In the way we at TLG see brands and help clients to think about them, the brand is an expression of a relationship with the product and with self, via the brand. It’s an emotional connection which is the glue of the relationship. People stay with a brand to continue experiencing the feelings they enjoy getting.
When people use various brands they do so for some benefit or set of benefits. What I find truly amazing and fascinating is that every brand feature and functional benefit ladders up to an emotional end benefit or valued judgment of self that results in enhanced self esteem. This last rung is alternately described as:
- I feel good about myself
- I’m confident/self confident
- I like myself
- I’m proud of myself
- I have better self worth
- I’m good
The customer’s relationship with a brand results in these overall positive feelings. It’s just human. We stay with a given brand, just like we stay in our people relationships, as long as we continue to maintain some positive feeling about self from the connection. Relationships fall apart when we’re no longer getting enough good feelings to want to stay with it.
The step just before the top of the ladder, self worth, is what specifically makes up feel better about ourselves, proud, confident, good. It’s also the specific “shade of good/better” that informs the mood and tone of our marketing applications and advertising.
There are many different avenues to increasing our targets’ sense of self worth. In our Livingston Paradigm of Self Esteem©, these fall into four classic categories which we have chosen to call . . .
- Category I – Healthy Narcissism [yes it’s possible and necessary to feel good about ourselves for what we reflect in our personal mirrors]
I’m FlexibleI’m CreativeI’m Free - Category II – Love/Sex/Belonging
I’m LovedI’m Sexy - Category III – Nurturance
I’m a good caretaker - Category IV – Altruism/Giving back to Society
I take care of the worldI mentor the world
Feelings/Values that fall under Category I – Healthy Narcissism, include:
- Feeling Free
- Being in Control
- Having Integrity
- Enjoying Humor
- Being Creative, etc.
Those under Category II – Love/Sex/Belonging are items like:
- Being attractive/sexy
- Loving and feeling loved by another
Category III – Nurturance
- Being a good Mother/Father
- Being a good Manager
- Being a Caretaker
Category IV – Altruism
- Taking a political stand
- Protecting the Environment
- Being a community leader
The value of understanding the categories is that they link to Trial and Repeat.
Categories I and II are the kinds of things that get us charged up and excited. Features and functional benefits that lead to Cat I and II also create “Trial”. So fast cars [BMW] and big trucks [FORD] make some people feel empowered and in control, leading to a wish to test drive the car or Trial.
Categories III and IV are the “Shoulds” of society and the dharma of marketing. We believe we should be doing the right thing in our lives. These are features that have benefits like “saves time”/”saves money.” Such benefits and feelings that are associated with giving to others lead to “Repeat”. [If I have extra time/money I’ll spend it on my family and will be appreciated for being a better parent.] Volvo is known for its safety features leading up to Nurturance and Repeat. Volvo buyers are very loyal to their brand.
So the best, most compelling brands/marketing applications and ads ladder up to emotional end benefits associated with both trial and repeat. Combine Hi Performance with Safety as in the Volvo S80 and you pique interest for Trial while encouraging Repeat.
After years of research, we have discovered some short cuts for getting to emotional end benefits via identifying the Brand’s Archetypal character and story. In fact, as some of you know, we’ve created a deck of cards to help identify Brand Archetypes and their stories. [Check out www.Iconicards.com if you haven’t already, to see what they are and get some tips on how to use them. ] The stories include the emotional end benefit that is connected to each archetype. In the next blog I’ll tell you about some of these archetypes and how they load on emotional end benefits.
I sometimes can’t believe we get paid for doing such interesting work! Hope you AND YOUR CLIENTS enjoy the exploration and discoveries as much as I do.
As always, to your success.
Dr. Sharon Livingston, President
The Livingston Group for Marketing, Inc.
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Comments
December 3 2008
Sharon,
Fascinating thinking on using values groupings in marketing.
Does the use of your Iconicards help to clarify and make use of an individual’s or group’s values hierarchy so as to most powerfully market to them?
Thanks,
- John
December 3 2008
Hi John,
Yes it does. There are intrinsic values that are resident in the archetypes. We’ve seen these in laddering exercises. I’ll write about some of them next.
December 12 2008
Emotional branding is certainly an interesting concept. However, as described it ignores the dimension of habituation. In other words people are frequently lured to a brand for a one-off reason – a competition, a special offer etc etc. and for various other reasons the purchase of the product becomes a habit. Although emotions are, of course, pstill part of the relationship witht he brand, this dimension of habituation can run in parallel with the emotional relationship as you describe it but it is distinctly different and unglamerous but should not be ignored.
The icons that you use are attractive, but for me they encourage, in a not very positive way, stereotyping.
Creativity is, I believe, the currency of the future and the content of your blog certainly encourages this – well done! I think things that encourage stereotyping, such as the icons, are counterproductive to that, if only in a small way.
Interesting blog,
Thanks
Dr. Andre Walton
December 13 2008
Hi Dr. Andre!
Thanks for your response. There are 94 archetypes people can choose from in associating to brands, situation or self. Seems pretty broad to me and the most important part of the exercise is in how people free associate to the images. Nevertheless, responses do load on the various characters with suggested emotional end benefits that are very informative for marketing.
December 13 2008
I also think the “habit” is the relationship. How much of a habit it becomes depends on the brands ability to keep up its side of the relationship. The relationship might be characterized by one of the archetypes.