Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts
[PDF] The Human Brand : How we relate to people, products and companies
Title: The Human Brand : How we relate to people, products and companies
Author: Chris Malone
Abstract : “Social psychologists have determined that primitive humans, in their struggle for existence, developed the ability to judge other people almost instantly along two categories of perception, which are known as warmth and competence. In fact, all humans have a primal, unconscious ability to make these two crucial judgments with a high degree of speed and accuracy: What are the intentions of this person toward me? And how capable are they of carrying out those intentions? […]
Author: Chris Malone
Abstract : “Social psychologists have determined that primitive humans, in their struggle for existence, developed the ability to judge other people almost instantly along two categories of perception, which are known as warmth and competence. In fact, all humans have a primal, unconscious ability to make these two crucial judgments with a high degree of speed and accuracy: What are the intentions of this person toward me? And how capable are they of carrying out those intentions? […]
We apply these warmth and competence judgments in all our relationships, including those involving commercial transactions. Companies and brands have the same capacity to stir up these hard-wired primal passions as people do, and we engage with them on the same basis. We experience feelings of affection and admiration for companies and brands that treat us well, and we feel insult or even rage when we believe that one of those companies has given us poor service or cheated us. […]
Unfortunately, our studies show that most companies and brands fall well short of customer expectations on both warmth and competence. They are seen as selfish, greedy, and concerned only with their own immediate gain. The constant pressure for faster and larger profits raises the question of whether most of them can ever meet the standards for trust that we all unconsciously expect from everyone we interact with.”
Accidental Branding
Martin Lindstrom, author of Brainwashed, answers a reader's question over at Freakonomics :
Some 30 years ago, when Russia was the USSR, brands did not really exist. Yes, Pepsi was present due to an agreement made between the then-U.S. president and the leadership of the USSR, but besides that there was only one product per category. When I investigated this, I realized that this was not entirely true. When “the” fridge was produced (remember there was only one model in total), the manufacturing staff would mark certain refrigerators in order to indicate that more time and better materials went into the production of that particular fridge. At first, these fridges were produced specifically for the senior officials of the government (and the company), however rumours spread, and soon the staff was getting hold of the marked refrigerators whenever they secured the rights to buy “the” fridge. Word continued to get out, and consumers began to search for the marked fridges. The reality: The company had given birth to a brand without knowing it.