If the world is change and constant evolution, I have a simple question: why do we insist on returning to the same old habits and customs? If we accept that change is an inherent ingredient of existence, why do we cling to the concepts that fix and define? Perhaps because we desire security and confidence, in a world that challenges us in a way that until recently was unimaginable, in that today there is no greater risk than not taking risks, and never has a passive target been easier to attack than in our times.
For this reason, like many obsolete paradigms, among others, I stopped believing in brand positioning a long time ago.
One example is enough: If we were to take a picture of a car at only 60 kilometers per hour passing in front of our camera lens, we could quickly see on the small screen its digital image and the position it had at that instant. Obviously, a minute later it would be at least 1 kilometer away from our location, if by any chance it maintained the same speed it was going, if it was not stopped by a traffic light, if it did not collide with another car or accelerated to the limit of its power, among many other possibilities.
The same happens with brands, which used positioning as the philosopher’s stone of all their development. For too many years we devoted ourselves to the search for positioning as if it were true that the world would stop to wait for our definition, as if people’s tastes or competitors’ movements would not affect our entire environment one second after the decision of the longed-for positioning had been taken.
It is a concept that is no longer valid and can no longer be considered as the axis of our strategy. Marketing is no longer war, advertising is no longer about communicating or selling, the value of a brand is not enough, segmentation requires new criteria, the boring fails and the conventional agonizes irreparably.
In these paragraphs we will concentrate on discovering the evolution we are living, and that we can no longer ignore. We will share the new challenges we are facing and we will try to provoke, detonate, ignite and perhaps, encourage to take actions in the integral transformation of the world of our companies, enterprises or institutions… starting with the brands.
Products and services can no longer be good.
Seth Godin, in his joyful book, The Purple Cow, tells of his experience. On a trip to France he came across the most beautiful cows he had ever seen in his life. They caught his attention to the point of fascination. However, a while after seeing them in the country landscape he was traveling through with his family, they ceased to attract him to the point of ignoring them completely. Beautiful, noble, of all our respect and admiration, the brands have become like those ruminant creatures, because they have not managed to evolve to stand out, as a purple cow would logically do.
Thus, it is clear that firms that produce goods and services are now under pressure in a different way. Extraordinary marketing and more creative advertising campaigns will not achieve the results of the past with normal or customary products. Today the demand is simple: extraordinary products plus extraordinary marketing. One cannot live without the other, and therefore, companies must focus strategically, with imagination and talent, on achieving this irreplaceable combination.
It is not surprising that advertising alone can no longer deliver the results it once did. Consumers have become more sophisticated and therefore, we do not buy the old arguments, stimuli and promises, without an innovative integral offer that merges product, brand and marketing in an attractive and different unit.
It is very possible that, if you are among those who constantly resort to promotions and discounts for your business, you have in front of you a convincing evidence of finding yourself with a conventional product in your hands, the same as the others, without real or emotional values enough to seduce the purchase decision of your clients or consumers. It would be left to decide how much longer your business can sustain itself without innovation, possibly relative to the time it takes someone else to deliver what no one else imagined possible before. It is Jesper Kunde who argues in his book “Unique… or Never” that the unique value proposition is the one that will allow, with a differentiated experience, success indefinitely.
Brands have lost their essence.
Brands, at the same time, have lost their juice because they have ceased to be sufficient to achieve the desired differentiation. They could not have sustained it much longer, with so many products and services without their own differentiating attributes. It is no coincidence that today we are faced with this inexhaustible demonstration of promotional mechanics to achieve an additional transaction.
The absence of imagination has led us to contemplate our markets with raffles, sweepstakes and promotions, most of them with cars, televisions and trips as the licit bribe to get the business. This concentration on promotions proves beyond doubt that the products are not good enough on their own, and consequently, must be accompanied by some artificial gratuity or lure. A brand that needs to regularly give away a prize to attract your purchase demonstrates its own weakness and low level of self-esteem.
Brands have become undifferentiated elements in an endless stream of promotional resources, without sustained marketing plans over the years and under pressure for immediate results, as if the personality of a brand can be solved in an advertisement, in a quarter or in terms of the company’s financial results.
Brands have been abandoned by metrics maniacs who can’t find any answers unless they are in an Excel spreadsheet, a SWOT analysis or a matrix of carefully defined variables in a boardroom. The rationality of the trained decision-making process usually leads us to forget that we are fundamentally emotion. The difficulty to quantify the internal rate of return of an advertising investment has led us to the mistake of reducing budgets in this area, and therefore, brands have stopped seducing and captivating, to focus on the immediate transaction, omitting to take care of cultivating a relationship.
A brand, in its essence and power, is a magical synthesis of stimuli, emotions and reasons conjugated in a word or two, that manages to detonate with its simple presence in an incomparable way. It appeals to the very complexity of the human being, triggering a perception and adding some information. The winning organizations of the future will be those that know how to recognize the very essence of their brand. They will be those that nurture, protect, pamper and stimulate it with the care and mastery that can only be achieved, one stitch at a time, in the haute couture of the most evolved marketing.
Reasons and emotions: the dilemma.
Brands are not established in a market, but within the human being and our complex trilogy of soul, body and mind. We are people who live, desire, aspire and feel, in addition to what we know and know how. However, as stated by Donald Calne, prestigious neurologist in his book “Within Reason”, reasons lead to conclusions, while emotions lead to actions. His proposal explains the limitations of reason and delves into emotions as drivers of human behavior.
Antonio Damasio, another renowned neurologist, focuses in his publication “Descartes’ Error” on reasons and their inseparable dependence on emotions, as did Daniel Goleman in his best-seller “Emotional Intelligence”. People are emotions, while we are reasons only in a small proportion.
It has been documented ad nauseam, and in our lives, nothing is more powerfully intuitive. The most important decisions in our lives are made by emotions. In fact, no one chooses a partner by an analytical process of variables, because as has been said with great accuracy, the heart has reasons that reason does not know.
This is why we give our loyalty to certain brands, beyond all reason. There are brands that we love, with which we identify ourselves in a way that has no reasonable explanation. In the paradise of brands, we find a few that have evolved from a place in the market, to the heart of our culture. They are super evolved brands that enjoy our respect and love.
From Products to Brands to Lovemarks.
We believe that Darwin would have recognized it, since we are facing the result of a natural evolution. From products to brands to Lovemarks, brands that inspire loyalty beyond reason. It is a powerful proposition that draws on our emotions, and taps into our innermost being.
We will find that a Lovemark is one that achieves the highest levels of respect and love, achieving an affinity that allows powerful connections between them and those who prefer them. They are brands that become the property of the people, not of the firms that provide them, in that they manage to monopolize their loyalty without particular attention to features or specifications. A brand is about information, a Lovemark is about a relationship, never boring, always seductive. A brand resides in the home of its consumers, a Lovemark resides in their hearts.
A Lovemark transcends the brand. Not only does it reach people’s minds and hearts, but it also becomes part of their lives. If we were to remove a brand from the market, people would replace it. If we did it with a Lovemark, they would protest its absence. This is simple. People don’t buy a Lovemark, they embrace it and passionately incorporate it into their lives. And then, they don’t let it go.
As Kevin Roberts, worldwide CEO of Saatchi Saatchi, creator of the concept and chief inspiration for its global development, puts it, Coca-Cola is a Lovemark, as is McDonald’s, Harley Davidson or Zippo lighters. However, each person defines his or her Lovemarks, so they will exist only if we add to the conventional transactional vision, the relational proposal that all this means. He recently published his book: “Lovemarks. The future beyond brands” with his complete proposal.
Emotional construction of brands
Relationship marketing is gaining momentum and the focus on loyalty is finally recognized as the most sensible direction to take in the search for growth and development in our companies. If we wish to move away from the name coined by Roberts, in all its powerful comprehensive approach, using his words, let us then concentrate on a single direction: creating and perpetuating brands that inspire loyalty beyond reason.
The results will be readily visible, especially if we recognize that today it is women who make purchasing decisions, or strongly influence them, in no less than 75% of opportunities. In fact, it is Marc Gobé who asks in his book “Emotional Branding”: “Is there any company that can pay the price of ignoring women! The answer is obvious, and the relational approach even more powerful, as we recognize that women are more sensitive to emotions.
The new paradigms are therefore self-defining and are largely proposed as a consequence of evolution. Marketing is about relationships between brands and people. War is no longer a good analogy. Advertising is not only communication and therefore, today it is more the art of seduction. Selling is the transaction, but it will be more impactful if it allows to be the encounter, in order to create lasting connections for a lifetime. Segmentation must respond to the complexity of opportunities, and by far, any effort we make will be successful if it is made for extraordinary, exciting, energizing, imaginative, intuitive and exciting products or services. This is why innovation is the best friend a brand can have.
Five new challenges to initiate evolution
In the search for this transformation based on powerful ideas, such as those of Marc Gobé, among many others, evolution becomes a constant that we must accelerate, and therefore, understand as challenges that we must overcome, or else resign ourselves to perish. For this reason, we summarize here some of his most challenging conclusions, all opportunities for those who adopt them first in their way of living.
1. Evolutions from Products to Experiences. It has already been said that people do not buy products, but rather satisfiers. Therefore, to the extent that we focus on creating unique, attractive and seductive experiences, we will facilitate the loyalty we so desire. Products must meet all expectations, and it is incumbent upon them to deliver as a refrigerator is taken for granted that it will cool, freeze and make ice. It will be the experience provoked around each brand that can generate the most desired results. Creativity and imagination cease to be key ingredients only in the advertising agency, and move to the firm itself, the manufacturer or legal owner of the brands. This is why it makes sense to focus on ideas rather than ads.
2. Let’s evolve from Identity to Personality. Identity by itself leads to recognition and facilitates the creation of perceptions. Personality, however, is that which adds the character and charisma required to attract, connect and adopt. People are identified by many of the external factors in their image, but it is their personality that leads us to desire or not a relationship with them, their attitude and values.
3. Let’s evolve from Quality to Preference. The quality of a product is assumed as a consequence of a certain price. However, it will be the preference for this brand or product that will lead to the sale. If there is quality in a product or service, the natural consequence will be preference for the brand that delivers that quality. Honesty, therefore, will lead to trust.
4. Let’s evolve from consumers to people. The mere fact of no longer calling the person who buys our products a consumer opens up a new and broad space of understanding. Eliminating other labels, such as cardholder, account holder, viewer, user, listener and so many more, brings us back to the essence of our entire approach: people. As Gobé rightly says, the consumer buys, but it is the people who live, dream and desire. It’s a small but significant twist. This is why we think that “Top of Mind” has been overvalued, because awareness will only be positive if we translate it into aspiration.
5. Let’s evolve from Communication to Dialogue. In the first one we tell people what we are, we inform them as it was done since the first sale. However, the second concept means sharing. With communication they will listen to us, but with dialogue they will feel us. It is to celebrate the intelligence of people, and therefore, to move from the search for ubiquity to seek the presence that we will achieve with a dialogue with people.
Ideas to transform, not for conservatives.
The transformative capacity of these concepts is immense and only ends where our imagination ends. Focusing on creating Lovemarks requires accepting and taking action on the love that each person should have for themselves. This places as a first step the importance of authentically rescuing the value of human capital in each company, given that it will not be possible to get people to give their loyalty to our brands until after our collaborators and associates have done so first.
At the same time, these ideas transform the way of managing and leading a company, to place it in the dimension of inspiration, the only way to get everyone to give their best. It also transforms the Board of Directors, which must then permanently ask itself whether its decisions bring people closer or push them away, whether they cultivate and nurture brands that make them fall in love.
In the design of products and services, this new dimension moves us from the drawing board to life. It forces us to investigate, but going to the jungle and not to the zoo. It forces us to detonate for more ideas that integrate and connect, from the packaging to the color, from the tone of the recording on the answering machine, to the way operations are designed or the presentation of a financial report. Everything must stimulate and provoke desire, emotion, a sense of belonging to a winning concept. It is to bring affection, honesty, sincerity and friendship inside our companies, and to realize the most important of all mergers: business and love.
In a marketing world that seems to be lacking in new ideas, we try to provide some triggers to encourage brands to navigate towards high levels of love and respect. This starts with love for oneself, one’s company and its brands. It leads us to define, rather than a mission or vision, our highest possible dream. The objectives will be more ours and more intuitively defined if we concretize what our desires are.
To achieve this integral dimension, we are forced to be legitimately strategic, and to decide to be deliberately different, as Porter puts it. As in love, it is adding and not subtracting, it is living passionately convinced of the power of ideas to transform the world, that of our companies, their brands and prestige. With these words, you decide. This is the end of one more article, or better yet, the exciting beginning of your own transformation.
