Two Powerful Branding Principles from Social Psychology

If we strip away all the jargon, branding in the modern age is not mysterious. It's simply a study in social psychology, or "the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others," according to The Handbook of Social Psychology.*

There are two practical branding principles in social psychology that can make your branding more effective:

1. The power of context and the perceived value it creates
2. The power of a meaningful community experience

THE POWER OF CONTEXT: HELP THEM SEE YOUR VALUE

In a recent article, Julia Melymbrose of MarketingProfs examined the details of an experiment that the Grammy-winning violinist Joshua Bell conducted in the subway station in Washington D.C. during morning rush hour, as hordes of Washington worker bees filed through the doors of the metro. Bell dressed in casual clothing (black t-shirt and baseball cap) and stood by a trashcan as he played some of the most masterful pieces of music ever written in history.

He was all but ignored.

Despite being one of the finest musicians in the world, playing one of the most famous violins in the world (it was made in 1710 and valued at $3.5 million), and performing musical masterpieces, very few people saw the value.

What did they see? They saw a random guy dressed in a t-shirt and hat playing next to a trashcan. There was not enough perceived value to make them stop their urgent morning commute routine to enjoy music.

Some time later, he repeated the experiment, but this time he dressed in more formal clothing and brought a group of well-dressed younger musicians to accompany him–as if they were a highly talented and refined traveling classical group on an educational tour. This time, they didn't stand next to a trashcan. They stood in a nicer looking central area of the station's main hub. Far more people stopped to listen and applaud. The difference was dramatic.

The lesson here? Don't just assume that people can see the value of your product or service. Make them see it. Present your brand in a context–whether it is a beautifully designed website or a publicity event–that screams, "THIS IS VALUABLE!"

THE POWER OF A MEANINGFUL COMMUNITY EXPERIENCE

The top-down approach to branding is dying. Effective branding now comes from a grassroots bottom-up direction. Marketers and consumers co-create the brand. The sequence is easy to follow: companies give consumers a meaningful experience with their brand, something that genuinely excites the consumer and makes them passionate about you, and those customers become the messengers for your brand.

This also means that what they say and do will actually shape the look and feel of your brand, whether you like it or not.

In other words, we are no longer in the driver's seat–at least not like we used to be. Once we give our brand and our product to the world, the architecture of social media hands the power over to the consumer to then shape your brand, promote it, or demote it.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Give your potential clients high quality interactions with your brand that are:

• Memorable
• Enjoyable
• Meaningful

If you can incorporate memorable, enjoyable, and meaningful interactions, you will find your customers shaping your brand in a good way.

Nike does this in a very simple way. They're also good at doing this offline, and away from the internet. That's right, sometimes the best ideas are enacted in the real world away from screens.

Nike employees drive Nike trucks–i.e., Nike stores on wheels–on the soccer fields so that kids and parents can do their shoe shopping right there with soccer balls whizzing around their heads and the smell of fresh-cut grass still in their nose. It's a memorable experience for everyone. It's also very convenient for the parents, since the store comes to them. The Nike employees make it fun. All of it adds up to a meaningful interaction with a brand in a memorable community context.

Patrick Hanlon of Forbes wrote about Nike's brilliant idea, and then made the following observation about this principle of branding:

Once-stable companies that, for decades, indexed high in consumer preference and esteem are now tumbling through the gap. Kraft, Sears, McDonalds and a growing list of others are suffering from the plenitude of smaller, nimbler choices—topped off by the fact that brand managers still employ a top-down approach to branding: the mistaken belief that what we orchestrate, consumers will sing.

In other words, we are no longer dictating our brand to consumers. We are conspiring with them in meaningful community experiences to co-shape the brand.

The consumer is no longer "them." The consumer must now be "us."

*Allport, G. W (1985). "The historical background of social psychology". In Lindzey, G; Aronson, E. The Handbook of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill.p.5