"Married to the Brand illuminates a leading-edge method
to quantify customer feelings and emotions, which are the
foundation for a healthy brand marriage."
Simon Cooper
President and Chief Operating Officer
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.
"Married to the Brand provides a great strategic
framework to measure and manage one of a company's greatest
strategic assets: the relationship between a brand and its
consumers."
Lynda Firey-Oldroyd
Vice President, Consumer Insights
Gap Inc.
From Target to Toyota and from Starbucks to Sony, brands are a part
of everything we do -- and much of our shopping experience is spent
navigating a vast landscape of logos, ads, packages, and sales
pitches. In this landscape, everyone has brands that garner their
loyalty and brands they couldn't care less about. Some of us choose
the least expensive paper towels while driving miles out of our way
for a cup of Starbucks coffee. Some of us couldn't care less about
coffee, but wouldn't be caught dead using generic laundry
detergent.
The pursuit of brand devotion has driven companies to spend many
millions of dollars every year on advertising, celebrity
endorsements, loyalty programs, and fancy Web sites. The result?
Most companies still aren't emotionally connecting with their
customers.
In bookstores next month from Gallup Press, Married to the
Brand: Why Consumers Bond With Some Brands for Life, by
William J. McEwen, draws on more than 60 years of research from The
Gallup Organization to examine how and why we connect to the
products we use and the brands we buy. This research demonstrates
that customer satisfaction is woefully insufficient when the goal
is an ongoing exclusive relationship between a customer and a
brand. "Good" performance is no longer enough, and one purchase in
no way guarantees that another will follow. Instead, an enduring
relationship between a company and a customer has four
prerequisites. Together, these add up to an emotional connection
that is both powerful and profitable:
- Confidence: Consumers must feel that a brand
is one they can always trust and one that will always deliver on
whatever it promises.
- Integrity: Consumers must feel that the brand
treats them fairly -- as they've earned the right to be treated.
And they must believe that the company stands resolutely behind its
products and services. They must feel that if a problem ever
arises, the company will fix it.
- Pride: Consumers must feel proud to be
associated with the brand -- proud to be known as a brand owner,
shopper, or user. They must be convinced that the brand and its
representatives will always treat them with respect.
- Passion: The consumer must feel that the brand
is irreplaceable in their lives and represents a perfect fit with
their needs, whether those needs are tangible or intangible. In
fact, they should feel that their world really wouldn't be the same
without it.
These four aspects of an enduring customer relationship must be
reinforced wherever, whenever, and however companies touch their
customers. At its very core, however, the relationship between a
brand and its buyers is visceral and emotional. It derives not just
from the product and its features, but from the experience that
surrounds its purchase and use.
While these relationships are certainly affected by the classic
four Ps of marketing (Product, Place, Price, and Promotion), McEwen
underscores the fact that those four Ps merely represent the tip of
the relationship-building iceberg. The most important aspect of a
great many purchases, one that leads consumers to "marry" a brand,
is a fifth "P" -- People.
"These people," writes McEwen, "may be visible to consumers,
they may be voices heard on the phone, or they may just be names on
an e-mail response. They live the brand, and in the eyes of many
customers, they are the brand."
Married to the Brand tells the story of what makes
brand relationships work and what makes them profitable -- and
tells it through the eyes of the consumer, not the marketer. Packed
with stories and compelling discoveries from a worldwide consumer
database, this book explores why people bond with some brands but
not with others. It also includes an online test that enables
readers to discover if they are married to a brand -- or on the
brink of a divorce (online at http://gmj.gallup.com/book_center/MTTB/).
An invaluable tool for anyone interested in brand building and
relationship management, Married to the Brand is a
groundbreaking new book that shows that a company's top job today
is not to "satisfy" its customers nor even to create the repeat
purchases typically thought of as evidence of "loyalty." Rather,
the single most important job for any company is to engage
its customers. That means attracting the right customers -- the
prospects who will make great marriage candidates. And it means
building emotional bonds with them through each and every point of
customer contact. As Married to the Brand points out,
these customers are the company's only real assets in today's
marketing world, where brutal competition meets a still-challenging
economy.
###
About the Author
William
J. McEwen, Ph.D., is a Global Practice Leader at The Gallup
Organization, where he consults with major clients on brand
communications and brand equity management. Before joining Gallup,
he spent 25 years in senior planning and account management
positions with leading advertising agencies, including
McCann-Erickson, FCB, and D'Arcy. McEwen's brand experience ranges
from snack foods and beer to computers and business banking. He
received a doctorate from Michigan State University and was a
tenured faculty member at the University of Connecticut. He lives
in Newport Beach, California.
For more information, contact:
Contact: Barbara Cave Henricks
Goldberg McDuffie Business
512-301-8936 or bhenricks@goldbergmcduffie.com