Emotion is Everything for Lifestyle and Tech Brands
You’ve heard us muse on how the retail landscape and marketing challenges are changing as lifestyle and technology blend and evolve. We’ve also talked about how emotion is the way your brand can make its mark and truly connect with your target audience.
But why is creating an emotional connection so important? A few reasons:
- Products nowadays are more iterative than truly disruptive.
- Consumers are flooded with more choices than ever before.
- There is no clear-cut, linear path to purchase anymore.
Whether you’re dealing with wearables or cellphones or clothing, we know these three shifts in the marketplace are shaping the world in which people are shopping today. Producing a great product isn’t enough. You must make a great product and be able to communicate and connect with people in a way that sets your brand apart.
At the end of the day, you’re still a human being selling to another human.
Think about the first iPhone or first wearable or first IoT thermostat. Now think of the new versions that have come out over the past, say, two years. That’s the disruption versus iterative comparison. Groundbreaking product launches don’t happen as often as incremental shifts in speed, power, or efficiency.
With that in mind, most consumers (except for early adopters) can play the wait-and-see game because, thanks to predictable product launch cycles and “leaks” about products weeks before their launch, they know those incremental improvements are coming.
As those consumers wait, they see the abundant number of choices they have for the same kind of product. Today’s market, from shoes to cellphones to smartwatches, is flooded with choices, most at nearly the same price points.
It’s a market that relies on an emotional connection to hook new consumers. It’s the story they tell about how that product can make the customer feel good and enhance his or her life that can push one brand over another.
Want to hear more about humanizing, simplifying, and empowering your brand to create stronger consumer connections? Check out our white paper, “How to Make Tech Marketing Human Again,” which you can download here.