The Future: Getting Customers to Fall in Love With You
From the foward-thinking folks at Wharton, here’s an interesting chat with Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts. The blue-chip ad man opines that the consumer is now king — which is hardly news, but Roberts manages to wrestle the notion to its logical conclusion. Which is this: businesses must therefore strive to brand themselves with what Roberts calls “Lovemarks”: corporate names so beloved that consumers show loyalty beyond reason. (Hello, Macheads! Greetings, Google Wingnuts!)
How does this translate for small firms? FB thinks there is little translation needed. Everyone knows that everyone likes to do business with human beings. We like to form bonds of trust. We like a good laugh. A company’s emotional health is plain for outsiders to see, though insiders may not notice. Ponder this as you go home tonight, Small Business Owner. Is your receptionist smiling because it’s the weekend, or because of the week she had? How would it affect your bottom line if the answer were different?
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"Future Boy" is the nom de plume of Chris Taylor, award-winning journalist and futurist. Currently the West Coast Editor of Fortune Small Business, he previously served as San Francisco bureau chief of Time magazine, where he wrote the magazine's first stories on tech trends such as Google and the iPod. In 2005 he became "Future Editor" of Business 2.0, where he edited the "What's Next" section, and where the Future Boy column and blog were born. Chris was born in Liverpool, England and was educated at Oxford and Columbia Universities.
