Lessons on how to connect with your consumer when they are most passionate about your brand.

By Luke Sklar and Amber Hudson

Our posts have often been called provocative, spirited and at times aggressive (mission accomplished!). This week Luke and I are going to assume the lotus position, take 3 deep breaths and practice the new trend in psychology:  mindfulness.    If you look it up you will see a lot of mentions of “meditation” and “the path to enlightenment.”  That’s too take-a-vow-of-silence-in-an-ashram for me so let’s call it “living in the moment.”  If you think about it, life is a series of moments.  There are the biggies:  graduation, wedding, 1st child, 1st home, new job and so on.  But there are also the smaller moments in life that we tend to miss because we’re over-scheduled, strapped to some communication device, in a rush to get somewhere.   Let’s all stop and think about these moments:

  • The first sip of coffee in the morning
  • Cracking open a beer and taking that first sip after work
  • Sinking into your favourite chair and starting a brand new book
  • The moment the entire family sits down together at the dinner table on a Tuesday night
  • Your new couch arrives and it looks gorgeous
  • Driving your new car off the lot

There’s a theme here:  there’s a passion point at each of these moments, where it just does NOT get any better than this.  Every day is made up of these little passion points.  At the risk of not being very Buddhist about it, there are marketing lessons here because each brand has a passion point.  Disney is the master of this.  Look at Heinz baby food:  1st spoonful of solid food; Oreo:  the first milk-dunk; Mastermind: the look on your kid’s face when you buy him that coveted toy.  You’ve just got to know what that point is; the point where your consumer feels most passionate about your brand.  Then build programs that reach them at this exact moment.  Hitting the moment of when their high emotions intersect with your communication is the Holy Grail folks.  You’re not going to change anyone’s life.  But by knowing these passion points you can certainly elevate them.