Brand Week Istanbul is an event that aims to bring the most creative names and works from the worlds of branding, marketing and communication together to share their thoughts and ideas.
I-AM directors Jon and Emre were honoured to be invited to speak at 2013’s event and delivered a talk on “The Power of Love and Hate” in determining the success or failure of a brand.
In their presentation, Jon and Emre began by exploring the fundamental components of love that must align for a customer to fall head-over-heels for a brand. Next they demonstrated the importance for brands to build such strong, positive emotional relationships with their customers by explaining that when it comes to decision-making, the emotional brain sits in the driving seat and can easily over-rule the rational thinking brain on matters such as price. We’ve all been in situations where we’ve chosen to pay that little bit more for a brand and experience we love…
But it wasn’t all love, peace and harmony; Jon and Emre explored the flip-side of the coin by looking at specific examples in which brands that instil hatred and rage in their customers through bad experiences can suffer the consequences. Over the last few years we have witnessed the meteoric decline of heavyweight brands such as Yahoo! and Blackberry that have stopped feeling the love from their customers.
The take-away message of the talk was that your brand experience can only ever be as strong as the weakest part. Brands work hard to make their customers fall in love with them yet all too often fall at the final hurdle by infuriating them through a poor interaction at the crucial moment.
To avoid this, all aspects of the customer journey need to be carefully designed to create a full 360-degree brand experience that delights customers on all fronts; only then can a brand and a customer become a match made in heaven.