Building Relationships to Strengthen Your Brand
By: Kimberly Grant
Whether you believe it or not, we all have relationships with brands. If you think you don’t, whenever it’s time to do your grocery shopping, do you go to the same place(s) or do you always go to a different place to mix things up? I will admit, I am a creature of habit and staunchly loyal; which makes me a model consumer for the brands I’m loyal toward. You could say I have a relationship.
Marvelous Relationship
If you’ve been keeping up with my blog posts, I’m sure you’ve realized that I am a big fan of Marvel Entertainment and comic book TV and movies in general. For the purposes of this post, you could say that I have a brand relationship with Marvel Entertainment.
Brand relationship is characterized by brand resonance (the way a brand resonates in the minds of its consumers) and measured based on four dimensions:
- Behavioral loyalty
- Attitudinal attachment
- Sense of community
- Active engagement
Marvelous Behaviors & Attitudes
Behavioral loyalty is basically how much the consumer uses the brand and how loyal they are. In the case of Marvel Entertainment (by way of Sony Pictures Entertainment), consumer repeat usage is pretty high. For instance, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which is a Marvel movie about a Spider-man villain turned hero, grossed almost $90 million in its opening weekend. That’s a pretty high number post-pandemic. Now, this was a sequel to the first Venom that was released in 2018. The first film made a total gross of $213 million domestically. There’s definitely behavioral loyalty there.
For attitudinal attachment, a consumer’s love, self-connection, and prominence toward a brand is understood to measure the brand relationship. In the case of Venom, the first film generated enough love, self-connection, and prominence within the viewers of the film, that a global pandemic did not stop them from going to the movie theater. I, myself, just watched the first film and I can see the appeal. Not only does the film have a stellar cast (Michelle Williams and Tom Hardy as Venom), but the character development is awesome.
Marvelous Community & Engagement
In brand relationships, the sense of community is their social currency. It’s also the extent to which consumers share the brand and its information in everyday life; like on social media. When we tell our friends, family, and co-workers how much we like the character Venom and they should see the movie, we are building a sense of community as consumers. Historically, consumers share brand info when they really like and really hate something. It’s something to keep in mind when you’re deciding about marketing a brand. Love and hate are strong feelings.
This brings me to the last measurement: active engagement. This one is a biggie. Active engagement is when the consumer is willing to go beyond just purchasing the product or service and invest their time, money, and energy to do more. It’s not enough to enjoy Let There Be Carnage in the movie theater just once. Repeat movie theater visits for the same movie has declined in the age of home video and streaming services. However, it’s still prevalent enough to mention. Guaranteed, there will be repeat viewings of the Let There Be Carnage, which will contribute to the film’s total box office gross.
Getting a consumer to purchase, like, share, and repeat for your brand is the best type of relationship in marketing. In order to do that, a brand needs to measure its current and potential consumers and their relationships. Using the above four dimensions is a great start. It also helps to have a good movie with great character development to get butts in seats at the box office.
Loyal to my blog yet? If not, you can read my latest post to change your mind.
