Does a Business Actually Need to Be Loved, or Just Trusted?
I keep coming back to this one. More than I'd expected to, actually.
"Let's make customers fall in love with the brand."
I've heard some version of that sentence in boardrooms, brainstorms and campaign kick-offs for years. I've probably said it myself a few times. It sounds like the right ambition. Who wouldn't want to build a brand people love?
I'm just not sure it's the one I'd choose anymore.
When I think about the businesses I've stayed loyal to over the years, love doesn't feature very much. I trusted them to show up. To fix things when they broke. To do what they said they would do. To not make me think twice before buying from them again. Most weren't particularly exciting. Some weren't even memorable in the traditional marketing sense.
I just never had a reason to leave.
Funny thing is, that's a much quieter kind of success. Nobody writes case studies about brands that simply kept their promises for ten years. There's no campaign celebrating "remarkably dependable." Yet, as customers, I think we reward that behaviour far more often than we admit.
Maybe that's why I get a little uneasy when a brief starts with emotional words before operational ones. We spend a surprising amount of time talking about admiration, affinity and love, while giving much less attention to consistency, reliability and trust. One makes for a much better creative presentation.
The other tends to build businesses that survive.
Of course, I could be creating a distinction that doesn't really exist.
Maybe love is simply what trust becomes after enough promises have been kept. Or maybe they're two completely different things, and we've spent years chasing the one that's easier to put on a mood board.
I honestly don't know.
I just know that if someone gave me the choice, I'd rather build a business people rely on than one they say they adore.
The rest, I suspect, has a habit of following.
OPEN LOOPS
I’m still thinking about this one.
NEXT IN OPEN LOOPS
ANOTHER OPEN LOOP
I've got another question I haven't answered yet.
COMING SOON
