Emotion isvery often the starting point of a designer’s inspiration… Saying this, thereal challenge in our field is to move from an emotion-driven vision to agenuine emotional response for the end consumer. As underlined by Rafael Gomez,designer at Queensland University of Technology, ”to design enjoyable productswe must first understand what makes people happy and design products based onthat critical understanding.” He analyzed the emotional impact of MP3 and PDAdevices : beyond the functional benefits of these music players andcommunications tools, these devices were perceived as important for consumers,because of their « escape » and « relaxation » attributes. The understanding ofhuman needs should thus be leveraged to create any goods or services, accordingto Gomez.
Co-creationas an emotional commitment driver between brands and consumers
Youtube,Wordpress, Tumblr, Soundcloud, Flickr, Instagram, … numerous sites andapplications enable everyone to become creative and to share their words,pictures, songs, videos, and so on… Creativity is now everywhere, and itinfluences the evolution of marketing : today, brands can collaborate withtheir consumers-creators, in order to create always more bonding, commitment,and conversation.
Accordingto Cecilia Weckstörm, head of the Consumer Experience department at Lego,“Brands are no longer created, they are cocreated,”she argued. “Strongemotional engagement produces the motivation to cocreate.” Also, Legoencourages its millions fans to develop content via their social platformReBrick, which allows the brand lovers to share their own creations.
In additionto their commercial value, brands can try to boost their social value on along-term perspective, by raising awareness on their own causes. Wikipedia cancount on the involvement and support from thousands of contributors, and isthus able to offer a source of knowledge without precedent, that is accessibleto everyone. A brand such as Autolib incites people to share their car, insteadof owning one. This way, brands encourage creation and sharing, whileminimizing the destruction of human and natural resources. When they imply suchan equation, brands enhance their emotional capital towards consumers.
Brands thatcommit. For real.
We wrote anote on Generation G about three years ago : brands still continue to praisefor kindness. Interflora sending flowers to Twitter users when they feel down,Ben & Jerry’s offering free ice-creams, Tropicana bringing the sun back toa Canadian city during winter, Google supporting the LGBT cause with itscampaign It Gets Better, … All these initiatives truly reveal brands’ hearts.
Chipotle,the Mexican fast-food giant, proved its difference when fully repositioning itsbrand philosophy early 2000’s. In its report Food with integrity, the companydraws attention on its efforts to get supplies of healthy and free-range meats,organic products, hormone-free dairy products, family farms and as much aspossible, from local producers. In 2012, Chipotle communicated for the firsttime on TV during the Grammy Awards ceremony, with a campaign entitled Back tothe start, a poetic animation movie denouncing the devastating effects ofintensive farming, with a country-style cover of Coldplay’s song The Scientist.Chipotle invited the audience to buy the song on iTunes. The benefits have beendonated to their foundation Cultivate Foundation, which aims at encouragingresponsible, sustainable and healthy farming. In addition to thisCannes-awarded campaign, the display integrates a unique loyalty program – FarmTeam – dedicated to helping members chosing a more responsible diet, as well asa Cultivate music festival, mixing concerts, food, crafts and debates.
Throughthis assertive posture, aligned with the current consumers’ expectations, itssophisticated storytelling, a remarkable campaign that calls on emotion, we candefinitely say that this constitutes a great brand project, all the more surprisingcoming from a fast-food chain ! Rival fast food giants are learning lessonsfrom Chipotle’s stance.: McDonalds recently announced its willingness to stoptapping into intensive farming !
Brandswhich change the world : an utopia ?
In a crisiscontext which has brought along gloominess for a couple years, brands havefinally understood that consumers were eager to consume goods and services witha purpose : they want to feel that they contribute to building a better world.Brands like Fairtrade suggests another way to envision consumption, byimproving the life conditions of small producers. The positive evolution isthat this type of initiative is not only the prerogative of fairtradeorganizations…
The casethat moved us the most lately is the operation Help – I’ve cut myself… and Iwant to save a life. Help Remedies is a company which sells over-the-countermedicine and first aid products in the US, and which was already known forseveral reasons : its packaging that take the heat ouf the serious world ofdrugs with playful, colorful and minimalist boxes, affordable prices, a wittyand fun tone of voice, crazy website and videos, …
Last year,the brand teamed up with the ad agency Droga 5 and the bone-marrow transplantorganization DKMS, and included a marrow donor registration kit, a swab formopping up drops of blood and a pre-paid envelope. inside its band-aid boxes.The principle is simple : when cutting yourself, you can send some of yourblood to the national bone marrow registry, which will inform you of your donorpotentiality, by easily reaching for a plaster. This sharp initiative put thespotlight on this fundamental cause thanks to an simple yet powerful mechanism,and the brand saw its bands sales boomed by 1900% in a couple of months ! Notto mention the hundreds of lives that could have been saved, with one simplegesture…
Financialscandals, food crisis, frauds, relocations, bad buzz, … rarely brands have beenfighting over so many issues and threats. Though, they have the power and meansto make society sensitive to great causes. By launching heartfelt actions,generous brands can not only increase their profit, but also and beforehandgenerate loyalty from a commited and passionate audience. And let’s dream forone minute : they might be able to change the world.
