The Holy Grail of Business

It's the holy grail of business: create a branded product that people like so much that they end up falling in love with it.

As a result, they don't just buy your branded product or service once or twice - they become loyal to it. And not just for a reason, but beyond reason; beyond price, beyond attribute often becoming a life long repeat customer and brand champion promoting it freely whenever the opportunity arises.

Which business inspired person doesn't want this? Yet you'd be surprised at how many people in business will not place the words 'love' and 'business' any where near each other. 

But they should because people love lots of stuff; from other people to products, brands, places, and so on. I love my family and friends. Professionally I love to understand brands and branding. For fun, I love cooking, and the related tools I have to help me make dishes. I love Tangle Foot beer. There are loads of other products I love too. I also love the Lake District and India. Now that's a 'whole lotta of love' as Led Zeppelin once sang - a band I love. 

Out of necessity, you'll probably purchase something. How many times have you made a purchase, with partial need attached because you had to have it? And did you end up paying more than you could have paid with a similar product? Even more intriguing, did you willing pay for something that isn't as good as another product and pay more for it?

For example: the top of the range Windows phone is technically better in just about every area, but more people will pay more money for the iPhone 6. The stats prove this. That's love working in business right there. If you can create a product that people love, it makes business sense.

When everything else is the same; the same big data, the same technology, the same type of service or product, seeking to creating meaningful, emotional connections that carry human value seals the deal. Lovemarks by Saatchi & Saatchi proves this time and time again.

So okay great, if people love stuff they will pay more for it. My question is:

What is love?

To gain some understanding on this would be to gain a massive edge in business. Why? Because people are willing to pay more for stuff they love.

To start with, how would you describe love?

Most of us would agree with this statement: 'Love is an emotion'. And perhaps you would also agree this statement 'love is the strongest emotion of all'.

But have you ever thought about 'how' and why we fall in love with someone or in the case products that business creates and sell, with something? Is love at first sight possible or is it something profoundly more complex? Or is it a mixture of lots of different things all coming together a precisely the right moment?

Dr Barbara Frederickson a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author, keynote speaker and a lady whose work I greatly admire describes love quite brilliantly: Love can be thought of as ‘micro-moments of positivity resonance.' The more we experience positive moments, the more we build up a rapport with who ever or what ever is providing it.

There is a lot of science behind this idea which you can read about in Dr Frederickson's book; Love 2.0. But what makes these micro-moments so attractive to us that we actually fall in love? Are we learning to love through rationalisation of our thoughts or is there something that strikes us even before this happens?

Great thinking is changing. Science is adding its weight and our understanding of our own self is evolving; Rene Descartes famously said 'I think therefore I am'.

However based on scientific findings, neurologist Donald Calne is famously quoted as saying: 'The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions.'

This would suggest that humans are emotionally led. We act primarily on our emotions, before rationalising them as part of a past experience process which leads us to being able to form our own conclusions.

Now remember Descartes: 'I think, therefore I am'. But is this actually correct?

Enter Neuroscientist/neurobiologist Dr. Antonio Damasio. Described 'As a leading neuroscientist, Damasio has dared to speculate on neurobiological data, and has offered a theory about the relationship between human emotions, human rationality, and the underlying biology'.

His thinking takes our understanding to another level.

Damasio's work is responsible for an updated, and in my opinion corrected version, of Descartes famous quote with one dramatic and fundamental change to the wording. Damasio replaces reason with emotion to read: 'I feel, therefore I am.' A closer inspection of his work provides conclusive evidence to support this.

You feel; this is an emotion.

You rationalise; this is thinking.

You conclude; How do I rate this experience.

You choose: Do I want more or less or this. (Will I build up positivity resonance and fall in love)

'I feel, therefore I am'. Emotion trumps reason. Studying Dr Damasio's work will provide you with the evidence to support this. You can find out more by taking a look at the Neuromarketing World Forum 2014 Keynote given by Damasio.

This is why smart brands invest so much in to emotional based marketing and advertising. They're seeking to create these micro moments of positivity resonance. This is because savvy brands realise that the brand boom time is over, people realise that most comparable products do the same thing; all beer tastes pretty good and gets you drunk, washing powder washes your clothes to a brilliant white and so on. 

In order to keep up and win your attention in a time where people have simply switched off to advertising, brands are becoming more caring, more authentic and more emotionally orientated in their communication. In effect, more human, more loving.

Why is this important to understand? When you get an understanding of how we work as humans, not just at face value, but understanding the real deep emotional context of what we truly crave, we can begin to create things with real purpose; from human relationships all the way through to love of our favourite products.

If you want to truly win in business, you'll not dismiss the fact that love and business are, by their very nature, intrinsically related. Act on love, get it right and you'll get a serious return on your money.


Simon Bell,
Director,
Sensation Creative