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.
We spend a lot of time thinking about how we talk to and about each other at The Relational Intersect, because, in essence, it’s a reflection of how we think of each other. And, ultimately, how we end up treating one another.
What makes brands so powerful (and so frightening) is that we pay too little attention to the manipulative forces at play.
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