Loving A Brand?

Not too long ago I read an article about Procter & Gamble's attempt to "stake out the emotional high ground" for their Tide detergent. Trying to establish an emotional connection with customers is showing up more and more in agency presentations. An agency CEO (Also a guest author on Branding Strategy Insider) even wrote a book on the subject, entitled Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands.

I don't want to throw cold water on all this emotion and love, but I have some questions about this kind of activity.

First, who gets emotional about detergent, toothpaste or, for that matter, most of the products out there? If you look at the success of Wal-Mart Stores, you can safely conclude that the only thing people really get emotional about is price.

Second, can emotion be a differentiating idea? And what's to prevent a competitor from trying to be just as emotional as you are? Consider the credit card wars. Visa built its brand around the concept of "Everywhere you want to be." They took ownership of the "everywhere" or acceptance attribute. This is the number-one attribute of credit cards.

MasterCard stumbled around until it landed on the emotional strategy of "For everything else, there's MasterCard." Not bad, but not great. In my estimation, they should have become "Main Street's credit card." Give Visa the globe, but take home base. At least "everything else" plays in that direction.

The best thing this program accomplished is that it encouraged Visa to leave its brilliant strategy and get emotional. Their new strategy is "Life takes Visa," which is good news for MasterCard. What's funny is that everyone is getting into "life.” Coca-Cola never should have left the "The Real Thing." But what is it today? That's right, they want you to come to the "Coke side of life." (Maybe you could buy your Coke with your Visa card?)

But let's get back to Tide and the attempt by those folks to get emotional. My question here is, Why? They have a 42% share of their category. They are producing America's No. 1 detergent and can easily use leadership as a potential strategy (see: " Brand Leadership: Differentiation Power"). They should employ this as their differentiator.

P&G is almost single-handedly "Keeping America in clean clothes." The reason for this is that Tide knows fabric best. The proof of this claim is their 42% market share. (That's a number that would make any product manager truly emotional.)

Finally, is there a role for emotion in developing a strategy?

It depends on what emotion you are talking about. Prestige is an emotion: Why do I buy a $60,000 car? Obviously to impress my friends and neighbors. But you still have to offer a rationale for the purchase, such as the car's engineering or whatever.

The same goes for an expensive watch that doesn't keep time any better than a Timex. The best line Rolex ever came up with is, "It takes a year to build a Rolex." I would make that the positioning strategy and never make a watch any faster.

With expensive, prestige products, the high price delivers the prestige. How else can you impress someone? But you still need a reason or rationale that a customer to latch onto in order to justify wasting their money.

Cosmetics are sold on the emotion of magic in a bottle that will fight aging or attract the opposite sex. Whole Foods plays on the emotion of "health" with all its natural foods and additives.

Quiksilver clothing is sold on the emotion of being cool like the bronzed surfers that hang out in Hawaii. But in all these cases, there is a different kind of product story.

But what about sanitary napkins or disposable diapers? Don't give me emotion, just give me a reason to buy your brand instead of someone else's. And if you don't give me a reason, you better have a low price, because that really gets me excited.

Interestingly, I asked a psychologist in the communications field about all this, and she had a compelling observation: "Emotion without substance is like infatuation that disappoints in the light of day. Without a real difference, an ongoing relationship with the consumer is lost."

Pushing all this emotion has become the solution for advertising agencies that are having problems coming up with reasons to buy. According to WPP's CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, "Difference between products and services are becoming less. Therefore, psychological differentiation and lifestyle differentiation are more important."

In regard to that statement, all I can do is quote Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and it is us."

Comments

[Susan Plunkett]

I've not given this article the attention it deserves but time is amazingly short at this part of the year.

Two comments came to mind. What is beyond the emotion?

Kevin critiqued 'pink' for going on overkill and, at the time, I backed that. Now I'm not so sure about *that* specific instance. I have also noticed Kevin promoting hearts. Well, if there's a potential overdone symbol somewhere, wouldn't it be the heart?

But people get sick of hearing the same messages. They begin to become aware of them etc. Sooner or later they will switch off to "emotion" if its ever ongoing.

So, again, what's around the corner?

I also take issue with a company promoting emotion and failing on basic communication. A company can market 'love' all they like but if I can't get a reasonably timely response from them on an issue - the cuddles and emotion don't mean a lot to me.

[Susan Plunkett]

Actually, this quote reflects my last post:

"Emotion without substance is like infatuation that disappoints in the light of day. Without a real difference, an ongoing relationship with the consumer is lost."

Various people and their promotions have lost me these last few months. I'm hearing drone and self infatuation.

[reverse auctions]

Brand association is the best way to market yourself. I come from a banking bankground where the bank I work for pushed its name every way possible. They have had huge successes with this tactic. Rolex is a good example of this.