Consumers’ emotional connectivity key to brand’s value

To attain brand euphoria and guarantee great value, organisations must redefine their solutions and strategies to connect more emotionally and personally with their customers and clients. This was the submission of brand experts and strategists at a press conference to announce the Emotional Brand Master Class workshops tagged ‘The Power of Emotions: Using Positive Emotions to Build your Brand’ billed for February 27 at the Civic Centre, Lagos.

The conference, according to the organisers, would showcase four renowned speakers. They are Lanre Olusola, a Life Coach, Charles O’Tudor, a Brand Strategist, star actress, Dakore Akande and former Women in Management, Business and Public services (WIMBIZ) chair, Osayi Allie. Business Strategist, Steve Harris, would moderate the sessions.

Olusola said there would be three emotional master classes this year during which organisations and individuals would be groomed to attain their desired branding goals.

According to him, “This is an event that would ginger, provoke and make you more aware of your environment. After that you will be desirous of wanting to sign us up to begin to work with you as a brand at any level to take you to where we believe you should be. The one-day programme can only do a few things.”

Noting that the focus would be how to channel positive emotions to attain great results in branding, he said, “Fear, resentment, an unforgiving heart are examples of negative emotions. It has been discovered that irritation is at the heart of skin disease. We are going to be revealing all these negative emotions and how they extend and translate into negative emotions and affect people physically, psychologically, and in business.”

He continued, “There are 10 steps to developing brand loyalty. A lot of the brands we see in this environment have only moved from step one to three. There is three to 10. When they come to the emotional brand series, they would learn all of that.

“We see it as a journey from where a company is to where it desires to be. We are looking at brands not just from products’ perspective to a services and solutions end. We have studied international brands and the loyalty they command but when we look back home, there is no one that ticks the boxes.”

For Alile, women need to understand that there is need to separate their brand from organisations, and a lot of them need to deploy positive emotions in building their personal and corporate brands. She stressed that a woman brings a fresh, unique insight in the boardroom.

She noted, “They need to deploy these in making a mark for themselves and humanity. I have had to sit in board meetings where I was the only female. At those times, I had to argue from a strong perspective to be heard. These branding tips are what we hope to impart to people at the master class. It is not just about working in organisation, women need to step up and stand out. We would be exploring ways and ideas through which these can be achieved.”

O’Tudor noted that thought processes in creating brands need to be taken a notch further, as it is not just about selling either for individuals or organisations, but about connecting and maintaining sustained loyalty and patronage.

Stressing that the market place is shifting and that brands need to devise new mechanism to attain brand euphoria, he said that none of the brands in Nigeria has attained brand euphoria because they have not been able to successfully mine the right emotions from their customers.

He said, “In fact, we have no indigenous super brand. Companies that have grown from awareness through to obsession and then euphoria are multinational brands. Nigerian brands need to up their games to remain in business. So, companies and individuals need to understand that much of these can be achieved by connecting emotionally to their customers.

“The days of business to business marketing is over; we are now in a world that requires human interface. People need to experience and feel connected to a brand”.