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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Building Relationships with Ads

It's become common place these days for us to emphasize new media and interactivity in brand strategies - the implication being that to engage consumers, a brand must embrace engaging communication tactics.

Brands seek to do more than make a promise for functional competence in meeting customer needs. They want relationships and the loyalty and fondness that are outcomes of such relationships. Relationships develop over shared experiences. For this reason, branding today has taken on an experiential flavor - with the goal that the experiences created by the brand can serve to strengthen the brand-consumer relationship.

But traditional advertising can still leverage experiences, by reminding consumers of the past or helping them dream of the future.

Two ads launched recently - Macy's and Chevy Traverse - successfully nurture relationships.

The Macy's ad reminds consumers of a shared history. It resonates fond memories filled with emotion. In a few seconds, it does what a Thanksgiving dinner with family can do for socializing new family members into the family's collective history and reinforcing family bonds.


The Chevy Traverse ad incites a dream. Brands build relationships best when they can illustrate legitimacy in understanding its target market. Many do okay, using symbols from our respective sub cultures to express a belonging to the group in question. Some simply fail - because they don't quite get it, or can't find the right mix of symbols and signs to relay belonging.


Clearly, Chevy is targeting me with this one, and Chevy SO gets it. Not just shoes - because lots of brands have teased women about shoe fetishes - everything in this ad works - the music (especially the music), the dream of raining shoes, the look of the guy watching as the event unfolds.

Both ads connect - one with the past (memories), one with the future (dreams come true).

Traditional ads can facilitate shared experiences.

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