My friend Lindsay Mask, Founder of Ladies America, sent along an interesting HBR "Daily Stat" article to me, which came from a paper entitled "Can Our Favorite Products Provide Emotional Support?" The study showed people making positive emotional attachments to a new sparkling water brand that they consumed while watching a horror movie. This is very intriguing although I would caution that it may be a risky proposition to try to emulate in a real-life marketing campaign.
However, when a brand is expressed correctly, it takes on manifestations of a real-life character. I often say, to drill down to what a brand is about is to ask, "What do people think about when they think about X?" ("X" being the brand in question). So in this case, because the brand has a "personality" it makes some sense that one might positively attach oneself to a "person" that one went through an ordeal with. One may derive comfort and trust from the "shared" suffering. Just don't give your Pellegrino its own seat at your support group; that would be weird.
When people get combative in communications, it is often as a counter-punch to imagined slights and opinion. These unspoken, unchallenged and too-often inaccurate self-generated “truths” dictate way more of our interactions than most of us are aware. Which is why it's important to steer clear of conversations about "right and wrong" in communication campaigns, since that is likely to engender reflexive opposition.
We need to be vigilant about jumping to conclusions and then unconsciously self-selecting research that only supports that conclusion. When we stop asking questions, we become very manipulable.
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