Best Way to Build Brand Love
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Embrace the idea that is bigger than the brand itself
Brands are too often groomed to think small. They settle for “mini” brand love. Here are 4 ways a brand can break that cycle and reach its larger potential.
First, anchor your brand to a big idea
Our actions as marketeers suggest that our brands aren’t capable of much. We create campaigns focused on features and benefits. We market products, instead of the ideas behind the products.
This is flawed thinking in that it’s confined thinking.
Big ideas are expandable concepts. The ideas behind our brands should be thought of as such. The ideas should not be small, zero-sum, or fixed.
Remembering this enables us to focus on the larger idea, as well as tap into it. In doing so, we find the love associated with that big idea.
Think of the most influential brands in the world; they’re connected to larger ideas. These brands never lose sight of that idea. They become the brands that we evangelize to our friends.
Fenty isn’t a cosmetics brand, it’s an idea whose sights are anchored on inclusivity.
Fenty’s focus on that big idea has enabled them to become a beacon. In short order, they’ve become a big-idea-embracing force as well as a commercial titan. Savage X Fenty lingerie brand, a single line of the business, is three years old and worth a staggering $1B.
Next, find new pathways to engage us
Our love for a brand can expand or contract via our proximity to it. When a brand finds a way to bring us close, our association and love of that brand grow. And when we distance ourselves, for whatever reason, our passion for the brand withers.
When a brand creates new ways to advance a larger idea, it can also create new ways to engage us, to bring us closer.
Patagonia excels in this area. Let’s call it “engagement innovation.”
Originally, we loved them because of their clothing. Wearing a Patagonia jacket until it was visibly worn, repaired, and worn further…
