A consumer who demands freedom and we are talking about emotional bridges of relationship. Those brands that do not understand freedom from the individuality of action of the consumer and are not capable of approaching him in an empathetic way will not survive in the next 10 years.
When I commented on my previous article related aspects based on the fact that everything is flexible, everything is mobile, everything is dynamic, etc. a final desirable state value (Rockeach) is appreciated above all, which is “Freedom”.
In my opinion, this is the basis of contrast and balance that should lead us to the growing difficulty of connecting brands and consumers.
We are living in a complex era in the development of communication with consumers, with a certain paradox.
A consumer who demands freedom of choice, emancipation from advertising messages, individuality of opinion but who on the other hand demands his dose of prominence and a differentiating element, whether through social networks, communities, tribes, “fans of….”, the neighborhood or any element of sociability.
That is to say, on the one hand, we are forced to analyse brands from the individual capacity of choice but on the other hand we have to take into account the socialising culture that surrounds them.
It is nothing new, since that is what sustains, no more and no less, sentimental relationships, the balance between freedom with one's own living space and commitment and fidelity to a partner.
Let's add a little more fuel to the fire. Did you know that in a 2009 sociological study, more than 301% of young teenagers said they hoped to be famous one day? Being famous often involves the loss of individual freedom in exchange for a significant fee. An interesting exercise would be to decipher the demand curve of the aspiring teenager to fame and see the inflection point at which it is or is not worth it.
Where is the balance? In knowing how to analyse in a reliable methodological way the aspects that move along the path between consumer freedom and the relationship with the brand, what Jacques Rousseau described as “people must be forced to be free”.
What do we have to do as brands, companies or organizations?
A brand's commitment to consumers must be to provide values that revolve around this freedom of action of the consumer, but accompanying them in the selection process. Listening, advising and understanding their needs, but not bothering them.
Brands that manage to establish a sincere emotional dialogue with their current and potential customers will be those that grow the most in the future.
As Sebastián Fernández de Lara says, it is essential to develop the humanization of the brand, to turn it into an empathetic, close brand, not only at the product or communication level but also at the organizational level.
To achieve the goal of combining individual freedom with dialogue with brands, we need to establish a series of axes of analysis:
- What are the ultimate values that a brand moves by, A Laddering process can help us understand the evolution from the attributes or characteristics of a brand to the definition of ultimate values (ACV Model, Attributes-Consequence-Values).
- Applying Storytelling in such a way that our brand is able to convey a story to its consumers, we know as Simon Levy said that “marketing consists of buying and selling stories.”
- Defining all the steps of the purchasing process and, more importantly, understanding the essence of the Shopping Experience, what are the emotional levers that make the purpose of choosing to purchase a product or service satisfactory? This is where concepts such as Neuromarketing, Eye-Tracking, Heat Maps and other POS (Point of Sale) analysis components should provide us with information about the shopping experience.
- Defining observational behavior through ethnography, let's go out on the street to take a look and gossip about how consumers behave.
- Let's apply social media analysis to understand what people say about us online, which will help us fine-tune our points of contact.
And as the icing on the cake, obtaining an Emotional Segmentation that manages to understand from a strategic perspective the relationship between the lifestyle and attitude of people towards the use and enjoyment of the products or services of the category that we analyze. It is not enough for us to only understand the lifestyle or the attitude, this has been the most common mistake made by many research companies where they predict very attractive but impractical segmentations in terms of Marketing and business since they do not link them with the behavior of the category analyzed.
Relationships have changed, the game has changed, we must adapt to a new way of understanding the consumer and brands. It is no longer worth creating products or services without analyzing the final values of the consumer or without understanding at an observational level what happens in the process, choice or experience of purchase.
Market research must help with all of this with new, innovative and rigorous methodologies. Play again?
Jordi Crespo
Managing Partner Hamilton
