Tribal Branding: Know Like Trust Series

This post is the final installment of the 3-part series on how to get customers to feel that they 'know, like and trust' your brand. The series was motivated by the need to create social media management (SMM) strategic content pillars. I think that, if I applied the 3 target behaviors / feelings to top, middle and bottom funnel positions, each one would apply in that order; ie 'know' will apply to the top, 'like' to the middle and 'trust' to the bottom. ... or depending on market needs, like when an unknown brand faces a huge challenge of gaining trust in expertise regarding a high-stakes problem, 'trust' and 'like' may overlap or be swapped within the cycle (of a month or whatever your expected cycle period towards conversion).

Even if your marketing campaigns have been successful in getting many people to know and perhaps even trust your brand, that does not mean that they will necessarily like your brand. You therefore need to connect emotionally, to have an emotional relationship with your market, ie you need to build brand affinity with customers. Afterall, brand affinity transcends brand awareness (which, as illustrated below, is only the first and most commercially beneficial of 4 levels of brand affinity). If developed successfully, brand affinity can motivate evangelism, the highest of the 4 levels. By such a point, customers make favorable purchase decisions based on emotional bonds with your brand. Needless to say, when measuring levels of affinity, the emotional connection is most important.

 

Brand affinity levels	Nature of consumer relationship with the brand
1.brand awareness	Consumer seeks to meet basic needs. Any product that does that meets basic needs will do. Won't go out of their way to get the brand.
2. infatuation	Consumer trusts the brand because the brand adds some value to their life. Consumer feels affection, appreciation or even obsession towards the brand.
3. fidelity	The consumer can truly relate to the brand values*. Consequently, the consumer feels an emotional connection and seeks out your brand specifically.  * Here are examples of core values to which consumers may relate. the style and image provided by a clothing brand very high quality images taken from Apple iPhones
4. evangelism	The consumer believes in your brand to such an extent that they want others to use the brand.

 

For the sake of making this post on the consumer's 'liking' or 'brand affinity' with a brand as clear as possible, I will discuss it in its extreme application; 'tribal branding'. However, recognize that, depending on the brand, tribal branding exists on a continuum. For instance, on one hand, Apple has applied it to the maximum extreme, while un-branded commodities not at all on the opposite extreme and  finally, most other marketed brands fall in the middle with varying levels of moderate tribalism. The majority of brands are in the center because they know that tribalism is hugely profitable but respond with only lukewarm attempts to tribalize consumers by claiming the most recently trending core values (like eco-friendliness). However, their corporate strategizing never quite achieves the same tribalism as Apple. 

Seth Godin's book 'Tribes' explains how to create tribes. Here is a quick breakdown of the take aways from that book along with some of my ideas on corresponding content pillars.

Lesson 1: Connection

Connection is the sine qua non of successful tribalism. Tribes comprise a group of people connected to each other, a leader and an idea. The idea may be based on anything like religion, politics, racial or other basis of marginalization, sports and so on. The communication is critical because back and forth messaging among members intensifies core values and attracts new like-minded members. Essentially, the communication is a catalyst for growth. Needless to say, social media communication makes tribalism easier than ever. In short, to transform any group of people into a tribe, 2 requirements must be met as follows. 

1. a shared interest
2. communication among members

Needless to say, connection is associated with the strategy of growth and tactical content pillars like ''Traction', 'Core Values' and, if you ask members to support each other and or ask qualification questions (about interests) as a pre-requisite to membership, also 'Ask / Participate'.

Lesson 2: Pull Marketing

Because the interest is so niche, the messaging is tailor-made to narrowly attract only the tribe's members (not everyone). It therefore pulls only those who share the tribe's passion. (See Push & Pull marketing). Needless to say, pull marketing is associated with the tactical content pillar like 'Core Values' with very specialized content. One option is to use specific questions from the consumer's perspective as the titles of your posts, ie rather than write generic titles. Social listening tools can help you to generate questions. For instance, rather than write a title as 'product x [your brand name]', write it was 'Is method a-b-c the best way to resolve problem y? -- or -- solutions for problem y'. Either way, establish the details in your brand voice and tone. 

Lesson 3: Leaders are heretics.

Heresy relates to having beliefs that go contrary to norms that are generally accepted in the broader community (like religion, sexual preferences and so on). In other words, they challenge the status quo. Example(s):

• When it was generally felt that computers would not be desirable at home, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple suggested otherwise, likely seeming a little crazy by most who could not imagine his vision. However, Apple's Macintosh computer introduced the world's first home computer and therefore revolutionized the modern world. 

Lesson 4: Tribes are assembled, NOT created.

Godin explains that, before the formation of a tribe, its eventual members, although still disconnected and scattered somewhere in the world, they lay in wait to be connected. At the sight of a catalyst, they will join and do not need to be schooled on the interest.

• Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Black Twitter followers were not trained in a class room. Instead, they suffered for while and eagerly awaited their opportunity to be connected. Consequently, when the opportunity arose, they were eager to join.

Lesson 5: The tribe is not for everyone.

This is where I think many businesses fall short of the full tribal glory. I think this failing is due to lack of authenticity. Tribalism is about true believers with a burning desire to connect with other true believers. Their efforts are not staged through corporate strategy (alone) and so they can become cohesive simply because their intrinsic interest in the cause is sufficiently strong to sustain their focus. In other words, the focus is not about vanity metrics such as likes and views. Rather, they are more interested in drawing their members closer (than growing numbers). Wired Magazine's Kevin Kelly suggested that tribes only need 1,000 true members, ie enough for a core group of passionate, deeply 'heretic' members to sustain them. In short, leaders focus on their tribe, ignoring everyone else. This lesson corresponds with the tactical pillars 'Transparency' (Authenticity), 'Values' and 'Beliefs'. The rules for these pillars will suggest unapologetic specificity in content, brand voice and tone, etc. Some might even encourage exclusivity.

• White supremacist (WS) groups are unapologetic about their zero tolerance policies regarding membership.

As far as possible, managing a corporate tribe should involve having only the right partners, suppliers, employees and so on. 

Lesson 6: Tribes become movements (with the help of leadership)

After membership has reached critical mass, the tribe becomes a movement, ie it can bring about change in the world. Do not take this power lightly. Social media movements have swayed elections. The movement comes into being when the leader does the following.

1. Tell a story (to people who really want to hear). The story highlights the vision for a better future (whatever that means to the tribe).
2. Connect the tribe members to each other and themselves
3. They lead the movement with direction and purpose.
4. They make change occur in ways that no single member could have done alone.

Lesson 7: Leaders use a combination of the & leadership Cs

Leaders all accept their leadership roles and use a combination of the following elements. They

1. challenge the status quo.
2. build a culture
3. are curious  (about the world, how it works and how their vision can work)
4. are or become charismatic to attract and motivate followers
5. facilitate communication among members and themselves
6. commit to the cause
7. facilitate connection among members.

Video (above): Tribes by Seth Godin, Animated Book Summary by YouTuber MentalEFit Book Club.

Video (above): 'How the Dogtown Z-Boys changed skateboarding culture (tribal branding)' by YouTuber Intermark Group. 

The Dogtown Z-Boys was a small group of skateboarders in the early 1970s with an intrinsic interest in skateboarding long before the tribe formed. The earliest skaters were outcasts or 'heretics' by nature. The concept of skateboards was an adaptation of ocean surf boards that were adapted to the land. Their membership was exclusive on the basis of psychological characteristics and unique skating styles that evolved naturally into being from their interaction with each other. For instance, given their ocean surfing background, they did things that other land-only skaters did not, like bring their bodies close to the ground, touch the ground and so on (in other words, an aspect of their 'heresy'). They mastered this style inside of empty swimming pools at homes up for sale during a Californian drought. Craig Stecyk of a local newspaper  (Dogtown Chronicles) assumed the leadership role by publishing the group's symbols, images, core values and ideas. (Keep in mind that this occurred several decades before the internet). This leadership brought together like-minded, otherwise disconnected members and established their culture. They also wore uniforms to demonstrate to the world and themselves their cohesiveness. They even had a physical location where they met each other. Ultimately, the tribe transformed the initially basic trends of skateboarding into its current status as a mainstream extreme sport of skating up smooth vertical surfaces of modern day.

Apple has been able to create a loyal tribe that is willing to wait overnight outside of their doors for new releases, with hopes of paying much more than the competition for their products. In keeping with lesson 1 (regarding a shared interest for being outstanding in graphics and creating a space to encourage easy, direct communication), Apple engages heavily with its market over social media platforms. For instance, its Instagram posts have featured very striking images from customers using their latest iPhone model. Starting from their revolutionary 1984 introduction of home computers for personal use, they go out of their way to establish the idea that the brand is different, in an unapologetically superior way. Their tagline 'Think different' reflects this and is somewhat of a call to action for persons wanting to be seen as an outsider, non-conformist and revolutionary like the brand was in 1984.

TO DO

1. Research and identify your tribe as intimately as possible. To this end, create a target customer profile.

2. Be clear about your unique value proposition / UVP.  The UVP does not need to be only one value. It can be a collection of those values that are most meaningful to your target market.

3. Engage with your tribe, listening closely and responding accordingly.

4. Connect emotionally with your tribe. (This is a must).

5. Create strategic content pillars that incorporate the elements of tribalism. Here is a rough example that incorporates elements of brand tribalism for introducing a new brand whose state of being unknown must overcome sales objections of distrust based on the market not knowing and consequent distrust of the brand's expertise. Notice how the same tactical pillars are applied to each of multiple segment-specific thematic pillar (like plus-sized women's wear, regular-sized women's wear and so on within a single women's line). Those tactical pillars were inspired by the concepts of tribalism and Fastnet's 9 tactiical pillars. 

ToF lead generation  / Objective(s): to be known (through trust, seek qualify members)

• Thematic pillar 1 of .. segments
• Traction
• Value
• Results (Pull title)
• Authority (expertise)
• Social Proof (Pull title)
• Transparency
• Thematic pillar 2 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)
• Thematic pillar 3 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)

MoF lead nurturing  / Objective(s): to tribalize customer (like, trust)

• Thematic pillar 1 of .. segments
• Value  (Pull title)
• Transparency
• Results (Pull title)
• Heresy  (Pull title)
• Ask / Participate
• Solution
• Thematic pillar 2 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)
• Thematic pillar 3 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)

BoF lead conversion / Objective(s) to sell and retain customer with trust inspiring content)

• Thematic pillar 1 of .. segments
• Solution  (Pull title)
• Ask / Participate (Community communication)
• Thematic pillar 2 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)
• Thematic pillar 3 of  .. segments
• same as above (s/a)

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND LOVE (TRIBAL BRANDING)

• Know, Like and Trust Series
• Tribalism is an extreme form of lifestyle branding.
• Brand voice and tone
• This article relates to B2C tribal branding / brand affinity. However, B2B brand affinity is also noteworthy. Third party research suggests that that clear top drivers are Trust and customer service. Read third party articles about this topic by Marketing Charts.
• When done correctly, tribalism is able to get customers to make buying decisions based on emotional bonds.
• Emotional branding and marketing.
• Branding: Core values
• Social media content management
• Persuasion technique
• Noteworthy case studies of corporate tribes not include in this post are Tesla, Nike

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;

Emotional Advertising: Deeply Personal Emotional Triggers

Research shows that a consumer's emotional response influences him or her very powerfully, even to a greater extent than hard information (like features) in advertising and other forms of brand communication. A measure of an advertisement's 'likeability' is more predictive of its success in increasing sales. Evoking positive emotions are even more influential. This is why brand-name products are preferred over generic ones, despite their higher price. Research shows that consumers see brands as having personality characteristics, just as they do other people. There is no wonder why strong emotional representations of brands are so important.

Research in 2014 by the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology suggests 4 key emotions being 1) happiness, 2) sadness, 3) fear (or surprise) and 4) anger (or disgust).

This post illustrates how different brands align their branding or current message with one of these emotions.

Happiness

Research has shown that brands have successfully increased sharing and engagement by associating themselves with smiling, laughing customers, often connecting deeply with each other in friendship and positivity. In fact, evoking positive emotions was more successful in this regard than with negative emotions. Disney is possibly one of the few brands whose emotional ads can truthfully depict the product and real customer experience. It is inspiring to note however that, despite this fact, other brands successfully instill emotion into their branding with creativity.

Coca-Cola's 7-year 'Open Happiness' campaign suggests that the drink is happiness and that opening the bottle gives access to its contained happiness. Despite the glaringly apparent lack of nutrition in the drink, especially within the context of this modern age of concern for health and welbeing through diet (and consequent falling sales in fizzy drinks), Coca-Cola remains one of the most popular drinks, globally. Perhaps the reason is, at least in part, because of the fact that their advertising never even discusses the drink but instead focuses on happiness and overall very positive social interaction and the deeply personal emotions they evoke. Coca-Cola does not even waste time trying to convince anyone of the drink's innate goodness. 

Although Coca Cola changed its tagline from 'Open Happiness' to 'Taste the Feeling', it maintained the message of happiness. This change was in response to the brand's challenge against its lack of nutrition. Video ads show deep emotional connection as people drink Coca Cola. This campaign's underlying message simply suggests that Coca Cola heightens the enjoyment of pleasurable moments. As usual, they used emotionally charged imagery of relationships amidst the strong signature red accents to reinforce the positive association in the minds of consumers. As to be expected, they even tentpoled this campaign for Christmas also. (The ads momentarily show the 'zero' calories bottle)

Android's 'Friends Furever' 2015 advertisement was shared so many millions of times that it was the most shared for that year and, by then, of all time. The video shows clips of unexpected inter-species animal friendships, a viral bait. Powerful animals whose relative size would have made them otherwise dangerous to their friends play with obvious affection and due tenderness. There are many surprising duos from huge elephant frolicking with a puppy, an orangutan using its large limbs to lightly embrace a canine friend amidst a loving gaze and so on. Maybe this ad was even more successful because of its video format because, apart from evoking positive emotions, it certainly put me at the edge of my seat a little with some trepidation over the larger animal's ability to easily or accidentally hurt his dwarfed companion. If this was part of the plan, the creators successfully stirred emotions from negative to positive. The song 'Oo De Lally' from Disney's Robin Hood, a term whose meaning is the gleeful 'yay' or 'yippee', is reminiscent of youth and ideals of happy friendship. The Robin Hood story was one of desire for different people (from Norman and Savon) to live together in peace. I am not sufficiently techie to understand how the 'friendship' theme can relate with how Android's operating system is designed or works  ... you know like how at least, to the end of the Kleenex ad, the link was made by the need to wipe away happy tears. This advertisement has however made me wonder whether this video is at least partially responsible for the recently exploding interest in connecting more profoundly with pets and caring for the planet.

Is the psychology behind this advertisement's success based on the idealistic desire, albeit possibly superficial, for friendship despite differences? Shakira and Activia's World Cup 'Dare  / La La La' ad was the most shared for 2014. It is a mix of many different peoples and cultural influences, from African drums. Its appeal was likely also due to how, along with the concepts of diversity, both influential music and sports are to newer generations. The ad checked several boxes.

Disney is possibly one of the few brands whose emotional ads are a direct reflection of the brand and customer experience. They certainly take full advantage as seem in their live advertisement by creating a fun experience for shoppers at a mall. 

SADNESS

Advertisements that evoke sadness are those that deal with stories of adversities and challenge. These stories stir empathy for the struggles of the protagonist. Advertisers use this story to encourage customers to identify with the story's protagonist. In the end, the advertising brand offers a solution to the challenge. 

Kleenex produces tissue. Despite the fact that tissue paper is an arguably most boring product, the brand remains strong in consumers' minds. Emotional advertising that uses an emotional story involving a beloved pet, the zeitgeist of emotional video marketing, prevents this brand from disappearing into obscurity. The 'Unlikely Friends' advertisement was one of the most viral ads  in 2015, the year of its publication. It tells a rescue and care story of a crippled dog that begins on a sad note then end with happy tears. It is only to the very end, when you might not have realized or forgotten the story was an ad when for a short moment, a protagonist sniffles and wipes away tears of happiness with a Kleenex. At that all-important emotional peak, the brandname appears with the tagline 'someone needs one' The wheel-chair bound adoptive human and wheel-bound dog walk off into the sunset, ie after a powerful message of inspiration was given that there are no restrictions. 

MetLife Hong Kong's advertisement 'My Dad is a Liar' is a tear jerker. As a little girl and her father walk on the way to her school, he reads her poem. She speaks of how wonderful he is; that he is handsome, smart, her superman and so on. As he reads, the story illustrates his funny antics infront of her to give her those impressions. However, he pauses in his gait when he reads the line about him being "a liar". As the poem continues, the viewer sees ways in which he sacrifices for her, pretending to have a job, money, to not feel hungry (so that she can eat) and so on. As the poem advances, viewers see images of the father's daily hustle with menial , some times, strenuous jobs. It shows that, despite being tired, he lies about not being tired and runs with her on his shoulders to amuse her. The turning point is the end when she acknowledges that he lies to give her a good future, at which point the father and daughter embrace. The powerful message on the screen appears that 'a child's future is worth the sacrifice' and then the advertisement appears. "We all have dreams for out children. Share yours with us and it can become reality. [and their contact details]" Not surprisingly, parents doing reaction YouTube videos were often left in tears.

Brands often re-use the same story repeatedly, with different actors and scenarios. For instance, every year, Proctor & Gamble (P&G) releases a 'thank you mom' advertisement. For the Olympics, mothers are featured helping their children overcome challenges when they started their sport of choice. The stories end with the mothers in the audience of the Olympics seeing their children perform well.

FEAR

Fear appeal is used to motivate customers to consider the risk of negative consequences for not buying into the product or message being sold. It is very common in public service advertisements that attempt to discourage behaviors that are associated with negative outcomes. 

However, evoking fear in marketing to your consumers has ethical issues that you should seriously consider beforehand.

Fear & Disgust. Being at risk of extinction, the panda has become a symbol for animal conservation and is aptly used in the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) logo. Everything about their advertisement inspires deep fear and discomfort on multiple levels. Notice the somber background and heavy font. The unusual use of repetition of one word, 'change' in a single sentence reinforces the ominous message, along with the hideous image of a man mutating into a hybrid species. The hideous looking species comprises nearly 50% of the frame. The mouth, although from another species, has a sad downward slant, the harsh lighting that comes from 11 o' clock gives a sense that the being is facing some solemn reckoning of sorts from a higher power. Looking at this hybrid species evoke such repulsion as may occur when humans view a dead human being which relates mostly to one's personal struggle with mortality.

13Quit, a quit smoking helpline in Queensland, Australia showed an advertisement of a sad and fearsome story of a child losing his mother in a rush hour crowd at a train station. As parents' emotions are stirred towards sadness over the child's obvious anguish, the narrator stirs fear by asking if a child is so troubled over losing a parent for a minute, how much more will your child will be troubled by such a loss over a lifetime. Although not expressly discussed, the ad highlights the loss of happiness simply by virtue of its existence in huge contrast with all the other feelgood messages. 

  

The anti-meth advertisement below features an image that is so repulsive that it could possibly evoke sufficient fear alone. However, the sarcastic tone of its message to the teenage girl audience is also provocative. Specifically, it reminds girls of what they could lose, ie their beauty, something very important to the target market. 

Advertisers also use symbolic imagery to convey more abstract concepts like brain damage as a result of drug use. 

Example. Ccacanada does this by depicting the brain as a series of wires. It shows that, as someone consumes more drugs, wires are cut until the brain is forever short-circuited.

Anger
Anger appeal advertising often stirs emotion around an injustice, usually of a social kind. The brand presents itself as offering a solution to correct the injustice. 

Always sells female sanitary napkins. However, they have taken on the cause of sexism that can hurt the self esteem of adolescent girls. Their advertisement focuses on the insult 'like a girl' and attempt to bring awareness to the fact that the term is insultive.


Normally Happy Brands in Sad Times?
If your brand is to be like a friend to your customers, you will appreciate how unempathetic and tone deaf it will be to flaunt happiness as per usual during a crisis.

Coca Cola during the Covid19 pandemic. As the corona virus pandemic advanced, Coca Cola remained true to its bright color but with a still positive message; specifically, one of encouragement and thanks to those who are helping others. This is genius because they are still remaining true to their brand as it relates to positivity, togetherness and relationships.

We are experiencing something difficult right now. But we know that, among us, we will overcome this situation. Endless thanks to [#Istayathome] and those sacrificing everything to help others in this situation. Seeing so many people united just fills us up. 

Coca Cola after the George Floyd murder and consequent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign. Quite unlike the Covid19 scenario which did not involve needless violence by humans, Coca Cola made a significant departure from key aspects of its 'happy' mood (like using a black rather than red background). This departure was evident even visually, an element I can not recall ever having been paused. The message's tone offers promise to take a moment for reflection on how to do better. It promises to do better than the common inauthentic practice of using PR to profit from any situation, even sad ones. Time will tell its measure of authenticity. However, the effort is commendable regardless. Ultimately, they are not portraying the usual 'happy' mood, they are essentially promising to bring just that, but also to black lives. After all, their brand is about relationships and connection.

Final Thoughts

While a single emotional cue may be more suitable to a brand, brands may use combination of these emotional cues and entirely different ones for different purposes. For instance, a 'happy' brand may encourage customers to join its free shipping subscription program by instilling subtle amounts of fear over the spread Covid19 pandemic. As seen above, 'happy' brands can be solemn as well, ie while remaining true to their brand. After all, don't happy friends have moments of profound contemplation and sadness. It would appear tone deaf to be otherwise in solemn circumstances.

Degree of departing from the usual mood of the brand is a key consideration. For instance, if a happy brand uses fear-based advertising, it should mostly likely do so to a much less dramatic extent than brands with more solemn moods, like the WWF (above). Marketing executives have lost their jobs over material that was perceived to be tone deaf or otherwise insensitive.

As should have become apparent, marketers should use every possible avenue, symbolic and otherwise to overcommunicate. Notice how marketers do not miss opportunities for infusing their message into the minutest details, like Coca Cola colors in a model's tassel earrings and nail polish. When brands wanted to portray a happy mood, advertisements mostly used bright colors while their negative counterparts were all dark, drab and or monochrome.

CONTENT RELATED TO EMOTIONAL BRANDING / EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING

• Another form of emotional branding is  the brand lifestyle strategy that can be used to emotionally connect with consumes.
• With which emotion(s) can your brand or current marketing objectives best relate? Branding 101.
• Infuse emotions into as many elements of your brand personality; your tagline, lifestyle branding strategy, colors and so on.
• Limited Edition Marketing: emotional marketing using exclusivity, scarcity and urgency.
• Cause marketing

Brand Storytelling

What is brand storytelling?

Brand storytelling is a type of content marketing that is designed to engage consumers emotionally. Content marketing involves creating and sharing material (commonly video, blog or other social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is absolutely intended to stimulate interest in its products (albeit indirectly). In other words, rather than use boring educational e-books or infommercial content about product features, you can instead use storytelling, best yet with lifestyle branding, to engage a consumer's buying mind via their emotional backdoor. In short, brand storytelling is a strategy to emotional stimulate consumers. 

What is a brand story? A brand story is the narrative or the reputation attached to your brand. It is what others may say about your brand, often the first thing they think of. It is useful to consider the term 'brand story' as a collective term because it is the residual idea that is left in a consumer's mind having interacted with your brand over an extended period in numerous ways. If your brand shows up in the world in a way that remained strictly consistent with the brand personality, a consumer's response when asked about your brand is likely to incorporate some key aspects of your branding design plan.

 

Examples of what some customers might say for the following case studies.

• Red Bull support extreme sporting events.

• Nike encourages athletes (of more conventional sports) to excel. 
• Coca Cola is about happiness and friendship.
• Harley Davidson's brand thinks people should enjoy life and feel free.  Notice that, rather than sell motorbikes or roller coaster rides, these brand stories sell the core belief. 
• Disney thinks people should have fun. 

Since the brand story is often known only implicitly, it is even more critical that a brand's content remains consistent and clearly aligned with branding goals. A brand suffering multiple personality disorder will find it hard to maintain a good niche of 'friends'.

Uses & Benefits of Brand Storytelling

Emotional branding. Research shows that stories trigger the brain to respond to stories in very affecting / moving ways and people are 22 times more likely to remember story-based information than fact-based information. Stories even encourage people to feel more emotionally connected to brands than otherwise. Using the brand story as a more organic advertisement is ideal. Your story should ideally include how you resolved their pain points, etc, the story will be even more beneficial. Read more about emotional branding (along with case studies for the emotions of happiness, sadness, anger and fear).

Differentiation. A compelling brand story can help to seal competitive advantage. After all, according  to the Content Marketing Institute's 2019 B2C Content Marketing Trends, roughly half (only 52%) of content marketers frequently use storytelling in their marketing. If you are fortunate to be in a market with even less focus on content marketing, you have even a greater opportunity.

Brand Story Tips

• Know the brand attributes. (See examples of brand attributes). This are essential parts of the brand and need to be communicated.
• Integrate all aspects of your business with branding so that it is consistent. 
• Red Bull marketing model is consistent globally. 
• Own and control your content without needing to seek third party rights. 
• This is the motivation behind the creation of Red Bull Media House.

• Generate quality, authentic content that truly is emotionally engaging. Focus on the brand personality and attributes, NOT the product.
• Red Bull tv tells real life stories of the challenges and triumps of its star extreme sports athletes. Red Bull does not show athletes holding the can of their product. They are relying on the audience to be so emotionally connected with the content that, when they need to 'feel revitalized', they will buy Red Bull. The subtle placements of their brand imagery is sufficient for the audience to know the source of the content.

• Create different communication media  products (video, blog, etc) based on your market's preference. 
• Red Bull creates its own featured films, episodic series, documentaries and so on. 

• Create valuable media channels that could provide 360 degree publishing. 

• Create innovative content. 
• Red Bull's events are often very innovative. A key case in point was the famous man jumping from space.
• Do not allow the brand story to develop by chance. After all, it can be implicit and left to perceptions of others (much the way any human being has a 'story' that can be concisely construed by observers). Take charge; direct how your brand story is told. For instance
• When creating brand awareness from the earliest stages of the brand's life and or when your target customer is still only at the top of the sales funnel (TOFU), expressly communicate the brand story in writing in the 'About' page. Essentially, begin training everyone about your brand's narrative.
• Brainstorm for brand stories from daily activities that relate to your brand's source of competitive advantage, featured employees whose practices reflect the customer experience that is integral to your brand's competitive advantage, things learned, etc  Examples include show how your buyer who is concerned with eco-friendly materials visits suppliers; show how you make the product is handcrafted with thoughtfully sourced ingredients.
• Articulate the brand story to anyone being recruited to provide content in one way or other, from employed content providers to customers about to write reviews or feedback. Prompt and guide these content providers accordingly.
• Have a communication marketing plan whose raison d'etre is to honor the brand story. For instance, establish details for managing each type of content element (above).
• Include brand style guidelines regarding types of content. What you say is just as important as the form you use to communicate it.
• Always make the target customer profile into the protagonist with problems and show your product as the hero or resolution to customer problems. (Focus on benefits NOT products and features). Use customer stories. This helps to showcase that customers love your brand. Publish customer reviews and stories that are compliant with your desired brand story. Whenever possible, use classic storytelling techniques; character development, a character's arch / transformation, etc. Wherever possible, be inspirational.
• Be social. Show your brand's human side. After all, customers have relationships with people. You can humanize your brand if you showcase yourself as the brand's founder, team, the office, behind-the-scenes activities, daily activities and so on. Consider that the KarJenner clan social media achieves this very well. The public has such intimate knowledge about the family members that their humanity is a people magnet that allowed Kylie Jenner's product launch to result in a complete sell out within hours, even though she was a teenager selling products that offer nothing extraordinary that can not already be achieved from other brands. Inclusions in brand story telling include stories about how and why the founder created the company.
• Teach others how to tell your story. As early as possible, preferably within the first few words of content, let customers be clear of how the brand adds value. Be concise to maintain the emotional hook. This is important because you are NOT the only one telling your story.  
• Take advantage of internet marketing tools. Examples include. 
• Use video contagion
• create a unique hashtag

CONTENT RELATED TO TELLING A BRAND STORY

• Emotional branding (with case studies illustrating the emotions of happiness, sadness, anger and fear).
• Lifestyle branding strategy
• Brand awareness & brand awareness srategy
• Unique value proposition
• Promotional strategies to build brand awareness
• As much as possible, encourage customer reviews and feedback to be compliant with the brand story.
• Measuring brand awareness
• Branding 101. See where this step fit into the process of brand strategy management.
• Brand personality
• Audience-driven content management