Establishing Brand Relevance with the Language of Love
When we connect with stakeholders on an emotional level, we forge strong attachments that drive the behaviors and bottom-line results we all want.
// By Dan Dunlop and Stephanie Gonthier //
Health care organizations currently face a number of significant challenges: recruitment and retention, DEI-related reforms, addressing health inequities in the communities we serve, and winning the confidence of our various constituencies, to name a few.
Our ability to successfully address each of these challenges is hampered by organizational cultures and brand personas that have been built upon archaic language and belief systems grounded in business-speak and thought processes related to warfare.
Language influences the worldview of organizations and employees. American marketing and business-speak evolved from the military’s command-and-control culture, where conflict and hostility are central to the concept of business. The lexicon of war and conflict undermines much of what we hope to achieve in health care.
Instead, what if love and compassion became driving themes within our brand lexicons? How would that impact our brand persona and how our constituents relate to our brands inside and outside of the organization?
In a study commissioned by Market Street, feelings and beliefs associated with brand love proved to be much more effective at predicting whether respondents would invest time and effort to use a brand and whether they would forgive mistakes.
Read on to learn how brand love connects brands and fiercely loyal consumers.