The Humanization of Brands (Chick-fil-A, Gary Vaynerchuk, etc.)

Gambit

Gambit

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Nov 21, 2011
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So I know a lot of you have watched this Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote speech. And the one point that stuck out the most with me was him talking about the humanization of brands.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df-lHqLAzj4]Gary Vee Humanization of Brands SXSW 2011 - YouTube[/ame]

He said that over the years, we have started humanizing pets more and more. And he says that Brands are moving in the same direction as strange as it sounds.

I've been trying to wrap my head exactly around what that concept means for the past couple months and how it would play out.

But then with this latest stance with Chik-fil-A, it kinda was an epiphany.

While Chick-fil-A is getting bashed by the liberal media, it is also creating a group of loyal hardcore supporters. Its Christian Conservative base will obviously grow stronger for the stance they are taking.

With Social Media growing at a rapid rate, customers are looking for ways to connect with their brands on a deeper level. And the ones that create these emotional connections with their customers stand to gain a huge competitive advantage. The ones that remain boring and apathetic will likely phase themselves out.

I also predict Chick-fil-A will shift toward slightly raising their prices knowing that they have customers that are willing to pay a premium because of their loyalty.
 


There is lots of research on brands as humans around. Central might be "brand personality". Unfortunately it is most often "abused" as just a bunch of dimensions that are then getting measured -> Dimensions of brand personality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chick-fil-A is imho more willing to going into controversy, i.e. this seems to be more a believe based issue, similarly to sports fans or Apple supporters thinking the team they support is in some form superior.
 
I personally think humanization of brands is risky.

When people start thinking of Brands as a person or the founder/CEO it can backfire.

And this has happened before like Jobs/Apple. There was Hughes/airlines/movie production where the leader had a strong vision and took on their values.
 
He said that over the years, we have started humanizing pets more and more. And he says that Brands are moving in the same direction as strange as it sounds.
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Ya way.

I also predict Chick-fil-A will shift toward slightly raising their prices knowing that they have customers that are willing to pay a premium because of their loyalty.
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No way.
 
Rainbow-colored Oreo a harbinger of more gay advertising - The Washington Post



pro-gay.jpg
 
I don't think so, Garry doesn't understand fascism. He just exists in his little social media bubble, and thinks the whole world is going to conform to the way he thinks. Basically, he's just an egomaniac full of hot air.
 
I've listened to a lot of Vaynerchuk's stuff; his enthusiasm for personal branding has never sat well with me. In Gary's world, every person is a brand, and your brand is your most valuable asset. He's an intelligent and entertaining guy, but I can't get with his philosophy. Making yourself into a brand is shameless and undignified, like relationship marketing — leveraging your relationships to make sales. By lending humanity to your brand, you are dehumanizing yourself in a major way.

The other angle on this is what the OP pointed out about Chick-Fil-A — building brand loyalty by relating to consumers on an emotional level. Clearly, Apple has profited tremendously from this. Personally, I'm against this crap. What kind of fag feels moved to evangelize for a consumer product. Really? To me that indicates a weak self-image and poor sense of self-worth. I guess it's nice to benefit from the emotional connection you make with your customers. Given the choice, I'd rather build loyalty by offering consistent value and relating to my customers through my actual product, rather than connecting on off-topic shit. For instance, there are some musicians that I love, but I'm not a fan... as soon as their stuff starts to suck, I'm out.

I think of Seth Godin's stuff about permission based marketing, and I wonder if any of this stuff is actually new or actually matters. Like, are consumer's really blind to "interruption marketing", or does it work as well as ever? Permission marketing just means that consumers give you their attention because their interested. Isn't this how it's always worked? It's not like Ogilvy was shoving advertisements down people's throats, people can always just turn the page.

tl;dr Humanizing brands dehumanizes humans. Fanboys are fags. None of this is new, go read Caples.
 
For the record... Wickedfire, as a forum, a brand, an industry powerhouse of amazing influence and magic over viral buzz and unicorns and all that jazz... is neutral.

I have gay friends. And then I also have homosexual friends. I, personally believe in marriage equality. If two people, regardless of religion, race, or both having vaginas or penises, want to get married and suffer through all of that incredible amount of dedication and arguments, and jealous crap and fights, and have no social life after they choose to adopt someone else's defective kid or whatever... then fine. I support them. If straight people can do fucked up shit and get married, then homosexual couples should be allowed to do the same.

But that has nothing to do with business. If this offends you, then you are a blithering idiot and chances are you should stick to just masturbating aka FUCKING YOURSELF (or fucking rubber/plastic if you use a toy, but hey, its still a lonely deal!) -- because really, if you can manage to find the time to include this topic in your life and also let it rule how you function in a business or even a personal setting that has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR CURRENT BORING EXISTENCE... then you should not be having sex with anyone else. That should be your punishment. And if there were a customer support hotline to call to complain about this, then you should just do it instead.. (unofficially I think we call this your state Senator, going to confession, although, as of late, you may be offending a closet diddler so watch out, he has God on his side, and radio/tv talk shows that have zero bearing or powers to make any changes except fire people up over bullshit, amirite?!)

That made perfect sense to me. If it doesn't make sense to you, then too bad.
 
Corporations are already treated as individuals anyway, for legal purposes. Why shouldn't the general public treat them that way?
 
kingofsp said:
Corporations are already treated as individuals anyway, for legal purposes. Why shouldn't the general public treat them that way?
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Mindfuck. It would be as if you're treating one person with multiple personalities, as, one person... its just.. complex and annoying to lump it all into one, when its clearly not.

But hey, I'm all for holding people liable instead of hiding behind a corporation when they commit fraud or do anything illegal too. Unfortunately... one very very very big miracle at a time in this country my friend.
 
Gambit said:
While Chick-fil-A is getting bashed by the liberal media, it is also creating a group of loyal hardcore supporters. Its Christian Conservative base will obviously grow stronger for the stance they are taking.
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Nothing forms a stronger bond than those war stories about taking that stand that also conveniently spared you the tough decision of what to eat for dinner. One could almost envy the confidence that must have been seeded into those brave individuals on that day. If you can wait in a line for a chicken sandwich AND survive the ambush from that pickle, you can do anything. Didn't see anybody waiting in line to stand in front of a tank.
 
Whether or not you like Gary V, he's effective as shit at what he does. I admire his enthusiasm and persuasiveness.

It's hard for anyone here to use themselves as a personal anecdote. If you're on Wickedfire, you're more logical than the general public and are a much tougher sell than say a 35-45 year old mother.

But the truth is... most sales are made by emotion, and justified with logic.

If you look at any of the most successful marketers out there, engaging with someone emotionally basically lets you dictate the price. It's a much better strategy than the race to the bottom for the lowest priced product.

So as cynical as we want to be here about fools waiting in line for a Chicken sandwich the other day, this was effective. Now many of those people will subconsciously (or purposefully) be chosing Chick-fil-A over KFC in the future.
 
pinchyfingers said:
I've listened to a lot of Vaynerchuk's stuff; his enthusiasm for personal branding has never sat well with me. In Gary's world, every person is a brand, and your brand is your most valuable asset. He's an intelligent and entertaining guy, but I can't get with his philosophy. Making yourself into a brand is shameless and undignified, like relationship marketing — leveraging your relationships to make sales. By lending humanity to your brand, you are dehumanizing yourself in a major way.

The other angle on this is what the OP pointed out about Chick-Fil-A — building brand loyalty by relating to consumers on an emotional level. Clearly, Apple has profited tremendously from this. Personally, I'm against this crap. What kind of fag feels moved to evangelize for a consumer product. Really? To me that indicates a weak self-image and poor sense of self-worth. I guess it's nice to benefit from the emotional connection you make with your customers. Given the choice, I'd rather build loyalty by offering consistent value and relating to my customers through my actual product, rather than connecting on off-topic shit. For instance, there are some musicians that I love, but I'm not a fan... as soon as their stuff starts to suck, I'm out.

I think of Seth Godin's stuff about permission based marketing, and I wonder if any of this stuff is actually new or actually matters. Like, are consumer's really blind to "interruption marketing", or does it work as well as ever? Permission marketing just means that consumers give you their attention because their interested. Isn't this how it's always worked? It's not like Ogilvy was shoving advertisements down people's throats, people can always just turn the page.

tl;dr Humanizing brands dehumanizes humans. Fanboys are fags. None of this is new, go read Caples.
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Wow, that is a pretty elitist point of view imo, to attach a blanket moral argument to personal branding. Same for the idea of connecting with people on an emotional level and then calling those people weak. Obviously this stuff can be manipulative, but it's not de facto evil either.

Same for leveraging your relationships to "make sales" - last time I checked the world is populated by humans. No man is an island. We get where we are through the friends we make and the people we meet. Again, there is a definite gray area here. I don't con my friends into signing up for an acai rebill, but I'm not above asking them for a favor either. And I'd be happy to do the same for them.

If you have a conscience all of this stuff can be done without ethical compromise. Can you really say you built your fortune entirely by yourself or where there some friends, family, business relations you met along the way that helped make it happen?

Maybe you were born rich or something, the entire post strikes me as incredibly out of touch.
 
"customers are looking for ways to connect with their brands on a deeper level"

No, they are not. Most customers are polygamous and don't care one way or the other. And brand loyalty doesn't change very much between brands, the only decades constant variable that impacts brand loyalty to a degree is brand size.

Social media can be good (if done right) to publicize an unknown brand to a recognizable brand through social proof, but that is it.

Now, adding a meaningful WHY to the base of your marketing and product development that is another story and a much more profitable one in terms of early adopter conversions. But sooner or later if you succeed in the early adopter faze, you need to focus on size not loyalty. Watch what people do, not what they say...
 
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