Americans are swimming in a sea of messages. The episode of Frontline from November 9, 2004, titled The Persuaders explores the ways marketers and advertisers shape messages to influence not only what people buy, but what they think about themselves and the world they inhabit.
In the early to mid twentieth century, ads focused on the tangible aspects of a brand: “Our toothpaste gets your teeth whiter,” “Our coffee tastes better.” As consumers became more sophisticated, these simple messages became less effective. When competing bands all claimed to be the best, yet the consumer could discern no actual differences between them, advertisers where forced to change strategies.
By the late twentieth century marketers had turned the focus onto the intangible reasons that consumers purchase a product: what a product means, not just what it does. Brands that could create an emotional connection between product and consumer came to dominate the market.
Brands now strive to be not just purveyors of product they want to be the suppliers of identity. Consumers will get more than a product they will get tools with which to broadcast to their society who they are. By wearing a pair of Nike running shoes I am telling the world something more about me than just that I like to run. The Nike brand carries with it all the meaning that the Nike brand has established over the years, the aura of the athlete, the risk taker, the challenger of convention. As a wearer of Nike shoes, I borrow the Nike identity.
Douglas Atkins, strategy officer at Merkley + Partners, coined the term “cult marketing” to describe the cultish ways that the consumers of some brands behave. He decided to study why people join religious cults looking to devise strategies that brands could employ to build a cult-like following. From this research Atkins concluded that people joined cults and became devoted to brands for the same reasons, they wanted to belong and they were looking for meaning. The techniques he devised were used by Saturn and were used to some success for several years. Not spoken about in the show is that unfortunately, when Saturn’s parent company GM had a change of management, the new management had no faith in the experiment of Saturn. They failed to build upon the early cult-like following Saturn had enjoyed. With no one to guide the “soul” of the brand it withered and now it appears that it will very shortly cease to exist as a brand.
Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide. Roberts believes that brands that create “loyalty beyond reason” will get the premium profits. If a product can become infused with mystery, sensuality, and intimacy, and can be recognized as iconic it will inspire “loyalty beyond reason.” We’ve moved from brands to experiences.
The marketplace is filled with failed emotional branding campaigns. Saturn, as mentioned will soon be out of business, but this isn’t the fault of the emotional campaign as much as it’s the fault of changing management focus. The Emotional Branding segment ends with an examination of the new Delta airline offshoot Song. Song engaged in intense brand experience building in the hopes that it could stand out as a different kind of airline. Perhaps that is the biggest weakness of the trend in emotional branding. When all companies sell themselves as different, will we believe them all? Song closed up shop two years after this episode of Frontline aired.
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