This post was inspired by an article by Hubertus von Lobenstein about “love” being THE thing in marketing these days.

Here is how he approached the topic:

So love is the new thing, right? You don´t love your audience? You are doomed. Your brand doesn´t produce enough reasons for your audience to love it? Your brand is doomed. The agency doesn´t produce enough lovable content to be aired in various love channels? The agency is doomed. At least that´s the impression I start to get reading some recent blog posts.To achieve this kind of relationship between a brand and its audience those apostles of love don´t ask the brand community to adjust. No, they are preaching the coming of a revolution. Our learnings, our experience, our tools? All useless when it comes to create the future love relationships. It is a brand new brand world out there that needs to be conquered with brand new thinking and brand new methods. And love is not everything, it seems to be the only thing that can deliver.

Just like not every brand is suitable for Social Media Marketing, creating a very emotional “love” campaign will not guarantee higher brand awareness, loyalty or sales. You cannot make every brand lovable. But you can easily create a dangerous love bubble. Drawing parallels to human beings and their coping with the love phenomenon is quite helpful in this context. Often there is a huge difference between desire or lust and real love. Statistics show that we do not marry the hottest chick around but the attractive woman who seems to understand us blindly, who fascinates us and with a single smile can dsitract us from a really shitty day.

Many commercials suggest we have to desire that new phone, fragrance or car. But to really love it you have to know it, be familiar with it. Just as human love often needs time to grow, the same goes for brands. Love here can be initiated by desire just like when we find a person very attractive. This would also apply for an iPhone. But to love it, it has to convince me or satisfy my expectations. And here lies the danger. If we are told to love a brand but are disappointed by its qualities we easily get angry. I do not love McDonalds but I appreciate the constant quality and product range along with the often speedy service.
However if I have to wait long until being served I easily get annoyed. I find BMWs highly attractive but I would not say I love them because for that a car would have to proof its qualities in the long run.
What I love? My Samsonite trolley for being so fast, my Nokia for being so reliable and shopping at DM. Why? Because they meet my expectations over and over again. And they take great care that this remains so.

Thus, you can center a campaign around how lovable your brand is, but do make sure that this is not just a lovely bubble you create but that all the expectations you create can be met or even surpassed.
Love is not only a “burning flame” but also a dangerous word whose usage should be well considered.