New paradigm in marketing

Roy Goni, Contributor, Jakarta

In his article titled "Seductive Objects with a Sly Sting, published in the New York Times of July 2, 1999, Herbert Muschamp said that over 50 years earlier the economic base had shifted from production to consumption, a movement from rationality to a desire or psychology.

One simple example of this shift is that a computer is no longer seen as merely technological equipment, but lifestyle entertainment.

Another example is food. This is no longer concerned simply with cooking or domestic chores as these days it has assumed a new significance as an element of home or lifestyle design and sensory experience. Just look at how intimately acquainted are the people of Jakarta with a number of items of international cuisine such as pizzas, sandwiches, beef ribs and a host of other dishes hailing from Spain, Thailand, Lebanon and many other places across the world.

In his book titled Emotional Branding, Daryl Travis, for example, said that in most cases consumers make up their minds to purchase something because a particular trademark has appealed to their emotions.

Charlie, a perfume product shot to fame in the 1970s was an interesting case in point. In its heyday, this perfume seemed to have bewitched those of the fair sex harboring a strong desire for independence, a career, self-confidence and a youthful spirit.

Charlie was an example of how Revlon changed the marketing paradigm from simply selling ordinary perfume to marketing a dream product. Few realized then that Charlie had turned itself into emotional branding, successfully drawing a lot of attention from women, thereby becoming an interesting marketing case to observe.

George Fellows, the CEO of Revlon, said that every Revlon perfume product would always be determined by three concepts: glamor, innovation and passion.

Look at how Giorgio Armani has created his perfume products "Mania" with his own words: "There is on my mind, a strong- willed, enthusiastic and passionate woman. She realizes her weak points and accepts them as part of her life. I want a new kind of perfume which will add flame to a woman's emotion and arouse her sensuality, mystery and sexual passion ... ."

Or take another example of how Pfizer has made Viagra a trademark full of emotional attraction. Viagra, which is actually made up of two words Vigor and Niagara, produces a strong associative imagination about the dream of the masculine gender.

In this respect, Pfizer has abandoned the scientific association that is usually found in the names pharmaceutical companies usually choose for their products.

In fact, there are many other examples of how a trademark can exert a very strong emotional attraction.

About this phenomenon, Gauthier, an American political writer and commentator, has said that in an era characterized by a high level of materialism, the power of a product will not come from its actual performance, but rather from the perceived value of the product on the part of its consumers, which is another way of saying that the power lies in the logo, brand and trademark of a product.

Hence, more and more people are keen on exposing themselves through a brand. As the saying goes, "We are what we eat, what we drive and what we wear."

Everybody seems to be eager to expose themselves through product icons, an act believed to add passion to their dreams.

In fact, every industry today finds itself in a dream society, a society whose logic, according to Rolf Jensen of the Copenhagen Institute of Future Studies, differs from that of an information society.

In a dream society, consumers are seen more as emotional figures than as rational ones. Marc Gobe, president and CEO of d/g* worldwide, a consulting firm, as well as the author of Emotional Branding, for example, said that today the concept to make a strong brand lies in the extent a marketer can connect the brand with the emotional element of the product and the distribution system.

This means, he said, that a brand must be able to take a consumer into an emotional world through many kinds of profound contact with all the consumer's senses to ensure that there will be a deep and intense intimate relationship between the brand and the consumer over a long period of time.

In this respect, marketers must understand in great detail the various emotional needs of their target markets and later be able to take steps to reinforce relationships and consider their consumers as partners.

Obviously, to succeed in this undertaking, a marketer not only needs good marketing knowledge but also a good grasp of anthropology, imagination, creativeness and a forward-looking vision. Without this cross-scientific understanding, it will be difficult to create an emotionally strong brand that can endure the test of time.

What Gobe has said really describes that a business is not something solely belonging to the province of rationality. In fact, we must be able to seize and understand the feelings prevailing in business activities.

The usual misconception among marketers is that it is their conviction that a brand strategy is concerned with market share. As a matter of fact, this strategy is a matter of mind and emotional share.

Bernd Schmitt, director of the management program at Columbia University, believes that marketers must be able to create a holistic experience, something that can touch human senses intensely and continuously.

A holistic and at the same time highly personal approach to a product or brand will be a strong emotional attraction connecting a marketer and his consumers. Starbucks, a coffee shop, has managed to change people's traditional perception of coffee.

Starbucks no longer sells coffee; instead, it offers a total experience that someone will have when having coffee there. It is no longer a coffee shop; instead, it has become a place where someone may have a pleasing and friendly emotional experience.

In short, Starbucks has become a people's place, a community of its own where a brand or a trademark has turned itself into something emotional. A strong brand is something that emerges from something sterile and becomes a form of partnership and communication.

Therefore, to build a particular emotion towards a particular brand, an important step that a marketer must take will be to arouse the right emotions for his target market as this will be an investment to establish an emotional brand.

One thing to remember is that empty promises must be avoided as an intimate relationship with consumers will be established by means of the trust that a company must always nurture.

Although sensory experiences, imagination and vision of a particular brand or trademark remain the main pillars for its creation, it is not merely a brand or a trademark but is one with strong consumer emotional involvement, a relationship with consumers that must always serve as a reference.