Are the Joneses feeling overlooked these days?
The 2nd-quarter issue of our newsletter, THINKING, leads off with this article: Great Expectations – Understanding the Consumer’s Mindset in Order to Generate Brand Loyalty.
I’ve been in the industry longer than I care to admit and long enough to appreciate a shift in who drives the brand relationship. Taking a moment to reflect on the past has two purposes:
- For the sake of comparison.
- To dislodge a 1980-something concept of building brand loyalty, if any still try to rely on it.
And speaking of twos, these lines from the article in particular leapt out at me:
- “Where marketing was previously about mass media channels, we must now think of everything as a channel.”
- “More important than ever-changing channels and mediums is the mindset of the consumer.”
Recalling efforts to build brand loyalty earlier in my career, marketing was about mass media channels and much more. Positioning reigned, and mass media was kind of all there was. We worked diligently to develop affinity for brands that would enable consumers to “fit in” with people they admired. The effort was probably more about creating loyalty to brands that actually had our consumers feeling a few steps ahead of the Joneses, rather than just keeping up.
MarketingProfs issued an article earlier this year that said it succinctly: “The segmentation methods of yesteryear (demographic, geographic and psychographic) created a language about customers that was rooted in brand value—not personal value.”
Where building brand loyalty could be achieved in the past by enabling consumers to feel part of THE crowd, it’s now engagement at a much more personal level. This takes understanding and connecting with consumers at the “mindset” level.
Read Great Expectations for insight on “Six Integrated Mindsets”. I hope these ideas are helpful starting points as you approach loyalty building strategies in the months ahead.
