How do you find out what truly makes your customers tick? Can you understand what your customer REALLY wants through surveys, focus groups, and structured interviews?
The answer, according to Linda Goodman and Michelle Helin, is “No”. Debunking traditional research predicated on the above yardsticks, the authors of “Why Customers Really Buy – Uncovering the Emotional Triggers that Drive Sales” claim that true insight can only be achieved through conducting emotional-trigger research.
Too bad marketers don’t have growing noses like Pinnochio! (source of image)
In the world of marketing, there are three schools of thought.
The first is the school of facts. Proponents of this idea hinge much of their marketing on bread and butter issues, focusing on very tangible aspects of their products or services such as cost, value, features, utility, convenience and savings.
“And Jesus Wept” (Courtesy of A View From The Edge)
Over the past couple of weeks, Singapore’s General Elections captured the attention of many Singaporeans, resulting in a Polling Night that had a nail biting finish. More than 2 million people casted their votes for the future of Singapore.
In reading, viewing and listening to what my fellow Singaporeans have to say about the elections, it is clear that the emotions play a key role in its eventual outcome. There has been shouts of anger, tears of sadness, and smiles of happiness throughout the campaign period for all parties. Much of the rhetoric employed by the various candidates in their speeches tug heavily at the heartstrings.
What emotion is she displaying here? (Designed by Freepik)
As a fairly prosaic person who thinks more than he feels, I am not naturally given to bursts of extreme joy, anger or sorrow.
Adopting a rather Zen-like philosophy in life, I try to stick to the middle path. If a particularly contentious issue comes my way, I normally try to resolve it in the most amicable and least conflicting manner.
Once in a while, you stumble upon a gem of a book which you cannot put down. That happened to me recently, when I read Lovemarks (authored by Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts who blogs here). Apparently, Kevin was in town recently as part of the Global Brand Forum but unfortunately, work commitments made it difficult for me to catch him live in action. Maybe next time.
There are several key ideas in Lovemarks which I found very useful (and which I blogged about before). One of these was that brands (which can be products, places, events or people) that resonated emotionally with people have these three key elements:
Paris Hilton – just a fad or an enduring icon in the age of attraction?
I have been reading Derrick Daye’s awesome blog for its unique branding insights and came across the idea of the Attraction Economy and its accompanying concept of Lovemarks. Both were created by CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, Kevin Roberts.
According to Kevin,
“Human attention was the principal coinage of the Attention Economy; human emotion is what funds the Attraction Economy. Emotion is tough to nail down because its complexities are beyond measure. Just take that at face value. Our facial muscles can move in 10,000 possible combinations to reveal what we are feeling. The Attraction Economy is not “one hit and you’re it.” Attraction demands emotion, but emotion with purpose.”
I came across this awesome blog on branding by the Blake Project which offers truckloads of fabulous advice and insights on the art and science of branding. This is probably one of the best blogs on marketing which I have seen. What’s great is that they do offer lots of free stuff too.
How does one measure brand equity? There are many ways to do it. Interbrand–Businessweek’s methodology is probably the most famous for listed companies, and many marketers are familiar with their Top 100 Global Brands.
I personally like the approach which Blake Project has adopted. According to them, there are five key attributes which drive customers’ brand insistence, namely: