Brand Relationship Characteristics

What kind of relationship do your (profitable) customers want to have with your brand?

As much as the need to generate profitable sales will dictate the activities of the enterprise – we lose sight that how one goes about fulfilling that mandate is not so much in the brand’s control as it is in your customer’s.
Only when this is determined will the enterprise be in a position to deliver the relevant components of the brand promise in the most receptive customer manner. It will define the more effective channels of communication, the type of message and language of the communication as a sequence of events leading up to the ultimate purchase event. Implementing this more effectively than the competition is what makes a brand great.
There are 4 key types of relationship characteristics that (profitable) customers can have with brands which will help define the migration of the relationship from being a simple buyer, to a customer, to a partner.

You might be rolling your eyes just about now thinking, great yet another classification scheme. What with brand personality, brand essence, brand persona, brand promise, brand identity, brand value, brand attributes, brand traits….
This is not a subtle twist on any of these – rather it is quite literally the kind of relationship customers want to have with your brand – regardless of how it is ultimately ‘positioned’ in the marketplace. That relationship will also come to define the type of language these customers are using when thinking or discussing your brand. And so while the common bind is the brand, the brand promise and the underlying value chain, how each component in the brand value chain is perceived and judged (Wallet, Mind, Heart, Life) will be dictated by the relationship characteristic.



Share of Wallet:
This characteristic captures the transactional relationship that some customers have with brands. It is based on the short term – the immediate offer you are making – now. The future purchase decision will be made subject to the available options (price, convenience, promotion) at that point in time.
Sometimes a customer may look like they have a (purchase continuity) relationship with the brand. But that is only because the brand was able to daisy-chain individual transactions into a longer continuum; there is no inherent affinity to the brand other than the needs at the moment. Think of the retail gasoline sector.
Consequently any customers you find here will be subject to considerable scrutiny to identify the chain of events (programs, offers etc) that can be developed to create a continuity program to help capture future transactions and more importantly build the bridges to higher level relationships. It will take time to transform attitudes of these customers who likely see a commoditized bundle of easily interchangeable offerings.
Naturally, not many brands are comfortable knowing their profitable customers are transaction driven. Coming to understand it will be the first step in helping you reclaim your brand and discovering the brand promise customers will latch onto.

Share of Mind:
This characteristic speaks to the rational mind. Those who seek to understand the brand and its relationship within the category from the standpoint of the meaningful, tangible points of difference. The car tire sector comes to mind – of the people who evaluate the different options based on tread life, price, stopping distance etc. and not swayed by branded messages “Michelin. Because so much is riding on your tires.”
There are three basic types of consumer motivations.
1. Those who wish to understand the meaningful branding differences because of their interest in the category or their interest in the brand.
2. Those making a considered resource expenditure (money, time) or have heightened safety/technical requirements and need to substantiate to themselves/stakeholders that the best valued solution was selected.
3. Those not able or prepared to make an emotional link with the brand.
In any case, these customers are prepared to do their due diligence. In speaking to them directly it is wise to express an elevated respect for the customer. In addition to company literature (white papers, technical reports) rational appeals, scorecards, fact/figures – these customers will put great stock in 3rd party consumer reports and testimonials/word of mouth.
The B2B sector tends to experience this at the gatekeeper touch points – where a solution is frequently decided upon using an RFP scoring system or subsequently as part of the service level agreement monitoring process. However, deeper within the user community, any variety of characteristics (Share of Heart, Share of Life) will apply creating an interesting relationship management challenge.
The B2C sector is also filled with rational customers seeking to make rational choices of brands/categories i.e. car tires, appliances/white goods etc…Some may even transform their rational link to an emotional bond – as “enthusiastic fanatics” the world over will attest.

Share of Heart:
Emotional appeals (and its variants: humor, fear, joy, sadness, anger etc…) are arguably the most powerful a marketer can deploy for their brand. Strike the right emotional chord and customers may respond like Vulcans during Pon’far.
This characteristic is empowered at one of three levels of intensity:
1. Weak: Simple pleasant/personable/memorable brand experiences or events.
2. Moderate: Brand evangelism, Moment of Truth euphoria, fashion/image/group belonging needs.
3. Strong: Events that seem to strike at a raw psychological nerve. Dangerous territory – engage at your peril.
Customer Experience Management (CEM) initiatives deal with the weak and seek to transform customers into moderates. At its core CEM works on the basis that the periphery defines our experience. Therefore all the touch points (enablers/detractors) the customer has with the brand are optimized by working backward through the enterprise’s systems/operations to hard/soft/wet engineer a desired consistent brand experience standard.
These customers are looking for more that simply buying and consuming the brand. They wish to have some level of interaction reinforcing the deeper nature the brand has become in their lives. These evangelists and potential mavens want to be recognized as part of an inner circle. With the current evolution of the open social standards initiative across social media, increased ability to selectively share with one’s refined circle of friends vs colleagues vs network acquaintances, this group will be subject to a great deal of marketer attention.
But dealing with this group is not a simple matter – it requires an understanding of the TYPE of emotional connection they have with the brand in order to be able to communicate back to them in a similar fashion.

Share of Life – “WE” “Committed”:
This stage represents the most ‘sophisticated’ relationship customers can have with brands. Unlike the other three which tend to be “ME”-centric in term of meeting one’s needs, Share of Life is “WE”-centric. It’s based on a “committed” long-term viewpoint, where customers view the brand as a trusted and proven value proposition – a partner, not a transaction and not a cheerleader, hence a blend of the 3 previous (WMH) types.
Mutual assistance and co-creation are the key dynamics. They consider the brand to be a long-term partner working to provide innovation and solutions. For that they are willing to share more information about their needs. However along with the maturity and sharing comes a responsibility that the brand must also be mindful of the economic power bestowed upon it by its constituents and yield that economic power in concert with the wishes/moral compass of its constituents. This relationship is developed and strengthened over time as the brand is able to stay “committed” to the customer through the good and the bad.
This does not mean that customers will turn to the brand to satisfy 100% of their category requirements – because life (like the game of rock-paper-scissors) just doesn’t work that way. But where circumstances permit and competitive enticements are normative, the brand will be the preferred choice. This bond will be the most difficult to break, and if ever broken – highly unlikely to be re-established because all eyes will forever see the spot where the promise was broken.