Boring Brands and Borrowed Relevance
Beloved brands have it easier with word of mouth. Why? Brands that are beloved by people get discussed freely and widely. Apple, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Twitter, and many other brands get talked about because there is something intrinsically interesting about them. In other words, beloved brands are far from being boring.
Unfortunately, most brands fall into being “boring” and not beloved.
During a WOMMA Brands Council Webinar yesterday (audio available here), Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research Analyst and author of Groundswell, gave some advice on how boring brands get tap into word of mouth conversations.
Bernoff recommends boring brands encourage people to talk, even if it isn’t about the boring brand itself. Bernoff calls this strategy Borrowed Relevance. By borrowing something relevant to people, like a topic or an issue, and encouraging conversations about that relevant topic, boring brands can become a part of the conversation.
American Express practices “Borrowed Relevance” with their OPEN FORUM blog community. As a brand, there isn’t much remarkable about American Express to spark conversations. However, by bringing together a group of business experts sharing actionable advice in an on-going series of blog posts, American Express effectively taps into the interests and needs of its small business card holders. This is “Borrowed Relevance” at work.
Similar advice is given by Alexandra Samuel. In a Harvard Business article, Alexandra talks about how commonplace brands can use the marketing strategy of “Reflected Glory” to get customers talking. According to Alexandra, Reflected Glory Marketing (RGM) is about finding, “…something your customers do care passionately about - something that reflects thematically and positively on your brand - and invite customers into that conversation.”
She cites Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project as prime examples of RGM.
Alexandra sums up the power of Reflected Glory Marketing by writing …
“When your company digs deep to find the resonant themes that connect you with your customers, you are reconnecting to your most profound strengths, and to the essence of your brand. By surfacing those strengths in the social context of the Internet, you’re able to reinterpret, re-envision and even re-engineer your core value proposition. In partnership with your customers, and using emergent social media platforms, you may find new ways of translating what makes you great into great products, services or value.”
