The Tray Way: Attaining Brand Love (and what you can learn from Indiana Jones)

Brand Love. Marketers drool at the idea of attaining it because for all intents and purposes, it is the holy grail of the industry. But, how do you get it? This is the ongoing debate happening in brainstorm sessions and conference calls in agencies and creative departments across the world right now. No one has truly come up with the answer, but many have come up with some interesting ideas.

For example, the American Marketing Association created an impressive analysis of the idea of brand love from an academic perspective (To read the Executive Summary, click HERE). Models were compiled based on source data, which led to the creation of a theory on what differentiates brand “love” from brand “let/s just be friends”, as well as how this love can be fostered. According to their research, they found:

Brand love, as consumers experience it, is best represented as a higher-order prototype that includes, but goes beyond, brand attachment and self–brand connections. Using survey data, they then develop a valid and parsimonious structural equation model of brand love based on this prototype.

The study is an intriguing idea, and offering ideas from an analytical perspective on a creative process can be an intelligent way to organize a strategy to achieve potential success. But, any marketing person will tell you there is no perfect formula. So what can be done? That is tough to answer because, as we all know, the public has a funny way of determining what they love and don’t love at any given moment, which is why brand love should be a goal, not an expectation (similar to how a viral video isn’t created. A video is created and it potentially goes viral).

So, if there is no answer, how do you move towards an answer? Well, aside from hiring us, it is a matter of being flexible and attentive. We mentioned the holy grail earlier, which made us think about one of the film heroes that found the holy grail: Indiana Jones. In each of his movies, he achieved his goals through research, perseverance and a little luck. Add to that an understanding and the willingness to fail, combined with the ability to learn from your mistakes, and you at least have the building blocks creatively to attaining Brand Love.

Do you have any tips or best practices? Share them with us.

The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages. For information about the company and its successes, visit www.traypml.com