The Psychology of Brand Advocacy
A genuine brand delivers superior value for consumers at every stage of the customer life-cycle; from the time they first become aware of the brand, through purchase and post purchase, until ideally they become advocates for the brand and enthusiastically recommend it to others. If energetic advocacy represents the highest degree of brand perception, marketers would do well to understand what motivates people to identify with brands on a deep, emotional level.
Not all marketers have a formal background in psychology, but we all have to be keen students of human nature and possess a continuous and intense curiosity about people and what drives their decisions and behavior. Marketers often reference Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a well-known theory that explores the origins of human motivation. The theory outlines 5 levels of psychological needs of every human, from the most basic to the most evolved. These ideas are often summarized in a pyramid diagram with the bare essential human need occupying the bottom of the pyramid and the most-sophisticated at the top.
Examining this model, it’s interesting to consider how various brands may occupy different points on this scale and how consumers’ motivation to recommend brands increases as they move up the pyramid. Let’s explore this a little.
Physiological
At the most basic level, people need their physiological needs met; things like air, food and water. In marketing, products and services that could be categorized this way serve pure functional needs and don’t carry with them strong brand affiliations. An example may be generic medicines with scientific names that people can’t pronounce, let alone remember. Another example may be non-brand packaged meat. It gets the job done but no one will be talking about it at your next cocktail party.
Safety
After basic physiological needs are met, Mazlow contends that the next most important thing to people is the need to feel safe. This can mean all sorts of things to different people; shelter, a stable job, health insurance, a dependable partner, etc. In marketing terms, people motivated by this need choose products that help them feel protected somehow. Perhaps it’s a status quo choice, going along with the crowd based on the perception that there is safety in numbers. Any product that aggressively promotes the fact that it is the best seller in its category in effect is capitalizing on people’s need to feel safe by doing what everybody else is doing. Another example would be to choose a brand like Campbell’s soup because that’s what your mother gave you when you were sick as a child and it makes you feel cared for and protected. Clearly there are better brands of canned soups that have more interesting recipes, taste better and are better for you, but that wouldn’t likely enter the mind of a safety seeker at the point of purchase. People choosing brands to satisfy their need to feel safe generally aren’t motivated to share that fact with other people. Either the product is so mainstream that there isn’t much point in talking about it, or as is the case with some comfort foods like Campbell’s, the consumer will consider it “their little thing” and don’t expect others to have the exact same need as theirs, so they tend to be somewhat private about it.
Belonging
The next level in Mazlow’s Hierachy is the need for love and social acceptance. This need manifests itself in family and friendship connections, or any number of other affiliations with social groups from church to sports teams to clubs to street gangs. This need influences consumers’ buying decision when they are viscerally attracted to brands that connect them to a group of like-minded individuals. REI comes to mind as an example of a strong brand with a passionate and exciting lifestyle attached to it. Covering just about every aspect of outdoor activities, the brand has become a bastion of recreation, excitement and adventure. Outdoor enthusiasts identify with the brand because they feel connected to a larger community of people that share their “seize the day” attitude and love for outdoor activities, many of which are done in groups. At this level, talking about the brand favorably with others becomes more likely, as people become connected though common interests.
Esteem
After the need for belonging comes the need for respect from others and self-esteem. People work hard in their professions or hobbies to gain recognition and status among their peers and increase their sense of self-worth. Of course their material possessions can serve as status symbols. While many people justify purchasing luxury brands because they are of higher quality, often the motivating factor is the need to get respect from others. Expensive automobiles fulfill this need quite well because of their high exposure to other people. At this level, consumers will go out of their way to brag about the brands they love or own. They have a need to convince others that their preference is the best because they’ve attached the brand in some way to their self-concept. To question the brand is to question the consumer’s self-worth, so the consumer will argue for it to extreme ends. However this level of pre-occupation with material things can quickly cause a person’s psyche to become unbalanced, which is generally transparent to others. When a consumer’s advocacy for a brand obviously stems from an inner battle they are having to stave off feelings of inferiority, the advocate’s credibility will be called into question and their recommendation won’t carry as much weight with others.
Self-Actualization
Once a person has acquired a stable self-concept, the next stage in their needs is to connect with the greater good. Their motivations tend to center more around posterity, creating, and acting morally. The self-actualized individual is often contemplative and comfortable with some solitude as it gives them space to think, create, innovate and solve problems. A good portion of their energy is devoted to benefitting something bigger than themselves such as volunteering in a developing country, inventing a product that helps under privileged people, or making decisions that have a positive impact on the health of our planet. At this level, a person is more likely to choose products with purpose and perhaps be willing to pay a little more, knowing that their contribution is making a difference. Method cleaning products or Tom’s shoes are good examples of well-managed brands that have a strong environmental and social mission attached to them that promote the greater good. Self-actualized consumers advocating brands generally have the most influence on others because their motivations aren’t so selfish. Their genuine desire to help others comes through in their recommendation with conviction and confidence.
There is much talk these days around the impact of word-of-mouth marketing and the power of social media channels to get people talking about, and hopefully recommending your brand over the competition. In assessing a brand’s potential to be promoted by its fans, marketers should first consider what position their brand occupies in the hierarchy of human needs. Doing so may even spark ideas to enhance the business model in ways that could help move the brand up in the scale and increase the potential for the highest level of connection with people. Semi-consciously, many brands are already doing this by introducing green aspects to their offering, such as Clorox® adding the Greenworks™ product line. (Which is an interesting example, because at one level the brand could be placed in the “Safety” category - it’s an old trusted brand so it must work. On another level, the environmentally safe characteristics of the product fit into the “self-actualized” category.)
At the very least, examining Mazlow’s Hierarchy can help marketers know their brand better and understand what really motivates people to purchase it. Getting real about what your brand is, who buys it and why it can help set realistic expectations around how much potential there is for consumers to promote your brand for you and thus, what kind of investment is worthwhile in word-of-mouth channels. Know thyself, be thyself, aspire to greatness.
