We’ve all been there. The slow build up. The anticipation. The air of disbelief. As if this is all a dream and can’t believe it is really happening. Despite ourselves, we get caught up in the fever. The St. George Cross displayed proudly everywhere. Pennants and bunting. Sticking out of cars. Festooned on front windows. Tabloid headlines screaming football fever. ‘It’s coming home’ we say. Even the fence sitters get converted, caught up in the impossible hope. This time, it will be different, we promise.
And then comes the big day. The familiar routine. Defeat. Failure. Another missed chance to bring it home. We’ve been here before. That sinking feeling. That familiar feeling of despair. The tears. The broken hearts. De ja vu. English Football falters again on the big stage. The flags remain defiantly for a few more hours and days until we take them down, only to dust them off again for the next big one until it starts all over again.
John Cleese as Brian Stimpson in Clockwise says it best. Its not the despair. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.
Its not the despair. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.
England Football is the heart breaker. The cruel, pitiless lover whom you can’t help but love but who never loves you back. It is one-sided. An unrequited relationship. But try explaining that to its fans who pour money into the brand’s coffers, buying merchandise in the millions. And they continue to love the brand in the hope that someday, their love will be reciprocated.
Fan behaviour towards England Football and its brand is an example of a type of consumer-brand relationship that mirrors the types of relationships that many of us have in our personal lives. All of us manage several types of interpersonal relationships with significant others in our lives – parents, siblings, spouses and partners, children, relatives, childhood friends, work colleagues, exes and numerous other real, imaginary, fictional, and fantasy people. Each of these relationships command different levels of attention and evoke in us varying degrees of love, commitment, trust, passion, and emotion.
Marketing research has long established parallels between these interpersonal human relationships and the types of relationships enjoyed by consumers with assorted brands. Susan Fournier, professor of marketing at Boston University was the first to theorise relationships in the context of consumers and their brands. Drawing sensitive portraits of three different women and the role that brands played as they navigated highs and lows of their lives, Fournier explored consumer-brand relationships as similar to the kinds of human interactions familiar to many and outlined its implications for marketing theory and practice.
Theoretical and practitioner insights allow us to understand the varying roles that brands play in our lives and for marketers to manage these relationships appropriately.
Many of us have brands that form staples of our everyday lives. They bring us comfort, reassurance. They remain quiet, unassuming, steady, and loyal in the background like some loved ones who are a permanent fixture in our lives but whose solidity and steadfastness we take for granted. Our cupboards wouldn’t be the same without Colgate, Oxo, Bovril, Sarson’s, and Dettol but they don’t get our heart racing and we don’t see the need to make major emotional declarations of love to them. Yet we rely on them and they in turn complete our lives.
Nintendo, Barbie, and Build-a-Bear are what childhoods are made of. They symbolise childhood friendships and innocent times. They represent comfort, warmth, familiarity, and happy, carefree, and much-treasured memories, now safely locked away in a box in the attic but never to be discarded or thrown away.
We buy branded kits from Gym Shark, Burton, Arbor, Yeti, Arc’teryx, when hitting the gym or getting out and about snowboarding, mountain biking, surfing, or skiing. They are vital to our outdoor and leisure activities which we compartmentalise in our lives, those special times in our days or years. But they don’t usually touch the rest of our daily humdrum lives. Once used, they are safety stowed away until we need them again, much like compartmentalised friendships who occupy special times and spaces in some parts of our lives but not in all of them.
The first flush of love, the heart pounding excitement of that intense, budding romance or sizzling affair, is what consumers feel when they relate to Nike or Chanel or Apple. Every touch, look, or kiss sends pulses soaring, heart racing, inspiring deep passion for these brands. They make grown adults lightheaded, addicted, obsessed. Makes them feel like they are punching above their weight, as if they cannot believe their fantasies have come true. Luxury brands bring romance into our lives.
Soul mates tug at our heart strings. They complete you in ways that defy logic or rationale. Think of grown men, hardened men, who break down in tears when watching their lifelong love, their boyhood club Liverpool FC or Man U play. Men who will shamelessly cry or embrace total strangers when their club wins or loses. Soul mate brands make one’s soul sing and heart soar. They plunge you into depths of despair or raise you beyond the realms of the possible. They cannot be explained but they just are.
Unrequited love is one sided. One can’t help but love them, but they never love you back. They always disappoint. You hate yourself for loving them the way you do. Always being let down. Always overlooked. But you still hope for the day you will be loved back. Ask any long-suffering fan of Arsenal. Or England Football.
Abusive relationships are one that make you feel trapped. They drain you of dignity. Leave you feeling humiliated. Dehumanised. Worthless. Like you don’t matter. You want to break down and howl in rage, ashamed of your own helplessness that stops you from breaking free. Ever had a seasonal commuter pass on Southern Trains? Ever gritted your teeth when paying your monthly bill to Talk Talk or Vodafone? Or to BT? The consistent winner of Britain’s worst customer service Wooden Spoon award. Ever felt dehumanised watching a desperately sick loved one wait for an appointment with the NHS when billions are poured into it?
Guilty, dirty pleasures are those that are too shameful to admit to. The taboo that dare not speak its name in polite company. Indulging in them makes you feel grubby, tainted, soiled. But boy are they sinful delights! Ask anyone who takes furtive glances at Love Island headlines or squirrels away a trashy tabloid magazine for ‘light reading’ or cheats on a healthy diet by slurping away at the Pot Noodles stashed at the back of the cupboard.
Consumer-brand relationship theories go beyond understanding brand personalities as those possessing human characteristics. They help us humanise brands and explore the relationships we form with them, the role they play in our lives, and how our relationships with them change when life events change us. Relationship theories have done much to expand our knowledge of brand relationships. They allow marketers to explore meaningful ways in which brand relationships can be intensified with consumers.
