Look around you. Do you recognize the current marketplace? Most probably not. Five market forces have changed the way that we communicate, interact, buy, and sell. These include: the proliferation of brands, greater consumer control, the obsolescence of a linear sales funnel, technological advances, and a deeper understanding of how emotion affects decision making. These forces suggest that the prevailing traditional models, constructs, and methodologies that we have used for decades to drive our marketing and communications efforts are not designed for today’s realities and are not as effective as they could be.
We need a new marketing paradigm, one that is designed for this modern marketplace and one that leverages emotion. Advances in neuroscience tell us that decision making, including what we purchase, is based on emotion rather than rational thinking. Brands that master the use of emotion possess a significant advantage over those that don’t. We call this idea Brand Intimacy. This not only makes marketing sense, given the changing landscape, it makes business sense. Top Intimate Brands consistently outperform standard financial indices, across revenue and profit, even in this shifting marketplace.
So how can you create a more intimate brand? To achieve this connection with consumers, you must address three separate but interrelated aspects of branding: essence, story, and experience. Think of each of these as nested and encapsulated within the next. Start by crafting a single-minded and purposeful essence. Continue by developing a powerful series of narratives, and then orchestrating memorable moments. Analyze, adjust, and repeat as necessary. Always look for ways to build emotional bonds and establish reciprocity with users—how can you build relationships vs. transactions?
In more detail, building the essence of a brand is constructing it for greater impact by creating a strong foundation or core. Create an ownable force of attraction and connection. Your brand should be oriented toward customers, positioned to foster an emotional bond, and designed to be distinctive.
With the foundational essence in place, then build a series of emotionally driven narratives and stories that connect the brand’s purpose with the needs of customers and differentiate it from the competition. This level plays an increasingly important role in today’s omnichannel universe, as brands engage in more reciprocity and social marketing.
Once essence and story are in place, now orchestrate unique brand experiences. Focus on the most important channels for your stakeholders to truly connect. Experience includes all the physical, environmental, and digital worlds where a brand exists. These experiences can be tactile, digital, or environmental. No matter what the medium, an emotionally engaging brand experience anchored in essence and story helps stakeholders build emotional bonds with each new encounter.
Focusing this way, the outcome will be a powerful, purposeful Intimate Brand capable of creating strong emotional bonds with stakeholders. Your intimate brand will need continuous care and attention. Further, brand building is a difficult exercise and requires a tremendous amount of internal alignment. A brand needs to be communicated and accepted internally first before its public release. Keep in mind that consumers’ emotional bonds with a brand mimic human relationships; they change through time.
Here are ten questions to help you build a more intimate brand.
- What kind of bond, if any, has your brand built with stakeholders? How strong is that bond?
- How well are you articulating your essence and motivating your audience through your brand?
- What can you do to better align your brand and your cultural values?
- What do you need to do to better communicate your brand for today’s aesthetic sensibilities?
- Are you managing your brand and fostering your marketing community like an operating system?
- How can you drive your brand to inform and please customers more in every interaction?
- How could you use the proliferation of devices in today’s marketplace as an ally?
- Do you see your brand as a community, and yourself as the activities coordinator?
- What can you do to prevent the deluge of data from drowning out your signal among the noise?
- How can you create and sustain ultimate brand relationships?
To learn more and find the UAE 2019 Brand Intimacy Study, click here