As the world of marketing becomes more complex and demanding, marketers are focusing more on emotional branding to distinguish their product/brand.  Emotional connections are vitally important in creating brand loyalty. The critical challenge for today’s marketers is twofold: (1) how to make your brand come alive with more specific, meaningful emotions; and (2) how to test the emotional appeal of your brand and key marketing initiatives.

Why Emotional Connections are So Important for Branding
In Dr. Maslow’s famous theory on the “Hierarchy of Needs”, he postulates that the most basic need is simply “survival” - food, clothing, shelter, etc.  At the top of his hierarchal ladder is the most sophisticated and compelling need: “self actualization”, a purely emotional need.  Since needs and benefits are really “two sides of the same coin”, he concludes that emotional benefits are the highest order benefits.

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In today’s highly competitive world, there is a natural tendency to focus on the product or service, to somehow update it or improve it so you can stay one step ahead of your competition.  This is a worthwhile endeavor, but often it can become a distraction to what should be the real focal point of marketing – your target customer/consumer. 

The famous business writer, Peter Drucker, had a healthy perspective on what business success is all about.  He said “the purpose of a business is not to make money; it is to create a customer and to satisfy that customer”.   Marketing is indeed all about creating and satisfying a customer.  We like the definition of marketing that emphasizes behavior:  “marketing is the science and art of getting target customers to sustain or change their behavior in a way that favors your brand”.

Product enhancement is always a challenge, but so is defining your customer in a way that allows you to strengthen your brand positioning and create innovative marketing initiatives.  The attitudes and behavior of consumers change all the time.  For example, the new Generation Y (i.e. born after 1982) is so different from Generation X (born 1961-1981) and all other market ages/segments, with the internet a powerful influence on their expectations and usage habits. 

Most marketers dwell on the obvious demographic and psychographic traits that immediately define their target customer for traditional advertising media.  But in this ever-changing world of intense competition and miraculous technological advances, today’s marketer must go beyond these basic criteria to more fully understand their target customer.  This includes meaningful benchmarks to effectively assess the value of certain characteristics and be able to monitor changes in the future. 

Essential Criteria

For a complete profile and actionable diagnosis of one’s target customer, we recommend six essential criteria:

1. Demographics – a fundamental starting point, critical for segmenting the market…

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