Truelove or gig brands? how advertising tugs at the heartstrings

It's good fun to pass on your knowledge (including the hard realities of life in your field, of course), and it also represents a good opportunity for me to keep in touch with and check out the university students, who are the main target for many of the brands I handle. The class was about sharing my experience of our "Human love relationship" technique and the projects I have launched using this.

Fundamental to the technique is to go beyond and understand the brand deeply, and from there try to build a love relationship between the brand and the consumers to make them trust in and love to buy that brand. Of course it's not every account that can be a success in this way, no matter the size of the budg¬et, but my job now more and more is not just doing a communication campaign for the brand but going that extra distance: it's what I do, and what I love doing, though it's more challenging every day.

In order to build this kind of special relationship, the first and most important step is getting a clear insight into the nature of the brand and its relationship to the consumer. This insight then drives the creation of the right language with which we can address our audience and is at the heart of expressing the brand mes¬sage in different channels. These are selected with great care to understand which media are going to be most effective, and while it's clear from all research that in Thailand the main advertising medium is still very much TV, the new digital age is coming fast. For the upcoming gen¬eration the selection, pacing and fre¬quency of different approaches will all be critical in engaging with them.

From chatting with the students, I feel their lives contain many diverse strands, and they all multitask extensively, spending less time watching television and often watching while they are on line or doing other things, just concentrating on the TV if something catches their attention. If a message that has no relevance to them is shown frequently, it tends to be positively annoying.

Advertising on digital media has not been completely satisfactory for me so far in getting through to this generation, but a multifaceted approach covering both traditional channels and new media will surely become the norm in future, and we are preparing strategies to adapt to this change.

Another message I received from the students about love and relationships is that at this stage around 80 per cent of them are fine with the idea of having a "gig", and this is quite fashionable and acceptable. Mostly they are interested in longterm love as well, but at some time in the future, and it's good fun to have a "gig". I feel this translates across into their brand love behaviour as well: they like to try something new and show support for a brand that was a leader but then can drop away quite quickly if its relevance to them is not maintained. This represents a good opportunity for any brand. If you are a leader don't underestimate your close competi¬tors: if one of them can find the right message at the right time their growth can be contagious.

No, it's not easy, and no one has the formula for success, but many brands have risen very quickly, and you only have to ask yourself why this brand can fulfil me and make me feel I can't live without it, even if a competitor's has the same physical benefits. (By the way, please feel free to tell me about your brand/love relationships by email to anne@nudecommunication.com, and I welcome these for my project on human impulse in action). But then I'm more like one of the students and like to move my loyalties around, not staying specific to any brand. Just for the record though, I don't keep a "gig".