Blog # 3- Lovemarks

The questions I will address in this particular blog are: Are there brands to which you or I are devoted to? When you or I stop to think about it, is our loyalty to any particular brand logical or is it a “lovemark”? And if purchasing a particular brand isn’t logical, why would you or I do it?

I would like to start by explaining the term “lovemarks”. Lovemarks is a marketing technique that was developed by Kevin Roberts, Chief Executive Officer Worldwide of the advertising agency “Saatchi a Saatchi,” who wrote a book by the same name. The idea behind his marketing strategy is the one that builds consumer loyalty to a brand beyond reason or logic. The three main ingredients he uses to target the consumer and achieve his goal are: mystery, sensuality and intimacy. With that term being explained let see where you and I fit in this picture since we are the target audience for this marketing strategy.

Advertisements fill up nearly every available inch of the landscape and are present in every aspect of our lives. They are on television where advertisers spend billions of dollars a year to reach their target audience or in other words us, take a look at the super bowl where advertisers spend three million dollars for 30 seconds of commercials. As consumer and technology get more and more sophisticated so do the advertisers. With the common use of the TiVo where consumers can skip the commercials by a click of a button the advertisers use the products as a part of the program as in: sex and the city which combined entertainment and advertising in very clever ways. We can see this trend in the movies as well, in the movie cast away the whole movie was used as a product placement for FedEx and the brilliant concept of the movie was that the targeted audience actually paid to see this advertisement for FedEx by purchasing tickets to see the movie.

I couldn't speak for you, but the answer to the question: Am I devoted to any particular brand beyond any logical reason? Is NO!!! I am not. I consider myself to be an educated consumer that uses logic and not emotions while shopping and I hope for your sake that you are too. I compare prices and quality and don’t just buy a product blindly because of its brand name. I must admit that in my younger years I did go for brand names and brands played a major role in my purchasing decisions, so I believe that age and experience play a major part in my consuming habits. As indicated by “The Merchants of Cool” major part of the advertising budget of corporate conglomerates is aimed at young adults since they have the funds and want to look cool and fit with their friends due to peer pressure.
The reason that I feel to be in the minority in is my daily interaction with the target audience of the advertising industry, the majority, in my opinion, is influenced by advertising and “lovemarks”. Let’s look at the reason to my opinion, if no one would respond to advertising the advertising industry would have collapsed a long time ago. But it seems to me that the advertising industry is a thriving multi-billion dollar industry which is being used by countless companies to promote their products and sales. Therefore the target audience must be influenced by the advertisements, in other words this strategy is working.

The three main questions the advertisers need answers to are: what works? When does it work? And with whom? These are the three billion dollars questions sort of speak.

So what do advertisers do to keep with the consumers? They keep creating more and more messages in hope of reaching us, as one advertiser put it “consumers are like roaches the more you spray them and spray them after a while it doesn’t work anymore”. The advertisers are trying to fill the empty spaces where noncommercial institutions like school or churches might have once done the job. For these reasons I believe people will purchase a particular brand although it doesn’t seem logical. There are some brands out there that could be considered “cult brands” where consumers buy with their need to feel as a part of a group this particular brand becomes part of their life style, that’s who they are and that’s how they identify themselves, Harley Davidson Motorcycle riders are an excellent example of that behavior.

For these reasons the logical conclusion, in my opinion, is that most of us are influenced by “lovemarks” and do have loyalty beyond reason to brand names. We all have the feeling of satisfaction and happiness when we buy something new but how long do this feeling last? An hour a day? or maybe a week? But then we need another quick fix in the form of another purchase. Let’s face it we live in a capitalistic society with lots of choices as to the brands we can purchase so the majority of us will be influenced by “lovemarks” while others won’t. In closing, I’d like to present you with a couple of questions: Do you want to be a smart shopper and base your purchasing decisions on logic or just follow the latest trend and imitate the majority? If its o.k. for them its o.k. for you, or is it? You decide which group you want to belong to the “smart shoppers” or the “followers”; I’ll leave it for you to decide.