Much has been written about brand love. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the ultimate, most brands fall in the middle to the lower end of the scale. Here's an article from the AMA Journal about a theoretical approach to brand love.
"Visa, MasterCard and other big payment networks need not be victims in the shift towards digital cash if they play their cards right."
"As the marketing power of social media grows, it no longer makes sense to treat it as an experiment. Here’s how senior leaders can harness social media to shape consumer decision making in predictable ways." APRIL 2012 • Roxane Divol, David Edelman, and Hugo Sarrazin Source: Marketing & Sales Practice
Lady Gaga and Madonna do it. We all should The latest issue of HBR contains a great article entitled: REINVENTING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND, with six excellent tips. One is "Leverage your points of difference." It's all pretty OBVIOUS ADAMS stuff, however worth the read and reminder. http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/11/how_to_reinvent_your_personal.html
Millward Brown's latest newsletter includes an informative article on brand architecture. Six critical brand characteristics are described to help you determine whether your brand architecture is optimized. For example, is your brand positioned to differentiate? See: http://www.millwardbrown.com/Libraries/MB_Articles_Downloads/Nick_Cooper_AdMap_BrandArchitecture-Feb-2011.sflb.ashx.
"Brands Seek Fans on Facebook"
We've all seen numerous definitions of a brand. Essentially a brand where a product or service "fits" in the consumer's mind. That fit is all about a basketful of attributes made up of two key components: performance (what are you going to do for me today) and emotional rewards (how are you going to make me feel today). Successful marketers have and continue to recognize those important components, with emotional rewards becoming more and more important given the sea of sameness in product and service offerings available today. To better understand brands and branding, read UNDERSTANDING BRANDS BY10 PEOPLE WHO DO, edited by Don Cowley. It's available on Amazon.com.
There are tons of articles and journal articles that help us define brands. One simple truth is that to succeed in the sea of sameness world of branding, connecting with customers at their emotional level is essential. That is not to say that rational connections are not important. Read what some British experts have to say at http://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/~britsch/nmdesdev/downloads/article/branding_4.pdf.
More and more companies are instituting web grass roots efforts to build their brands. According to Umar Hague, a London economist and Havas Media Lab director, "By choosing to invest in consumers over advertising, Google is a living example of a deeper truth: The future of communications as advantage lies in talking less and listening more." Read more, about brands like Zappos and Craigslist at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/esearch/e3i5e732e045deaaba3ecab1948a0858e5b/