote a book about it: “Lovemarks: the Future Beyond Brands”.“Bermuda has a wonderful opportunity to be a lovemark, to create loyalty beyond reason,” Mr Roberts said in an interview. He added that the Island had a lot of the three things necessary to become a lovemark, namely mystery, sensuality and intimacy.“Looking at mystery, I don’t think there’s anybody in America who could find Bermuda on a map,” he said. “They all think it’s in The Bahamas. Then there’s the whole Bermuda Triangle thing and Bermuda shorts.“There’s a lot of sensuality here, particularly the colours of the ocean, the beaches, the flora and fauna; the beauty of the architecture; and the sounds of the wind and the water.“With intimacy, Bermuda is so small that you can almost know everybody.”The lovemark concept, he said, was widely accepted by hard-headed CEO and politician clients alike. “Every CEO wants his company to be loved and every politician wants to be loved,” he said.In lovemark status lay the opportunities for premium pricing, something which had been empirically proven, he added.The principle of lovemarks is that all products can be placed in one of the four boxes in a simple two-by-two grid, with one axis representing love and the other respect. A lovemark indicates high love, high respect.A brand on the other hand, fits into the high respect, low love box, while a fad would be high love, low respect. By their actions and decisions, companies can change the box they are in. For example, Mr Roberts said Nike went from being a brand to a lovemark, when it was endorsed by basketball superstar Michael Jordan.But then it dropped to the low love, low respect category after its use of Asian “sweat shops” was revealed in the early 1990s, Mr Roberts said.In politics, John F Kennedy was a US President who achieved lovemark status, while Barack Obama rose from being high love, low respect during the 2008 election campaign, when he was a well liked but unproven candidate, to becoming a lovemark when he won the election in a landslide. Now Mr Obama has probably slipped to the brand category, he said.“Nothing is irreplaceable these days, so you have to be irresistible,” he said. He gave the example of Sol Kerzner, founder of the Bahamian resort of Atlantis. “Atlantis has outstripped The Bahamas, and created a resort that is irresistible to a whole core of travellers,” Mr Roberts added.Mr Roberts took over at the helm of Saatchi & Saatchi in 1997. The agency was founded by brothers Charles and Maurice Saatchi 41 years ago. Its major clients include Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Novartis, JC Penney and General Mills.Last night, AAC Saatchi & Saatchi, the Front Street-based Bermuda branch of the company, held a cocktail reception at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess to celebrate its 50th birthday, with a presentation by Mr Roberts the highlight.“It’s a family celebration,” Mr Roberts said. “This is not an asset business, it’s a people and brands business, so there are not many agencies that celebrate 50 years. So I came here because I’m very proud of them and very excited.”The agency was established by an Act of Parliament in 1961 and its first directors were JC (Kit) Astwood and Commander Geoffrey Kitson. In 1973, it became affiliated with New York-based Compton Advertising. In 1982, after Compton was bought out by Saatchi & Saatchi, the Bermuda agency became a worldwide agency of the London-based company.The advance of technology, he said, has had a powerful influence on marketing. It has allowed a two-way conversation between companies and consumers, moving forward from the one-way communication of mass marketing.“We live in a participation economy,” he said, adding that when companies talked about ROI, they should not be thinking so much of return on investment as return on involvement.“Technology has liberated creativity,” Mr Roberts said. “It has removed the barriers of scale and geography and it’s let everyone’s creativity rip.”