Brand Intimacy

by Mario Natarelli

  As consumers move up the stages of intimacy, we see even more startling advantages for brands regarding price performance. In the category of bonding (where the relationship between a person and a brand becomes more significant and committed), 14 percent of consumers indicated that they were willing to pay 20 percent more for their intimate brands—that’s more than three times the number of non-intimate consumers willing to pay more. Finally, with people who have fused with the brand (when a person and a brand are inexorably linked and co-identified), the advantage is 21 percent are willing to pay more, or more than 5 times those that aren’t intimate with the brand. For Apple, to use the example again, with 700 million fused iPhone users, this would translate to more than 147 million of them willing to pay 20 percent more. Though these numbers are extrapolated for effect, it is easy to see how Apple continues to outperform its competitors on margin—the quality of their products combined with the power of its brand to deliver exceptional brand intimacy.

  To further visualize this advantage, we took the average percentage of fused consumers willing to pay 20 percent more for all brands in our study and compared it to the best-performing brand with respect to price resilience, Amazon. We found that 30 percent of Amazon fused users have a willingness to pay a 20 percent premium for their brand. That is approaching almost one-third of their most intimate users, each willing to pay a premium.

  Another example is viewing the Top 10 Intimate Brands versus the bottom 10 ranking brands in terms of economic equity. We found the Top 10 brands are 50 percent more likely to command a premium and are three times more likely to pay 20 percent more over the bottom 10 brands.

  When we continued to explore the role of intimacy on price performance, we found that brands with higher brand intimacy quotient scores correlate to having stronger economic equity profiles. In other words, the stronger the intimacy, the more willing consumers are to purchase and pay more. To dimension this point, we chose two brands within one category which are typically competitors. For each pair, Delta and American, and Chrysler and Honda, the brand with the higher quotient outperforms its competitor in consumer willingness to pay more.

  Even in two disparate industries, such as airlines and automotive (which are the highest and lowest ranked industries, respectively), the more intimate the brand, the better the price performance.

  From assessing the data, it also became clear that consumers are willing to pay more for certain industries over others. The top five industries with the largest number of consumers willing to pay more are: consumer goods, media and entertainment, fast food, technology and telecommunications, and beverages. In general, these involve the purchase of lower priced items, which may make people less sensitive about potentially paying more as well as being frequently used products and services. However, media and entertainment and technology and telecommunications are two industries where offerings could be costly and they still rank high for price resilience.

  What is most important to highlight is the higher the intimacy performance, the more price resilience a brand has.

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  FAILURES, PERSPECTIVES AND LESSONS

  Brands today are under tremendous pressure to differentiate, perform, and deliver. There are more channels and greater expectations than ever before for new content, fresh ideas, customized offers, and frequent (but not overbearing)communications. Many marketers hope that continuing their same-old, same-old will suffice; however, there are too many examples of consumers using social media and other forums to vent about brands being uncommunicative, lazy, or out of date to believe that what worked yesterday will continue to work today. Simply put, consumers now have different expectations of brands—expecting them to be smarter, relevant, trustworthy, and quick acting.

  Having written about theory, we wanted to provide some tangible examples, so we’ve included some painful brand experiences that demonstrate missteps, which have helped move customers from intimate to indifferent. These should serve as warnings to us all; while mistakes are inevitable, there are ways to avoid common pitfalls or activities that are clearly oriented toward destroying consumer bonds.

  WHEN BRANDS FAIL: AVOIDING THE PITFALLS OF INDIFFERENCE

  Since emotion is the fuel of brand intimacy, the upside of being bonded with a brand is powerful. The downside, however, is dire. As with human relationships, brands and people form equally complex and emotionally driven connections. We can all relate to horrible breakups, where once-loving relationships become minefields. The same holds true for brands. As we began to understand why people choose, love, or are loyal to brands, we became equally intrigued as to why and how they become frustrated, hateful, or enraged toward them. How does this happen? And how does it eventually lead to indifference?

  We’ve found that the causes of consumer indifference are an area of little collective study—and who wants to dwell on the negative, after all? It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the many published lists of “top” brands, yet finding any organized “worst of” study proves difficult. All the same, we believe learning from the lessons of brand failures is difficult, albeit critically important.

  At the risk of dwelling on schadenfreude, brands today face increasingly new and severe risks. Today, companies looking to optimize and maximize their bottom-line performance are trying to do more with fewer resources. At the same time, consumers feel increasingly empowered through a wealth of choices and a realization of the impact they can leverage over brands. Anger and indifference, when enabled by the viral and compounding effects of the social web, can make any marketing executive feel like he or she is fighting a losing battle.

  Beyond the risk to reputation and the performance of a brand, we have discovered that consumers can reach a more potent and permanent state of ambivalence. Think of it as worse than hatred—devoid of emotional connection of any kind, and worst of all, likely irreversible. We’ve collected a series of examples that illustrate how consumer bonds with brands can be abused or, in some cases, destroyed.

  COMCAST AND THE SOUND OF INDIFFERENCE

  In this cringe-inducing call, a customer is antagonized and tortured through a separation process that one must hear to believe. The customer is trying to cancel their service, and repeatedly makes this request clearly. They note that they do not owe any explanation to Comcast as to why they want to discontinue usage and are simply requesting a cancellation. The customer service agent, in response, is unbearable, suggesting that the customer has to convince him as to why cancellation is necessary. He repeatedly requests information on what Comcast has done wrong, why the customer is dissatisfied, and what service he plans to use next. Amazingly, the caller remains calm throughout and holds his ground (likely because he knew it would make for better theater later). Here is a short snippet:

  Rep: I’m just trying to figure out what it is about Comcast service that you don’t want to keep.

  Customer: This phone call is actually a really amazing representative example of why I don’t want to stay with Comcast.

  Customer: The way you can help me is by disconnecting my service.

  Rep: But how is that helping you! How is that helping you? Explain to me how that is helping you!

  Rep: OK, but I’m trying to help you!

  The indifference in the customer’s voice demonstrates that he is past the point of having any feelings about this brand. It also makes it clear there is little the Comcast brand could ever to do rebuild this relationship. This story made a big splash in social channels and has prompted additional embarrassing findings for Comcast, such as the training manual that essentially prescribes the behavior on this call. To hear the conversation visit mblm.com/brandintimacybook.

  IMPACT

  Customers who consider that they are trapped by the brands they use are prone to slipping into a state of complete indifference. They believe their ability to choose has been removed. Utility brands or government brands are common culprits. Companies such as Comcast must find ways for their customers (especiall
y if a significant subset of repeat customers perceive they are stuck) to avoid feeling like prisoners. In fact, it’s worth stressing that where there is a potential for customers to feel trapped, or believe they have no say in the relationship, extra caution should be taken.

  LESSON LEARNED: RECOGNIZE WHEN A CUSTOMER IS A PRISONER TO YOUR BRAND AND MITIGATE RISKS.

  UNITED BREAKS GUITARS/

  PASSENGER DRAGGED OFF PLANE

  This piece of viral gold is now over nine years old! A United Airlines traveler was so upset that his guitar was broken on a flight that he created a song and music video. Over 2.4 million people have viewed this compelling and humorous takedown of a brand that created indifference by acting indifferent. The traveler details his experience, including dealing with disinterested United staff who gave him the runaround for months, a variety of phone numbers and follow ups that went nowhere and the frustration of feeling invisible. This social media marketing classic is also a book and case study: visit mblm.com/brandintimacybook to see more about this incident.

  More recently, United found itself back on the hot seat, facing a backlash by having police forcibly remove a ticketed customer off a plane. The event was recorded by fellow passengers and played across virtually every news program, inducing outrage. The situation was further exacerbated by United’s CEO initially supporting this action and then having to retract and apologize. This separate event, years later, highlights the same flaw as the previous example, that of treating customers poorly and not valuing them as individuals.

  IMPACT

  Many can relate to these unfortunate incidents. Airlines in the United States have clearly been focusing on different issues than treating their customers right. In both examples, we see the delayed and flatfooted response of United. Taylor Guitars, by contrast, jumped at the opportunity to replace the guitar and become the hero and silver lining of the first incident. In the second, other airlines quickly announced changes in policy, while United was stumbling to determine an appropriate response. Eventually, it too released policy changes to avoid a repeat incident. With these two incidents, more than five years apart, it’s hard to understand a brand like United failing to act in a more savvy and expedient nature.

  LESSON LEARNED: PERFORMANCE FAILURES CAN BECOME INFAMOUS AND EVERLASTING.

  A GIFT GONE WRONG

  When the most valuable brand in the world partners with, arguably, one of the biggest rock bands in the world, what could go wrong? Following the automatic distribution of a new U2 album to every iTunes account holder in 2014, few could have predicted the resulting backlash. Fueled by Twitter and a feeling of permissions exceeded, Apple responded by publishing a message and a method that reversed the “gift” to those who wished it to be removed.

  IMPACT

  The same week that this blunder occurred, Apple CEO Tim Cook went out of his way to make clear Apple’s position of distance with respect to storing and leveraging user information (e.g., ApplePay and Healthkit). Despite seemingly good intentions, the desire of both these brands (Apple and U2) to make history for creating the largest album release exceeded their brands’ permissions. Although free, some users felt encroached upon (or violated) with material appearing on their personal devices that they neither requested nor preferred. The takeaway here is that even free gifts sent to the personal devices must be considered more carefully in the future—especially during the week when Apple unveiled its most “intimate” product: the Apple Watch.

  LESSON LEARNED: DON’T ABUSE YOUR POWERS

  SOCIAL PLATFORM BREAKUPS

  How do you break up with a social media platform full of friends and family, or the place with all your business connections, or the tool that collects and rewards you for your favorite hangouts and social habits? Engineered to keep you following, linking, and liking, these platforms are continually tinkering to make users’ sessions sticky and commercially viable. But sometimes those tweaks, married with general user fatigue, can go terribly wrong, and the impact can create a permanent indifference among a brand’s users.

  One of the best articulations of indifference is evidenced in this article of a break-up letter to Foursquare. It starts with “Oh, Foursquare. We’re breaking up. It’s not me. It’s you…” and ends with “Sincerely, A Former Lover.” In between, you can see an edited emotional transcription of passionate brand intimacy moving toward complete indifference.

  “Oh, Foursquare. We’re breaking up. It’s not me. It’s you. I know this may come as something as a surprise; after all, I’ve known you longer than I’ve known my wife and been with you more places...

  ...But now, now you’ve failed at everything you were once good at. You didn’t stay true to your roots. You doubted yourself in your middle age. ...After all, you’re the only company I trust to out-Foursquare Foursquare, and with the whole existing rich database to draw on, it was possible you could. I reluctantly installed Swarm...

  ...But then Swarm sucked. It crashed. All. The. Time. On iOS. On Android. A product that willfully refused to perform its core task. A pencil unwilling to write...

  Instead, you just shoved avid users into a shitty app that crashes all the time. There’s only so many “Sorry, Swarm has quit” messages a guy can take. So, after 3,044 check-ins and 68 badges, your user #11471 is throwing in the towel. Goodbye.

  Sincerely, A Former Lover”122

  Another consumer in a similar state offered this gem in describing a painful Facebook breakup:

  “I’m done with you, too. I hate the feeling I get when I’m comparing myself to my peers. Why is it so wrong to dislike using Facebook? Do I really have to post every thought, urge, feeling, and experience to you? Why is it necessary to share my experiences with you? I like that you help me stay connected to people, but at the same time, I feel like we (as a society) have lost the ability to appreciate good, old-fashioned face-to-face communication…”

  From our online community, we found this succinct break up:

  “I can’t keep forgiving a brand for constant mistakes, for invading my privacy and for clearly not understanding me. Bye, bye!” U.S. consumer

  IMPACT

  Owners and enablers of social communities, like those elected to run our real communities, have responsibilities and obligations to their constituents.

  LESSON LEARNED: DON’T BE PERCEIVED AS AN OVERLORD; FACTOR IN STAKEHOLDERS AND ADVANCE WITH CARE AND CONSIDERATION.

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  BUILDING MORE INTIMATE BRANDS

  The most common question we receive when we discuss brand intimacy with marketers all over the world, is, “How can I build a more intimate brand?” Executives from companies of every size see the intuitive clarity of the approach yet their needs can vary depending on their brand’s evolution or state.

  In some cases it is retooling an existing brand, in others it’s creating something completely new. In all cases, the principles involve leveraging emotion as the core of any brand foundation.

  Building a more intimate brand requires ongoing commitment and focus. To help guide the process we’ve developed a straightforward framework that encompasses all marketing activities. This includes strategy and communications through to design and activation, across disciplines and divisions with both internal and external partners and contributors. Think of this framework in three levels, each nested within each other in a Russian doll-like configuration. These three levels are Essence, Story, and Experience. Taken as a whole, they encompass all facets of brand building across strategic, visual, verbal, and activation-oriented activities.

  Brands have used this framework to gauge their gaps and to align the investments and effort required. Each level can contain multiple activities which we will provide a summary of here.

  ESSENCE

  Intimate brands start with a strong foundation or core. We call this essence. Here is where the brand is constructed for greater impact by creating an ownable force of attraction and connection. This is home to research and insights, naming, brand strategy, ar
chitecture, visual identity, and design system for a brand. Utilizing established brand intimacy principles, brands are oriented toward their users, positioned to foster an emotional bond and designed to be distinctive. This aids in instinctive and fast decision making, mirroring the way people process information and strengthens a brand’s ability to attract users.

  When crafting a brand’s positioning or promise we begin with an emotional spectrum. This is one of our primary tools to ensure we are building an emotional brand from its foundation. Brands typically tend to focus on the bottom half of the spectrum, emphasizing their rational and literal associations. This focus includes trying to highlight what they do (descriptive), what they sell (products/services), or how they do it (process).

  When positioning an intimate brand, strive to emphasize the top half of the spectrum, highlighting who the brand is (personality), the ethos the brand is trying to deliver (experience), or the ultimate reason why the brand exists/does what it does (purpose/benefit). By orienting a brand toward the top half, we can create opportunities at the strategy level for a brand to establish strong bonds and deep connections.

  ESSENCE: COMMON PITFALLS

  Too often, companies let their brand essence erode over time, either by ignoring it or by not acknowledging the changing business landscape and the need for revisiting their brand and gaining or maintaining consensus. Or some brands want to revise their brand strategy but choose to neglect the visual components of their brand. Both of these components are critical and should work in concert. A new positioning with an old design does not create a compelling whole.