Brands are often referred to as a person. They have an identity, values, a specific style, a certain character and specialists tell us that ‘a brand is like a friend’. So we have brand relationships with love brands or even lovemarks. Marketers must create loyalty through conversation with the customer and consumer and not the brand as such nor its manager but the social surrounding decides on what reputation your brand has.
Now, personification is a damn good trick in brand management as people have learned through evolution to think in examples and very concrete ideas. Meaning that abstract ideas are too hard to understand and even if we understand them, it still remains difficult to actually do something with these abstract ideas. So indeed, it is a good thing to see brands as a person and create brand relationships.
Going further into that thought, it might be interesting to see what actually helps to create a so-called love relationship between people and brands. (Knowing that I’ve never seen a customer weep because his brand was delisted or completely disappeared from the world - but let’s play this ‘brand love’ game.) Love is created through 3 simple methods.
1. Frequency
The more frequent you meet a person, the more loyal you will be to that person. That is the reason why so many (extramarital) relationships start at work: at a certain point you see them more than your own wife or husband and show more loyalty to your colleagues than to your official relationship.
Brands need to create frequency in contact. Just don’t forget to make it a relevant contact.
2. Recognition
That’s why recognition is also important. Sure, you’ll find examples of relationships where there is no recognition from one of the persons involved, but I’m talking about healthy, non-psychopathic relationships. Recognition means that you show that you understand the world of your customer/partner and its attending issues. Relevance is one good way to make sure that you create recognition, but there are other possibilities.
Brands must learn to show recognition to their customers without denying their own characteristic property.
3. Extremes
This might be completely new to marketers, but research has shown that there is a simple way to create a ‘crush’. (And as we all know, being in love is a great start towards real love.) Put 2 people together and let them experience extreme situations together -with a happy ending of course- and chances are high(er) that they will have a crush on each other. Danger is an Aphrodisiac.
Now this is a more difficult one: brands must dare to create more extreme situations with their customers.
Seen the period of brand courage implosion, I wonder whether brands are up to this…
