The Brand Love Misconception and Need for New Knowledge Domains
28/1 2010
Loyalty Beyond Reason
The brand love concept were invented when we discovered that consumers were not the completely rational beings we thought they were. We abandoned the cognitive approach, including the unique selling point, in favour of emotional branding. And it was in this context, the concept of brand love emerged, feelings so strong for a brand that it motivated consumers to be loyal beyond reason.
Cheesy Pickup Tricks
For some reason brand love came to be treated as if it was the same and therefore fully analogous to interpersonal love, a passionate affection for another person. Many brand love theories derive their sustenance from that kind of psychological knowledge. It’s probably why the suggested branding techniques, most of the time, look like cheesy pickup tricks. Proposals that suggest that we should make our brands sexy, sensual and mysterious do not really help us. And when there is considerable amount of research that suggests that brand love is not the same as human ditto, I think it is time that we abandon that idea for good, in favour of something closer to the truth and more practically applicable.
Loved Brands are Self-Expressive Brands
Loved brands are self-expressive brands; meaning brands that largely hold self-expressive values. According to traditional brand theory these types of values are of interest only for a particular type of consumers, namely status seekers interested in showing off. But in reality self-expression is so much more than that. Self-expression is necessary in order to position an individual in all the different social contexts in which she have to participate. All consumers are constantly engaged in this kind of activity and uses, among other things, self-expressive brands as symbolic resources for meaning, identification and community, all fundamental and essential building blocks in their life projects.
Meaningful Tools Used by Consumers
So brands can be a very meaningful tools used by consumers in their (symbolic) everyday context, earning their place in their daily lives. And that way they become loved brands, motivating loyalty beyond reason. But to make that happen, we have to understand the consumers’ deeper underlying needs of symbolic building blocks and finding strategies to materialize these values. Traditional brand theories do not address these issues and are therefore not particularly helpful. We are in need of additional theories, probably taken from new knowledge domains.
Jonas Söderström
Jonas Söderström is working with Aegis Media as Senior Communications Planner. He has worked strategically with products, brands, communications and channels for nearly two decades, in different positions and business sectors. He has a degree in Behavioral Sciences and recently published a book on Consumer-Led Branding and Commercial Ethnography.
The self expressive brand really seems to be the next generation brand. Be able to include identities within a brand has really become a strength. But then depending of what you are able to express I think the different brands can either be something additively wrong and the your relation to the brand will not be positive emotions. I even think it could really hurt a brand. So the tool of expression is also important. Like facebook the attention and confirmation seekers. If you do not have theses responses you will probably not like facebook.
Just crazy to tatoo a brand, I mean like or even love a brand i can get it. But come on!! tatoo a brand some people are really way out there.
crazy to think we have relationships to brands that are probably stronger to many humans
Another example, a client of mine: http://definitionofdone.blogspot.com/2010/04/varumarke-in-pa-bara-skinnet-tre.html