Branding beyond advertising is not so much about furthering arousal and interest but about convincing the customer that the arousal he is experiencing can be rationally supported.
The proper goal for marketers, after having build interest and arousal about their brand, should be to validate the brand value with as much information and experiences as possible.
Relationships programmes, therefore, miss the target. Just as an example, most people’s inbox are far too cluttered to make room for another newsletter.
One-to-one communication experiments are expensive and cumbersome. The necessary IT infrastructure often gets in the way, because of IT people’s agenda leading the project, with a loss of focus in marketing goals.
Discounts and points can increase sales in the short term, but may as well reduce the value of the brand in the long run. It makes little sense to lower the price for the most passionate consumers.
Just to reiterate, brand validation is the way to go for marketers. Studies have showed that people get more and more confident about their choices the more they are given rational support for them. The web site should never under-deliver in terms of validation depth: it should respond to the information need of the hungriest customer. Every single marketing initiative should build on the existing commitment, until one person’s preference for the brand becomes part of her own identity. Once this level of identification is reached, the customer is almost locked in, because any attack on the brand delivered by competition will be perceived as an attack on the person herself. In general, once the level of personal ownership of a decision is developed, there is a personal and interpersonal pressure to behave consistently with it.
Please note, this post is a summary of the article “Better branding beyond advertising” from Marketing Management, January/February 2008.
