How To Rationalize Emotion And Create A Brand?
Croatian city of Rijeka is playing host today to the rock’n’roll startup conference RockPaperStartups, and .Me’s own Nataša Đukanović took the stage today to talk about – emotions.
Okay, so we skipped a few steps. Let’s get back to the beginning. What Nataša talked about was branding, and that is inseparable from emotions.
In a narrow sense of the term, to brand means to create something to visually distinguish your product. It starts with brand identity, but if we go further back, it started with cattle and marking your cow to be able to recognize it.
That kind of approach should be reserved for cattle – a logo and a visual identity, no matter how much it stands out, does not create a brand or add value to your product, as Nataša notes. You have to dig deeper and look harder to find what makes a brand and what makes people love it.
What Makes People Tick?
Every startuper knows that if you ask a hundred people if they would buy your product, mosto of them will say “sure” – and then not follow up when it hits the (virtual) shelves. Two out of ten product launches fail because people can’t explain why they like or dislike something, and it’s the job of the marketer to understand what the consumer wants and how they feel.
In the words of Henry Ford:
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
To quote another innovator, Steve Jobs: “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want”.
That is a task for the marketer, and quite a tall order at that. So how do you figure out what people want if they’re not sure of it themselves? It’s all about rationalizing emotions, as Nataša explains.
Do you know the story about Pepsi and Cola? Coca Cola sells more drinks all over the world, but blind testing showed that that people like Pepsi more. That is the power of the brand, and corporations spend insane amounts of money to create that affect.
So You Don’t Have Millions – It Doesn’t Matter
But what do you do if you’re not Coca Cola and can’t afford to have a neuroscientist on your marketing team? How should smaller companies compete with that and relate to their customers?
With all the wonders of the modern technology, the one that will get you the furthest dates all the way back to cavemen. It’s storytelling, and storytelling is selling.
Build content to make yourself stand out from others. Create a good story and make it personal – that is what connects you to other people, your customers. Create a community around yourself, people who are close to you to talk about you, because people speak louder (metaphorically) than ads.
