Do brands feel my love?
March 30, 2008 | 4 comments | Tweet This
Recently I have been pondering how brands treat their consumers and measure their own successes given that it is now harder than ever for a brands to really command any brand loyalty. It is a thought that I have been discussing in person with some of my fellow likeminded Twitterers (Joseph Jaffe, John Dodds, Mark McGuinness to name a few), as although of course I would love to think of myself as the font of all knowledge, I am interested to hear other peoples views on this subject. Kevin Roberts describes consumers showing their loyalty to a brand in Lovemarks, where a consumer will happily buy a product because they love the brand. However what I would like to know is, are any brands starting to look at a consumers Lovemark when it is not associated back to a sale?
So to put it into context here is an example. If I had a choice I would prefer not to drink Becks beer. I find it too bitter and I don’t really like the taste so in that respect Becks would not acknowledge me as a consumer. However, Becks created Becks Fusions a really great series of events covering music and the arts. This series enabled me to see The Chemical Brothers (i’m a big fan) play a gig in Trafalgar Square. My feelings for the brand in creating these experiences although I never had any real negative thoughts towards it, changed. The brand speaks to me in my areas of interest and at my level, therefore my feelings for the brand are very strong and I will happliy place my Lovemark against it for creating these rewarding experiences for me. Although Becks do not see my love within their sales, they will see it through secondary sources for example; I excitedly shared my feelings and recruited new lovers to the Becks brand by telling a lot of people within my network (Becks audience) about the great experience. I purchased Becks at the events and didn’t mind drinking it as they had already won me over. I will always be on the look out for future events that Becks lay on and will undoubtedly want to be a part of it and show Becks how I love them so. I am now openly endorsing them within my own blog.
So what do I mean to Becks? I would hazard a guess at `bugger all’ since I probably wouldn’t feature within their marketing presentations showing sales going up on a colorful bar chart, but should this be the case? Do brands quantify their success based purely on direct sales or, do they actually look at their Net Promoter Score to see who is recommending the brand? Are they reading what is being said about them amongst consumers?
As we start to see more and more brands fighting to win us over by entering into new territory and offering us experiences as a way of saying “thank you”, is the outcome of these experiences being measured and fed back into the organisations long term objectives? I have given this topic much thought and would really love to hear your views so over to you. Photo
Comments
4 Responses to “Do brands feel my love?”
Got something to say?
Recent Posts
- IPA Social: Principle 07 - Perpetual beta
- IPA Social
- The search for the human element of Digital Britain
- Wearable Gestural Interface
- The future of Social Media; how conversation and behaviour is changing
- Who do you think you’re talking to?
- When quality should overcome quantity
- Why I haven’t been blogging
- I feel London
- What will digital look like in 2013?
Recent Comments
- Tweets that mention IPA Social: Principle 07 - Perpetual beta : Freshen me up -- Topsy.com on IPA Social: Principle 07 - Perpetual beta
- Chris on The future of Social Media; how conversation and behaviour is changing
- Chris Arnold on New ActionAid campaign asks who pays?
- Jamie Brown on The search for the human element of Digital Britain
- bill spinks on Wearable Gestural Interface
- Raj on The future of Social Media; how conversation and behaviour is changing
- andrew on The future of Social Media; how conversation and behaviour is changing
- BrookeKnight on Adobecards.com
- jamiec on Who do you think you’re talking to?
- Peter Moody on Who do you think you’re talking to?
Bookmarks
- World Of Technology: Complicated Mechanisms Explained in simple animations
- News Corp. Planning New U.S. Consumer News Title On Tablets | paidContent:UK
- BBC News - How the internet is changing language
- The Extended Mix - Tracks - SoundCloud
- AMNH Explorer iPhone App | American Museum of Natural History
- The Business of Fashion
- Because Magazine - Curated fashion
- Gill Linton – Digital Magazines: Is The Desktop Dead? - PSFK
- ItsTrending.com - A real time feed of the most shared content on Facebook
- humanities, arts, and social sciences
If you like the brand experience but not the actual product what happens when they start booking James Blunt instead of the Chemicals?
Its definitely an interesting concept seeing that so many brands are putting on extra curricular things but is it really of any use. Of course its great that you can enjoy the gig and then spread the good word of Becks amongst your peers but surely the relationship is so tenuous thats its not really worth anything. As soon as they put on wack gigs you’ll surely be out of there whereas if you actually drank Becks you’d drink them whether they put on Take That or Mark Ronson.
Thanks for your comments Charles and you have a really valid point. What happens when they start to put on James Blunt? Well being that I detest his music of course I will not have a relationship with Becks anymore. However, it is clear that they want a relationship with my target group as currently the events they put on are targeted towards my interests. I suppose the question would be, am I worth anything to them being in the target market they want to talk to if I would make a direct sale but still submerse myself in the brand in other ways?
I guess if they noticed a stampede of traffic from your blog to one of their websites they might sit up and take some notice. They might not brew you a special beer, but they may think twice before booking James Blunt.
I think Mark is kinda right - there’s a bunch of issues here. Firstly how many people are in the same situation (like the brand not the product) - if there’s a load of you and the brand can see that perhaps they can mobilse you some way - perhaps create some awesome network of chemical brother loving art fans that sit on the internet all day discussing art and music. Most likely this won’t happen.
My problem is that you only like the brand because they bought into the Chems - as soon as they change you’re out of there. Yes they want people like you to be into the brand PRODUCT / BRAND but you’re only into the idea of the brand and not the actual product - I think this makes you some kind of experiential tourist - yes please I’ll have the free shit but as soon as it comes to affiliation or loyalty I’m out of there.
Whilst this is awesome I can’t see how a brand can use this to any further use - the amount of people that are into the Chems are probably way less than drink Becks - to make any use of these Etourists they’d have to start identifying with other bands but as soon as they did that you and a bunch of other people would walk.
I think its interesting when brands become popular for extra curricular activities - they obviously could expand on the music / art scene and maybe even bring out some new products that would really resonate with people like you - but then isn’t the idea to get you to buy the brand rather than you dicatate what the brand should release?
Oooh perhaps thats it - now we’re all Clay Shirky 2.0 collective mutha f****s we need to affiliate ourselves with brands and then tell them what products we think they should release? I’d defo have some Rizla trainers if they were KAWs designed or Kozy n Dan!