Jean-Claude Saade looks at consumer behaviour models
After years of chasing those precious 'consumer insights' that brands and businesses use to better connect with their customers, we have noticed that people deal with brands in a way that is familiar to all of us. People - consumers if you want to look at them as such - connect with their preferred brands in a way that is very similar to personal human relationships.
Although the word 'relationship' is much used in today's business world, most of the time it is not really conveying the real meaning and natural strengths of a relationship.
A lot of companies are talking about their relationship with customers and managing this relationship through different techniques and models, including CRM. But compared to real-life human relationships, what we experience in the market is more about manipulation than real connection at a human level.
People become familiar with a certain restaurant, fall in love with car makes, identify themselves with certain clothing brands and just hate and avoid some other sets of businesses and brands.
Are we imagining things? Trying to simplify complicated consumer behaviour issues? No.
Consumers are above all humans like any one of us in the different situations of life. Therefore, consumers first and foremost need to be understood and respected as people. Then everything else will follow, including commercial benefits, long-term relationships and positive word-of-mouth and referral.
Let's forget 'manipulation' - it won't work. Consumers can feel it, the same way we can smell fishy things in our everyday dealings with other people. You can pick your own examples from any relationship you have in your personal or professional life.
As a business community, brand owners and brand specialists, let us open our eyes to some basic realities and ground rules of relationship building between consumers and brands.
Once we have arrived at this understanding, we are equipped with the necessary 'operating system' to deal, adapt and survive. But this is mainly oriented towards other human beings and the elements of nature.
This system has obviously developed with the evolution of human life but the basic operating system is still the same - a 2004 version of an operating system that is millions of years old (imagine a human counterpart of Windows XP!).
The relationship 'software' that we are equipped with is basically destined to help us deal with other people with all the emotional, rational and intuitive aspects of this dealing - what can be measured using consumer research and what cannot be measured or standardised in models.
In the midst of intense competition and fast-moving business trends, some companies neglect a very important element when dealing with consumers and their constituencies: THE HUMAN ELEMENT.
Brands with their ability to secure income are now considered as the most important business asset. The economic value of a brand is widely recognised, not just by brand owners but by investors as well. At the same time, the power of brands is directly related to their connection with customers and consumers. Therefore, the law of transitivity makes the fate of businesses and their economic value directly related to the strength of their brands' connection with consumers.
Building a strong and authentic relationship with consumers should respect certain parameters that we will summarise in the following elements:
The human face of brands: To better connect with people, brands need a 'human face'. This has to be real and able to connect with their lives in a genuine manner; otherwise people will discount 'fake personality' brands from their lives the same way they avoid people with unpleasant characters, bad manners or questionable values.
The positive contribution/ proposition of brands: After defining a real human face and personality, brands need to bring a positive contribution to people's lives. This is the brand offering or proposition. Without this contribution we won't have the basis for a sustainable and complete relationship.
We can still have a certain level of connection but this will remain at the awareness level but involving real interaction. A brand proposition will be a mix of emotional bonding anchored in rational and tangible benefits and solutions. Can't we look now in a different light at basic marketing and communication elements like a 'brand proposition' or a 'brand positioning'?
Building a real and strong connection: Like people, a brand cannot have relationships with all available people. It has to make choices (focus on certain segments and own a clear position in the mind) - choices that will affect the kind of people it can connect with and build durable relationships with for a long period of time. Those choices start from the very general to the very specific: From what kind of values this brand believes in to the level of cleanliness it has in its products or outlets.
Living the brand: Living the brand is believing in what the brand stands for - how this brand can be materialised as a person and what kind of contribution it is bringing to the world, to a country or to a group of consumers who are dealing with it.
Over the years branding strategies and techniques have added a lot to the business world and have extended its reach to others areas like politics, arts and ideas. However, there is an important dimension that will shed a new light on branding and on the way we are doing business in general.
The human nature of brands is very real and actionable when understood and implemented by businesses in the right way. It is a direct signal that will be deciphered by people's 'operating systems' to deal with the outside world.
To be a real and positive part of people's lives a brand needs a human face and a real person's profile from values to behaviour, to communication, to social responsibility and contribution. In addition to that it has to have a specific offering addressed to its target consumers.
There will always be businesses who will be contented with certain old ways of dealing with consumers using clich definitions and salesmanship instead of building real relationships and connections with their customers. The choice is yours.
If you really believe in the human dimension of any business and brand, let your brand have a human face and a positive role in consumers' lives. This will get you to the hearts of the people who share the same ideas and concerns - people previously defined as your 'target consumers'.
Jean-Claude Saade is CEO of FreeWorld, a brand strategy consultancy based in Dubai. info@freeworldconsult.com
© Gulf Marketing Review 2004
