And even today, 13 years after the publication of his book ‘Lovemarks, the future beyond brands’, there are still many of Roberts’ concepts and ideas that are worth keeping in mind in our day-to-day marketing.
What does Lovemark mean?
As you know, the purchase decision has a strong emotional component. Although we may believe that buying a product is a rational decision, the reality is different. Emotions have a great influence when it comes to making a purchase and this is the basic idea behind lovemarks.
{{cta(‘bb2971b9-bf36-4c36-8edc-75223dba5208’)}}
Translated literally, a lovemark is a brand loved, of course, by its buyers. Is it possible to love a brand? Perhaps the word is not love, but loyalty. A person creates an emotional bond with a brand because they share something with it, whether it is a philosophy, ideals or because they like its history. And the ideal situation is for this emotional bond to be deep and lasting.
Mystery, Sensuality, Intimacy
The three concepts that Kevin Roberts includes in the formula to become a lovemark are mystery + sensuality + intimacy = Lovemark.
What does this mean?
Mystery. The consumer doesn’t have to know everything about you, you have to keep telling stories and surprising them over time. Apple constantly plays at keeping its loyal customers on tenterhooks as to what day their new product will appear and even what that product will be! In this way, the loyal consumer will be attentive to novelties and will not fall asleep.
Sensuality. Roberts talks about the consumer’s five senses in this section on sensuality. Brands have to seduce people by reaching them through their senses: a good design will be captured through the sight, audiobranding, olfactory marketing…
Intimacy. Intimacy lies in making your audience feel that they are part of the brand, that they are at home: they feel comfortable, they trust you, they are satisfied with your products… If you know your target’s needs in time and anticipate their desires, why would they have to go to the competition? Make your consumers not only want to buy your brand, but want to be part of it.
Building a lovemark for your hotel branding strategy
At the end of the day, it is consumers who will decide whether a brand is a lovemark or not. But what can we do to be considered as such? First of all, to meet your expectations.
If our product, service or image does not match what they expect, they will never love us unconditionally. When a brand becomes a lovemark, it goes from being a simple seller in a monetary transaction to being much more than that, a friend to the consumer. In other words, we stop seeing the consumer as a mere sack of coins and start respecting him and committing ourselves to his satisfaction.
Nowadays, consumers feel more identified with those companies that work on their social responsibility towards the environment and society. So it pays to take care of your brand’s reputation and put the focus on some of these causes and communicate it very well.
Apple, a full-fledged lovemark
Although large companies such as Google, Apple, Coca-Cola or Moleskine could be considered Lovemarks, since their customers see them as an important part of their lives, either because they have been part of happy moments or because… The truth is that each person has their own Lovemarks and they do not necessarily have to be the most well-known, but simply those with which the buyer connects.
Vote your lovemarks
A clear example that everyone has their own lovemarks is thewebsite lovemarks.com, created to vote for the most loved brands. On this website we found a ranking of up to 3,977 lovemarks. Anyone can propose new brands and vote among the existing ones. Even famous people, superheroes or places are considered lovemarks. Which ones would you vote for?
