Brand Love (1)

Attraction, Attention and Addiction

Love is blind. Loving someone makes you unable to see their faults. The same is true for brand love. Brand love refers to a strong sentimental inclination toward a brand (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006), the sum of cognitive behaviors that are driven by fondness for a brand (Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen, 2010), and a set of “cognitions, emotions, and behaviors, which consumers organize in a mental prototype” (Batra et al).

Emotional branding is a powerful marketing tool that allows companies to establish emotional connections with their target audience. By evoking positive emotions and memories, such as joy, love, nostalgia, and excitement, brands are able to craft a memorable experience that creates lasting loyalty in consumers.

Lovely brand versus Brand love. What actually makes a great brand? Ponder on the following:

Design or Desire

Graphics or Traffic

Attraction or Traction

The singular objective of this article is to inspire entrepreneurs to create lovely brands as well as elicit brand love in consumers.

Take a minute and think of Christmas as a brand. It definitely sparks up a feeling in you – that’s it! Brand love is a feeling. How do you feel when your football club is mentioned? How do you react when you listen to your favourite music or watch your favourite movie character perform? What about the thought of your favourite beverage or biscuit? Your favourite TV or radio station, as well as show or program? Your favourite presenter, footballer, teacher, preacher, writer, comedian, etc.

Brand love is a strong emotional connection consumers have with a brand. It is a product of service satisfaction (utility). Does your brand serve customers satisfactorily? “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind,” Walter Landor memorably stated. He had a particular gift for creating designs with broad popular appeal, such as the Coca-Cola script. Brands as diverse as General Electric, Japan Airlines, Levi Strauss, and Shell Oil all benefited from his vision and commitment.

Brand Love

Love at first sight – the power of design. Last Christmas Eve, we took our kids to ‘our’ regular supermarket (brand love) to get them their usual chocolate and ice cream. Apparently, we saw the brand we wanted but decided to try a new brand because of the attractiveness of the packaging. Our experience was hilariously that of “what you ordered for versus what you got”. “Daddy, take we are okay.” The kids couldn’t lick their fingers as expected. The memory still lingers.

Designs create visual impressions and have the power to elicit “love at first sight”. “Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.” – Paul Rand. Great designs may advertise a good brand, but customer desire is the acid test of a great brand. Design your value system, but also add value to your designs. The former is about your deliverables while the later is everything about your delivery variables.

Did you ever buy a product on impulse? Have you ever wondered why you fell for a brand at its very first appearance? Did you notice an impression it etched and left on your psyche? That’s the art and science of creative branding – the power of design!

Brand love is what drives desire, loyalty and advocacy. In marketing, the acid test refers to a method of evaluating the effectiveness of a marketing strategy or campaign. It involves assessing whether the marketing efforts have resulted in tangible and measurable outcomes, such as increased sales, brand awareness, customer engagement, or other keyh performance indicators. Brand love combines engagement, loyalty and outstanding customer service into one incredibly powerful marketing strategy. It’s based on building an emotional connection with your customers that goes beyond simply filling a need. Instead they form a deep and compelling connection with your brand.

Brand love and customer loyalty can be elicited in three ways as follows:

Consistently add value – Brands are worthless, branding is everything! I said this because branding is a deliberate, conscientious and pragmatic action taken consistently to keep a promise. A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept. Promises are worthless if they are not kept. It is not just enough having your brand featured in the public glare; it’s about adding relevant and useful features to your product.
Creatively sell product benefits – Don’t just sell the product, sell the benefits. The best brands sell feelings instead of products. Creativity is the spark that drives the development of new products or services or ways to do business. It is the push for innovation and improvement. It is continuous learning, questioning, and thinking outside of prescribed formulas. Don’t just talk about being fit as a business, talk about the benefits of your product(s) to the consumers. Product innovation without effective communication is a waste of creativity.
Create good customer service – People may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Brand love is about customer feeling and feeling for the customer. It is a show of empathy that goes beyond value creation; it is everything about valuing the customers and making them feel important. A good customer service experience is enough to deepen brand love and strengthen brand values. Word-of-Mouth (WoM) is a powerful tool the customer uses to either spread brand love or hate speech about a brand. It is a matter of customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

To be continued….

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