Lifestyle Branding Strategy

 

Lifestyle branding is a form of brand promotion. Its primary means of resonating with the target audience is to use content that focuses on the audience's perception of a 'perfect' lifestyle. In other words, it is an indirect means of encouraging sales. It can be likened to a slow burn dating approach that promotes building deep emotional connections. So rather than aggressive sales tactics, it uses the desired lifestyle as an emotional trigger to connect deeply with the target audience. The brand seeks to trigger the target's personal lifestyle goals, whatever that looks like, whether literally physical life style or the application of deep shared beliefs. Consequently, the brand (and its products) are only 'embedded' within the broader picture of the lifestyle message. Afterall, when you meet with beloved friends, you chat about things that connect you, not what you want to sell to each other. The ideal is therefore to create a tribal or cultish following of like-minded people. Needless to say, the primary discussion is that emotional hook while sales are a secondary feature of the relationship.

Lifestyle branding is very beneficial for brand awareness (especially as it relates to highlighting brand core values) and loyalty. It may therefore be scheduled more heavily in the social media content management plan when its benefits (like brand awareness or loyalty) are part of current business goals. For other brands, lifestyle branding is always prominent. In other words, the degree of its application can vary on a continuum according to the brand.

At the surface level, 'lifestyle' relates to anything that people like to do with their time, often a specific sport like biking, mountain hiking or yoga or genre like any extreme sport, talking about certain values or even a particular emotion (as with Coco Cola's 'happiness') through time spent with others. This activity is always a passion, almost to the point of addiction. However, consider 'lifestyle' as holistically as possible. This most likely requires customer relationship marketing (CRM). For instance, know if your brand were to be the ideal best friend to its targets and becomes personified, where would it (and the target) go, what do they do there, how they are motivated and so on? Essentially, 'lifestyle' is like the 'culture' of your brand and its community of target customers. Ultimately, your brand should become a clear symbol of the lifestyle.

Uses & Benefits of Lifestyle Branding

Lifestyle branding encourages customers to connect with your brand more emotionally than would have been possible through otherwise only transactional interactions. This is most true when combined with brand storytelling. Brand lifestyles should allow consumers to feel a certain desirable way (quite outside of what product units provide). If the brand can communicate in a way that is and feels very authentic to consumers, the brand are likely to emotionally hook consumers.

Lifestyle branding allows businesses to expand their product mix with an already captive audience. In turn, a more extensive product mix presents more press opportunities (to more demographic groups, content producers, etc) than would have been the case with only a single product. 

Lifestyle branding is an ideal way for a little known or unknown brand to become well known and liked within a limited time.

It even allows brands to appear bigger than they would have appeared otherwise. After all, it gives the brand persona the opportunity to show up at events, be highly visible and connect with more 'friends' than just their often otherwise boring products alone would have allowed. 

Furthermore, the strategy allows brands to differentiate when their products are not very original or special when compaired with direct product type competition. In other words, it is a clever method of brand positioning. The Red Bull case below illustrates this point very well.

Case studies of Lifestyle Branding

Case study: Red Bull. Red Bull offers an energy drink that really is arguably just an overload of sugar and caffeine. Red Bull illustrates how this brand strategy allows a brand whose entire branding pivots around only one product can invent itself into having a larger-than-life brand persona. Red Bull developed its outrageous lifestyle to differentiate itself from any other soda on the market. This was its basis for unique brand positioning whose unique selling / value proposition is as its tagline suggests, a feelgood' emotion of achievement and invincibility. It called itself an energy drink, aligned itself with the word 'extreme' and sought to embody the word in its personality. Consequently, Red Bull became immersed in the lifestyles and culture of extreme sports. As to be expected for such a 'person' with such interests, they consistently appeared at highly niched extreme sports events, often having the logo attached to helmets, rally car hoods and so on. Like a best friend, they support extreme sports athletes in accordance with their tagline that 'Red Bull gives you wings' which essentially means that they support people to push the envelope to do anything. This was genius exploitation of a market gap in that media outlets were not giving extreme sports much attention. In fact, Red Bull even began creating their own events that, in addition to promoting their brand, promoted the sport. Like Coca Cola (another brand whose product's qualities alone are unlikely to win people over) that has the keyword 'happiness' from which it suggests relationships arise, Red Bull's advertising at events promotes the lifestyle of being 'extreme' over the drink's features. Just as a friend with a personality penchant for anything extreme, Red Bull consistently attends and advertises at extreme sports events therewith sealing its brand personality, arguably even moreso than its television advertisements. Like a proud friend, Red Bull gushed the stories of top extreme athletes in a way that truly engaged the audience. Red Bull's events marketing encourages the public to keep talking about the event in a way that the public won't about a mere product. With such a strong brand lifestyle and branding in general, Red Bull has been able to successfully remain a premium priced product which is a far cry from the brew's old life in Thailand gas stations as a working class / low priced alternative to coffee for long distance truck drivers. In other words, lifestyle branding helped to elevate the image of the product to the extent of a premium brand, associated with high end contact points, starting with its first Formula One race driver. Learn more about Red Bull's use of storytelling. (VIDEOS: How Red Bull got wings: A case study for entrepreneurs; Red Bull: The power of an owned media strategy; Building an engaged audience through content. Lessons from Red Bull Media House;). 

 

See Best of Red Bull extreme sports video playlist

Case study: Patagonia. Although Patagonia sells clothing, the brand personality does not simply attempt to sell on its website. Rather, the personality is of someone who loves the great outdoors and has a spiritual connection with nature. All of its processes and operations align with having a neutral impact on the environment and promote the simplistic lifestyle and the enjoyment of nature. When you land on the website's homepage (pictured below in July 2012), the clothing they sell is not center stage. In fact, the 'Read' button that links to an article about the natural phenomenon in which they are currently interested is larger and has more contrast than the links to the clothing. The brand is only secondary to the lifestyle; it is 'embedded' into the portrayal of the lifestyle.

Rather than request email addresses to 'get the next biggest sale discount', the brand speaks like a person, wanting to maintain the discussion of interest.

Case study: LuluLemon. Lululemon sells high quality athleisure (ie athletic clothing that is sufficiently stylish that it can be worn socially as well). LuluLemon is an upscale brand that was able to quickly gain significant popularity in the yoga world among its target market: mostly well-dressed, health conscious people. It is noteworthy because it has stolen market share from the otherwise unbeatable giants like Nike, Adidas and Reebok. The high quality products were therefore sold as a status symbol. In fact, despite its bad press due to faux pas of the founder, the brand continues to remain strong in the minds of consumers who still associate the brand with yoga and wellness. LuluLemon was able to achieve this cult-like following by being consistent and using heavy promotion. Its promotion was done through established industry ambassadors (the present-day equivalents of whom would be social media fitness influencers) like yoga instructors. They collaborated with prominent fitness influencers to promote the idea of being eliked by experts in the field. Their brick and mortar retail outlets also offer free yoga classes and other wellness events for their consumers. Some outlets also feature a cafe that sells only health food. They have a consistent presence on social media, responding to as many customers as possible via social media. They used the storytelling strategy by creating a platform for telling the fascinating personal stories of relatable challenge and triump of sports enthusiasts. Red Bull tells the stories of these athletes performing extreme feats to emotionally resonate with its audience and motivates others to tell their story of doing anything extreme. Their management explained that they wanted to create an environment for their community and to facilitate their goal of pushing more 'health' experience. (Some of the reasons for LuluLemon's success also stem from their taking advantage of emerging trends. The brand aligned with yoga before yoga was commonly practised but beginning to grow in the West.)

 

Methodology: Photography

Vivid pictures that photography offer are among the most effective means of appealing to the target of lifestyle branding, especially since humans can digest and remember imagery much faster than is the case with words. Imagery is therefore useful for enhancing brand awareness.

Tips for lifestyle branding (DOs & DONTs)

• Establish brand attributes. 
• Red Bull attributes include 'revitalize body and mind', 'extreme', 'sports and adventure'.
• Coca Cola attributes include 'happiness'
• Do things outside of the product and core activities that create more humanlike dimensions to the brand. Examples inlclude events, review films the audience loves, etc. Lifestyle brands have some type of viewpoint or sense of activism, purpose, mission.
• Embrace your lifestyle specificity. Truly live your brand persona in your lifestyle without apology. For instance, if your brand resonates with a certain type of music at a certain volume, do not compromise because, like a personality, your brand does not exist to please everyone.
• Communication is extremely important to lifestyle branding. Consequently, get your brand voice right.
• Master the following. 
• the psychographics aspect of your target market profile. Use customer relationship management (CRM)
• lifestyle desires. To streamline this task, consider:
• a keyword like Red Bull's 'extreme', Coco Cola's 'happiness', etc.
• a unique selling proposition (USP) / delivierable like Red Bull's adrenaline rush and sense of achievement.
• how the lifesstyle looks (like a particular type of sport or activity)
• ability to promote the lifestyle
• communication channels like Red Bull's use of the storytelling strategy through high quality content based on stories of extreme sports enthusiasts or like social media of influencers and experts. So the brand is considered loved by the experts). 
• the most suitable psychological associations between the brand and a lifestyle. Your brand should always be a clear symbol of the lifestyle.
• experiences that provide the lifestyle
• means your brand can use to help the target market to experience their desirable lifestyle.
• Create facilitative avenues for interaction among consumers. Encourage consumers to showcase and enjoy the lifestyle. You may also encourage interaction between the target market and the brand. However, it is simply a place for like-minded people to connect as a community. While your brand need not directly interact with consumers, it is necessary for your brand to trigger conversations by providing some type of content. This interaction provides data that can be analyzed qualitatively. 
• LuluLemon encouraged consumers to give design feedback and suggestions. They ensured that consumers participating in such initiatives also felt heard.
• Focus your communication on the lifestyle, rather than your product. However, the product must be able to fit very well within the context of the lifestyle.

CONTENT RELATED TO LIFESTYLE BRANDING

• Tribalism branding is the extreme form of lifestyle branding.
• One key element of success in lifestyle branding is communicating it through brand storytelling.
• Brand awareness
• Lifestyle branding shifts away from transactional to relational interactions with customers. Read more about customer relationship management (CRM).
• Emotional branding (with case studies for happiness, sadness, anger and fear)
• Some other lifestyle brands: 
• Coca Cola
• Frosted Flakes (and their iconic Tony the Tiget), 
• Nike
• How to build a lifestyle brand (Example: singers portraying a lifestyle that matches their music)
• Social media ideal for lifestyle branding
• Instagram (templates included)
• Brand pesonality
• Discussions on lifestyle branding. 'The “Lifestyle Brand” Formula: Authentic Connections and Passion in the Restaurant Industry'
• Abovementioned case studies in other content
• Coca Cola
• Lululemon
• Patagonia
• Red Bull
• Internal links: Red Bull case study;