Romancing the Brand: How Brands Create Strong, Intimate Relationships with Consumers

A couple camps overnight outside an Apple store to be the first to buy the new iPad. An insurance salesman tattoos a Harley Davidson logo on his ankle. A young woman claims her Diet Coke is like her boyfriend. Are they crazy? No, according to Tim Halloran. For years marketers assumed we make rational, economic decisions about the products and services we buy. But recent research and experience reveal that most of us make deep, emotional connections to brands much like we do with people, and those connections influence our actions and buying decisions. Just as we engage in relationships with people, we engage in relationships with brands. With some, we have wild, short-term flings. Others stay with us for a lifetime. Some brands offer us strictly utilitarian relationships, but with most, we feel something deeper. In some cases, we even fall in love with them or, in other cases, break up with brands when we feel betrayed or something better comes along. In ROMANCING THE BRAND, brand expert Tim Halloran argues that the goal of any marketer should be to engage in a deep, emotionally-connected relationship with their consumer target. Consumers who feel emotionally connected to brands will find more value in those brands, will be less susceptible to competitive marketing gimmicks, and have a greater chance of influencing others to also adopt a relationship with that brand. But while marketers are generally good at wooing customers to try their products, they stumble when it comes to keeping the relationship fresh in the long term that is, they fail to keep customers engaged. ROMANCING THE BRAND is the definitive guide to what any marketer needs to know about engaging in lasting intimate consumer relationship. By drawing on new research and interviews and sharing the stories of best-in-class consumer-brand relationships, Halloran takes the reader through the stages of a successful brand-consumer relationship and shares the tools that marketers need to connect consumers to brands in ways that go beyond the physical experience of consuming the product.