Ethical brands and brand compulsion

I worked on media for a large multinational beverage company in the mid-Nineties and was exposed to their brand manual. There were ideas in that file that came as a shock, for instance, “Can we find an opportunity to sell at breakfast?”

It went against the grain. The obvious thing was that the beverage was / is not very healthy and should be consumed in moderation. Yet consumption followed the pattern espoused by media presence. Advertising (or salience) though is not enough to enforce the compulsion, and it requires complicity on the part of the consumer as well to achieve those sales.

The functional aspect of the product abetted those sales with a mildly addictive formulation, but the product was easily substitutable. So, I have been mulling the idea ever since.

What is it that causes the consumer to repetitively and slavishly choose the brand, year-in, year-out to the exclusion of all other choices? If you enjoy chocolate cake, would you choose to eat it three times every day of the year? That’s what classical brand management wants.

Functional aspects aside, the obvious source of the compulsion is psychological, to create a brand which satisfies needs on a psychological and psycho-social level. This can easily be achieved (given budget and time) using elements of Kevin Lane Keller’s customer-based brand equity, CBBE.

The first CBBE aspect to use would be the impact on sense of self. Does the brand empower the consumer in their own estimation? Does it feed into a sense of self-worth? And does it provide rapid gratification? The second CBBE aspect is the psycho-social aspect of belonging, tribalism. Does the brand create a social fit? Once these aspects are satisfied the brand is able to resonate with the consumer and command loyalty.

It then becomes a function of salience and the persistence of budget. For more on this, Google Daniel Kahneman’s heuristic bias elements of concentration, concision and confirmation.

The question is what is ethical? The purpose, be it brand purpose or apex corporate philosophy, must be sustainable. Counterintuitively, the brand must limit itself. For an example of this in practice, consider the way that alcohol attempts to limit consumption by age or to prevent DUI.

One of the answers is to respect the consideration set, not abuse the power to dominate the ecosystem entirely and become an apex consumer in the attention economy. Quick reads in the fields of eco-biology and economics will show that dominance in the ecosystem becomes threatening at the apex where the resources are limited. That dominance also leads to intense competition as smaller entities and new entrants seek market share or challenge in an emerging niche. The competition comes at the price of budget and capacity.

A further answer lies in respecting the consumer. Sometimes consumers are vulnerable when it comes to psychological and psychosocial needs. Although the temptation and ability to excel commercially is easy enough, it may need to be tempered with a degree of empathy for the consumer.

A third answer lies in understanding the consumer’s need. By way of example, a consumer who does not own a cat does not need to be dazzled by a cat food ad, though this may also be a byproduct of targeted salience.

Is the brand really driven more by its psychological and tribal aspects than its functionality?

In short, the message of this piece is that loyalty needs to be tempered with reason. There is a point at which the brand becomes unhealthy for its market and too much becomes too much?