New paradigm in marketing

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.