How to Build a Brand that People Love

Welcome to you. And yep. Again, this is the day that you are going to be absolutely expanding your horizons. And yes, right now if you're listening to this, we are in the month of love. But today we're gonna go deeper into brand love and how this can actually not only psychologically, but in a biological way and in shaping how your business is going to attract loyal, loving customers and create raving fans allowing you to increase your revenue. So today, I am so excited to introduce you to a gentleman named Dr. Aaron Ahuvia. He is a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan Dearborn and the world's leading academic expert on brand love. He has been ranked in the top 2% of all scientists and ranked 22 in the world for research impact in consumer behavior. So if you don't think you're gonna get some major nuggets today, whole, just wait. He has been featured in major media, including time New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, he's been on The Oprah Winfrey Show. This is just to name a few. But he is also the author of a book that just came out the things we love, how our passions connect us and make us who we are, which already on Amazon has been named one of the top best 2022 books.

You're listening to the ReLaunch podcast and I'm your host, Hilary DeCesare best selling author, speaker and transformational coach widely recognized in the worlds of neuro psychology and business launches, which cultivated the one and only three HQ method helping midlife women. Yep, that's me to rebuild a life of purpose, possibility and inspiring business ventures. Each week, we'll be diving into the stories that brought upon the most inspirational relaunches while sharing the methods and the secrets that they learned along the way, so that you too, can have not just an ordinary relaunch, but an extraordinary relaunch.

Dr. Aaron, so good to have you here. And I'm so excited about our conversation today.

Hillary, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Ah, so fun. So, when people are listening to this, and they are trying to figure out like, you know, brand love and what does this all mean? And then how do you get brand love? And do we love? Are we in a society right now, where so many people are pushing love, love, love, love, love, love, love? And I have to say there is confusion about is it? You know, innate love, is it? Is it a love of a person? Are you in love with the brand? Let's start with what caused you to even begin to want to get into writing a book about this topic.

It was started a while ago, I've been working on this topic for a long time. I actually started when I was a PhD student. I was at Northwestern Kellogg, Graduate School of Business in the Ph. D program in marketing. And there's a professor there that some of your listeners may have heard of him, because he wrote a bunch of textbooks. He's kind of super famous in marketing circles, Philip Kotler, and I was taking his class. And he was all about oh, everything is marketing. You know, politics is marketing. Even dating is marketing, because you're like marketing yourself to the other person. I was single at the time. And I just thought dating was so much more interesting than real marketing that I asked him, I could do like termpaper on that. And not only did he say yes, but he connected me with a professor Maura Edelman who had a bunch of research on dating services. And this was in the late 1980s and dating services were just getting going in America, the internet was just about to become a real thing. We went on to write five big papers of our dating services and became like the big experts on dating services. Just super fun. And in order to do that research, I I needed to understand the psychology of love and dating and attraction. So I spent years really studying the psychology of love. And eventually though, I knew that if I stuck with dating services, and I wanted to get a job at a business school, you know, being the dating services professor just was not going to get me a job at a top business school. So I thought, what else can I do?

This is so funny. i Yes, I could totally see how that could happen. You're like, really? This is your background?

Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and where have you published? So you've been on The Oprah Winfrey Show. But you know, where your journal publications, you know, on marketing was not going to go well. So I realized, well, people say, you know, I love this product. I love your car, I just bought this new dress, I love this dress, whatever it is. They'll say that all the time. And here, I knew a lot about the psychology of love. What if I applied that to this other situation where people talk about loving products and brands. And that's really how it started. And I guess your book is called relaunch. That could be considered one of my real launches, you know, from dating services expert, to more convention, I think quite a few. But,

Dr. Aaron, I have a funny story, too, because I have always been a business woman. I decided I wanted to, I wanted to become a certified matchmaker. I was fascinated. I've been fascinated with love since I was little. And so I did that I became certified with the New York matchmaking Institute. And then all of a sudden my credentials, someone put that as like, and she's a matchmaker, and then oh, but by the way, she's also in business. You know, I'm a business coach and executive coach. And I'm like, Okay, wait a second, same thing. You got it. People are like, wait, wait, wait, what? What are you doing? So I can appreciate that and what a relaunch for you as you're going through this. And, and I want to ask you, though, there are you know, there's this, this idea where people get up on stages, the Guru's the, you know, the people that are so well known, and they're, you know, love this, love your life. Love your business, love your product, love, love, love. And there's, for many people, it's confusing, because it starts to be like, Well, wait a second, sometimes we're not so much in love. We're not even in like, we're just kind of getting by. And so how, what, what research? Did you come up with that? Around people love, brand love all these different types of love? How do we truly differentiate that.

So if you want to differentiate, differentiate our love of people from our love products, or objects or brands, that's a really good place to start. So there's a lot of times when people say, I love this, like, Oh, I love your haircut, they can love your haircut, right? They're just using the word love as a generic compliment. All they mean is, that's a really good haircut. And that's one of the ways that people use the word love. And actually, there's a lesson in that. And the lesson is that quality is very important. It's not the only thing that's important. But it's one very important part, because people wouldn't use love to mean high quality, if there wasn't a real connection between those two things. So yeah, so it's super

interesting, because I sitting here, like thinking about what I say, and I do say, Oh, I love that restaurant. Oh, I love that I love you know, Oh, I love your shirt. Oh, you're right we do we interchangeably like constantly use the word love. And I'm trying to think like, how do I'd find it? Like, Am I really in love? Although that that Mexican restaurant that I really do love, I might be.

Exactly. And so some of those a lot of those things, you're gonna say, No, I don't really love that thing I just use, it's just a way of saying it's really good. I really think it's excellent. But there are a few things that rise above that. And those things have another quality to them, which is they are emotionally important to you. They feel deep, you have a deep connection. They're about more than just a nice looking haircut. There's something about them that touches you at this deeper level. And people do love things that aren't people and they love them at that deeper level. And when I talk about love, that's really what I'm talking about because as a marketer, that's where you want to go. That's where the action is. If you want people to really recommend you to other people. If you want people will go on the internet and sing your praises or defend you against critics. That kind of thing. havior comes from this deeper, more sincere kind of law.

Well, it's interesting what you just said, because we always hear, you know, features, benefits, sell them on that. But we also understand that people buy emotionally, not logically, the first thing that you need to be really accessing is that emotional connection. But how do you do that? How do you even begin that process?

Let me say at the beginning, because what you what you said is people buy on features and benefits, you need to focus on that. But there's also this emotional aspect to it. And that's 100% correct what you said there, but one of the first things you need to decide is where your focus is going to be. Because there are a lot of products where features and benefits are the way to go. It's not every product that has to have a deep emotional connection. And we, when we look around our life, and you look around all the products you deal with, there are some of them, that you feel you have this deep connection to that a lot of things you buy, you do buy just for the features and benefits. So one of the ways of telling the difference is, is it something that people really are going to pay attention to, that people are going to be connected to, and they're going to feel it's part of their identity. So if your product is something that people use in public, or something that people care a lot about, or had some emotional connection, brand loves are really good way to go. If your product is something that people don't really feel emotional about that much, or that's not very important to them, then sometimes features and benefits is kind of an All right approach,

and give us an example of what you would say is a feature benefit product.

So and I'll tell you, it depends. It depends on the sub area with subcategory within the product. So let's talk about tuna fish. For a lot of people who buy canned tuna fish, you don't, you're not gonna love your tuna fish, you don't care, you want to unofficially make a tuna fish salad sandwich. And that's about it. And that's enough for you. Now, that doesn't mean you don't need some sort of an emotional connection there. A lot of the techniques you'll use to create brand love, you can still use those to create a little emotionality, you can your tuna fish to people's childhood, you know, in their parents making them a tuna fish sandwich, or you can connect it to

gave me the worst image of my mom, when I was young, I made a tuna casserole. Oh, like literally, I had that thing in my mouth I've been right now, it was so bad. Because

not the best for you, that wouldn't be the best approach, right? But some emotional memory can be connected with it. Or it may be it's connected to their feelings about the ocean and their love of the love of the ocean. There's all sorts of ways of doing this that do make some sense. But you're not really going to get people to love the product because they don't care that much. On the other hand,

in your book, you write about Apple.

to Apple, right? People care a lot about that. I recently was talking to a woman who worked in interior design, she helped people with interior design on their homes. Oh my gosh, people care so much about that. And it's so personal to them. And you know, that's a really strong way that love connects. The other way that love can connect, is it's not really about the product so much as it is a connection to a person. So if you're an entrepreneur, and you're selling yourself, you know, you're a big part of this business, on people's interactions with you, then their feelings about you are going to carry over to the brand of the product a lot. And if you can create a strong personal relationship with them, even if the brand or the product isn't something they care that much about, they can actually love the product, just because they feel the sense of connection to you as a person.

So that's a really good point. Because for instance, with the relaunch cow, the you know, the brand is, is the relaunch co but I'm kind of the front person to it. And so when you're when you're suggesting that you have you know this brand love, there has to be the connection to that person. How do you actually do that? How do you make something like that happen where you've got a brand and then you've got a personal brand as well.

It depends a lot on the nature of the business. So if you're say a bigger business, a lot of times they will create a person or an entity. You know, there's Colonel Sanders. For KFC. There's flow for Oh, She's, uh, she's the insurance company.

Oh, sure, we know flow

for Progressive Insurance, I believe, right. So she's like, they're putting a purse out there that she's very likable. And she's warm. And she's got a little bit of a maternal vibe. She's not like the sexy female spokesperson, she's like the warm your friend, trustworthy spokesperson. And so people connect to her at that way. If you're a smaller business with an entrepreneur, then a lot of times it's going to be you and your direct personal interactions with people, and making those relationships work. And that becomes really central. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs know this. But I'm here to tell you based on a lot of research that however important you think those direct personal connections are, they're even more important than you think. You think that you already think they're important. They're more important than that.

Okay, so what what can we do to enhance this, like, I hear the relationships that we have? Are you talking in social media, how important it is to get out there and really connect and show people and be vulnerable? Or what else? You know, what should we be doing there?

Right. So social media can work. But if you actually meet with people face to face, if you meet with people, that's a great way to do things. If you're sending emails, there's a system that man I know who is using it I've used now, and excuse me, I'm blanking on the name. Maybe after the break, I'll be able to run until you come back and give you guys the actual name of this. But what it allows you to do is install like,

that's the suspense we need come on back after because then you'll get the name of this, yes. Okay. Well, you know, intellectual minds want to know, what is that product?

So instead of sending a written email, you send a link to a video and you make a custom video for this person. And you can make this video in like 30 seconds. Is this like a loom?

Or is it like, what is it a bom bom or That's it? It is Bom Bom. Bom Bom. S, it's just a more like, it's that connection. It's, it's being able to say I'm doing this for you.

The first time I became such a fan of this when he did it for me. So he works at bom, bom. And he, I got this email, and it had an all heading it was a photograph and a link, and the photograph was just a screenshot. And it had him holding a piece of paper. And the piece of paper said, Hey, Aaron, click on this link for a message. And so I knew it was handwritten. So I knew this was specifically something he'd made uniquely for me.

It took him all in like 15 seconds to put that all together. It's so early.

It clicked on the link, I heard him talk to me. And I wanted to be his best friend. As soon as he started out talking to me, because he was a human being that I could see who was talking to me, I thought, wow, that is so much more powerful than just sending somebody an email. I'll give you another example. So this is going a little bit above and beyond. But I have some friends who have done me like a good turn of favor. And one of these guys is a businessman who gave me a couple hours of his time. And when I was talking to him on Zoom, I saw that behind him there was a surfboard with all sorts of people signatures all over it. And so I asked him about the surfboard. And he explained that he was into surfing and that when he left a job where he worked for a long time as a going away present, everyone that got him a surfboard and everyone he worked with signed it as it's going away present to him. So I wanted to give him a thank you for spending this time with me. So I had my wife show me how to make a painted sugar cookie. And I made a surfboard painted sugar cookie. And

I was not something that normally like, you know, a guy would say, hey, I really want to learn how to do a sugar cookie. It's in the shape of a surfboard and I want to be able to write things on it. Okay, doctor

gave him a painted from Ghana and it's it's downstairs. When I'm done with this call. I'm going to run to the post office to mail it to him.

So after that, yes, I've wrapped it up. Shoot, I was gonna say I need a picture this okay. All right.

Yeah. So now that's something you do. You can't do that. Like if you're it depends on the nature of your business. If you're a business that has a few customers who spend a lot lot of money with you, then you can think of like how to make them their version of a surfboard painted sugar cookie $1 items to a million different people. Obviously you can't do that you've got to use some other more mass mediated type of approach. But I would encourage you, even if you're a business, that where you're selling, you know, inexpensive items on mass, there are channel partners for you, who you count on, who help you with the distribution who make all of that possible. Sincerely reach out to those people, as human beings don't do anything you don't mean, right. I'm saying I wouldn't send this guy the surfboard if he wasn't a friend. And if I didn't care, and if it didn't, wasn't really coming from my heart and something I genuinely wanted to do. So get yourself in the headspace where you are, you know, feeling good about these people and show it to them and make a personal connection.

Okay, so as we go into, I really want to talk to the idea around when we talked about loving an inanimate object or a tangible object, or like we said, you know, I love Apple products, or I love you know, the restaurant, down the street. Is there a difference between love of a person and love have a brand? Is there an actual difference in our mind? Or is it all one in the same? There

is some similarities? If you look, there are these great experiments, where they take people and put them in fMRI brain scan machines, and have them experience look for a romantic partner, while for a family member like their children and look for a brand and they can see what's going on in their brain. And there are some similarities that make them all real love. This is why I feel confident when I say, yeah, people really do. It's not just I say, I love that, too, as a generic way of saying it's good. But no, there are people really do love certain things. And you can see that in the brain response. But there are also important differences. So let's start with the differences. Two big differences that are kind of connected to each other. One is the level of altruism. So we are more altruistic to people than we are to brands or products. That's very good to know. It should not be otherwise in my opinion.

Yeah, that actually makes sense. Yeah, makes sense.

So you know, you're gonna do more generous things for your kid than you are for that Mexican restaurant that you love. And let's just hope it stays handmade,

or that purse that I love, or shoes that I love you or my car or something. Yes,

yes. However, even though our sort of generosity towards brands or products is a lot lower than our generosity towards people, it is still the case that our generosity towards the products we love is much higher than it is towards them that we just, were just features and benefits, right? We just care about them in that pragmatic way. So people will, if someone if you're a fan of Apple, a real diehard fan, and someone on social media says something bad about Apple, you might take time to report them and say no, that's not true. Here's what's good about Apple. That's generosity, you know, you're a busy person, we're all busy people, you're taking time out of your day to defend this brand. Right. So that's a kind of generosity. And you will get that when people love your brand, but you're not gonna get it as much as when people love other people. The second thing that's related to that is that people are more judgmental about brands and products than they are about people. So when we're dating on that first date, people are pretty judgmental. But if you get into the relationship, and you fall in love with the person, or certainly for your children or other family members, you're you can still be a little judgmental, but you're a lot less judgmental than you are for things like products. So you really need with any type of a product if you want people to love it. Step one is make sure it's a really excellent product. There's no way around that people are going to be judgmental. You cannot get people to love a product that's a mediocre product. It has to have something excellent about it, that people can connect to and can it can take and check that box. Now that's not all you need to do. That's like step one, having something that's exciting and an excellent product is part of it. But that's not the whole story. Love goes deeper than that. There so so those are two differences. is what's the same. And this is I think, at the core of all love. When you love a person or a product or a brand, you are taking your sense of identity, your sense of who you are. And you are opening it up and expanding it you can I sort of have this image in my mind of like, it's sort of like if your identity is this chest around you or a coat around you, like imagine sort of opening up the coat and stretching it and expanding it there, it goes all the way around the other person and closing it up so that now they're inside of your identity, and they become a part of you a part of your sense of who you are. And at a neurological level, that's a very real thing, your brain is doing something really important, that changes the way the brain thinks about that. Once it's become part of your identity, things that are part of your identity, you think about them really differently. And in different ways from other things,

you're kind of, you're much more protective,

evaluate them much more highly, just like you know, you give yourself the benefit of the doubt, you think the things you do are good, when you think the things they do are good. If some if they do something wrong, you make excuses for yourself, if they just if someone does something wrong, who you love, you tend to make excuses for them, too. There's all kinds of subconscious biases that come into play, because this thing is part of your identity. And the people you love become part of your identity. And the objects or brands you love become part of your identity. And that's the core sort of process psychological or neurological process that makes love work. And that's why all these different things are really love because they all share that process.

Okay, so this is so great, and when we are going to have to stop for just a second. But when we come back from our break, we're going to talk more about specifically what you put in your book, the things we love how our passions connect us and make us who we are. And we're gonna get to the reason that Amazon has named you one of the best 20 business books when we come back. This episode is brought to you by my very own labor of love my most recent book relaunch. This book is a collection of my stories, other stories and as a motivational guide to living a new three h q lifestyle, sparking your heart to ignite your life. It's available for purchase via Amazon, get ready to try on the three h q method that I've been using for years, throughout my entire life reaching the next level in all areas, both professionally. And personally. Get your copy today at www dot the relaunch book.com Welcome back to you. And you are here with Dr. Aaron, who via and what an interesting first half of the show as we learn more about brand love. Again, Dr. Aaron is literally the go to scientist, the Go To Professor on brand love. And he has written a book that is now on Amazon's number, Top 20 Top 20 list of the best books that our business related in 2022. And this has all happened in the last six months. So we need to now what is it? What is the message in his books about brand love that can help us all increase the amount of people coming and wanting to be in love with our brand so that they stay so that they fight for us so that they're willing to go into the ring and be there through the ups and downs. And so welcome back, Dr. Aaron and so excited to go into this part of it because you and I both have discussed that you're aware of the three h q my methodology my process for taking things from IQ to EQ and in today's world with the new different three HQ getting out of your head into your heart tapping into your higher self, that energy level that will literally allow you to attract at that higher level. The people that genuinely you want in as you said this, you know almost your sphere, right? You're bringing them into your world and you have such a great way to explain the brand, you know the passions behind Get, can you help us understand, you know how you're how you're positioning this with brand love,

we were just talking about what makes love, love. And that in all, whether you're loving a romantic partner or a family member, or a brand or anything else, love is taking that thing and including that person or that thing in your own self, to become as one. And it's not just this romantic metaphor that people are poets put out there. There's a real neurological psychological reality that's happening in the brain, in terms of how your brain understands who you are, and what the boundaries of yourself are. So that when you love a person or a thing, you're you're including them in yourself. And if you think about it, one of the fascinating things I'm getting off on a slight tangent here, I'll get to the business stuff, but I gotta go off in just a second. Because I think it's so interesting. Science tangent for all y'all. Especially if you're say, a pet lover, or an animal lover. It used to be that, you know, pet lovers have always said, of course, my dog or cat or what have you loves me. And scientists who say, Oh, no, you're just imagining that, right? I'm, I'm a hard scientist, I just go with the facts. And that's, you know, bah, bah, bah. Well, now there's better research. And we know that lots of animals experience love. They usually in biology, they don't call it love when it's an animal, unless it's a pet, they'll say bonding, but it's the same thing. It's the same. I love

it. You're saying this. This is like, just as it makes my heart just warm? Because I know my animals love me. Know, they do love you. And we have a true bond together. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So why though, do so many different animals and not all animals, but many animals? Why are they all capable of love? It's something it's not just sort of specialty people. And what they've discovered is that every single animal that bonds with its children, because not all animals do, I mean, think about a lot of fish, right? They lay the eggs, the male fertilizes the eggs, they're done. There's no bonding. In fact, some

hurdles, right turtles, penguins all these yet. They just horrifying. And then they're on their way.

And then there's times when that you know, when you've got a kid screaming at two in the morning, that that that sounds like a really good parenting plan.

Yes, I remember those days,

that it's not the way we do it. It's not the way either, and a lot of animals do it. So this bonding with the ant with the children is a 100% correlation. Every species where the parents bond with the children, the parents take care of the children, they feed them, they protect them, they raise them, every species with the parents don't bond with the children, the children fend for themselves. And so what's happening here is that this bonding is a psychological mechanism that gets the parents to take care of the children. And the way it does that is that the parents already have you have this instinct that says take care of yourself, feed yourself, protect yourself, keep yourself safe. When your children are a part of your identity, your instinct is feed them, protect them, keep them safe, because you just apply all these things to them as well. So that's why love fundamentally is about making things part of your identity. Now, let's get to the marketing. Now let's get to the market. So what you're going to want then, and this is why earlier I said not every brand needs to strive for brand love. Because some brands people aren't going to really want they don't want to identify with that brand that much, just don't care about it. But if you can get consumers to care about your brand in a way that they come to identify with it and feel it's important, then that makes possible love. And that's what you need to do that goes over and above just having a high quality product. Now, here's where it gets into the spiritual stuff. Because what? Why do people do that? Very frequently, people identify with brands that they are proud of, in some way, they feel a sense of pride around this brand. And that can be because the brand is just so amazingly good. Right? They feel they're proud to identify with that brand. It can be a restaurant where the food is just so astonishingly good that you feel like it says something good about me as a person that I have such good taste that I love this restaurant and I'm proud to become affiliated in my mind and my spirit with this restaurant. But more and more people are wanting to identify with brands, they're proud to identify with the brand. If they feel it's doing something good in the world. If they feel that it's about more than making money,

so an impact. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, and

that needs to be whatever that thing is that people are going to connect with. It doesn't always need to be like saving the world, it needs to be something that fits with the brand is authentic to you is not is authentic to the brand. So Avon, Avon does a lot of stuff around breast cancer, that really works for Avon, because Avon is a woman's brand. And breast cancer is a woman's disease. And so there's a fit there between those things. You could have Chrysler could say, well, avons doing crisis out of business, let's say, let's say Ford, Avon is doing really well with with breast cancer as well as people really are pleased with them for doing that. Let's also make breast cancer, our cars, that would be good for breast cancer research and support that. But it wouldn't work for a company like Ford because there's no special connection, there doesn't make any sense.

And it's not in alignment,

it's not on brand. So you need to find something that is a brand for you and your brand. And it could be you know, if you're a small business, maybe it's the way that you give back to the community at a very local level, on issues that make sense for your business, but are really local to the people in your community. Or maybe it's at a global scale, maybe you're working on some huge global problem. That's, you know, that makes sense for your business and makes sense for your brand. But we want that a lot of people who are business people want to feel that their brand is doing more than just making money, that it's serving the social good in some way, because they spent a lot of time at work. And you want to feel that that time you spend at work is actually doing something worthwhile. And so one of the ways to generate brand love is to have a fantastic product that really delivers for the customer at a practical level and and a good price. And then also something that makes the customer say this is special, this is about more than just making money. And therefore I'm proud to be affiliated with this brand.

I think that the brand that really did a great job with this initially, and I'm sure there were other brands that came out even before but toms and being able to give a pair of shoes every single time. And I do I love what you're saying. Because when you feel like your company is doing good, and you're really aligned with what you're giving, it's that kind of the universal law of circulation, right, what you're putting out there is going to come back, and it usually comes back tenfold, you don't even have to think about it just the more that you can give and have that connection. One thing that we always do with the relaunch CO and our fired program, is that as we're working with entrepreneurs, we asked them, what do they connect with? What brand? Would they you know, what their clients? What would they that be that vision of what brands would they want to connect with? And I think when you start to do this, and you start to put down four or five brands that you're really thinking they would associate with, then you start to associate with those brands as well. And it becomes the ecosystem, right?

Absolutely. So and that's a good way to think about it. And you could also think about your own brand. Like one thing that would be a good approach to it's just a way to start. Is this exercise you just laid out? Like what are these brands that you want to be associated with?

Yeah, are you are you a jeep? Or are you a Range Rover? Are you you know, I mean, this is how I literally do it? Are you you know, the upscale, fine dining? Or are you the takeout I mean, and then start to put a name to it? What brand you know, are you this clothing or that clothing?

And then start thinking, Okay, and what is it about the brands, some of them I get excited about and some just leave me flat? What's going on with them once they get excited about and the first thing you're gonna say is really good. You know, they make like it's a clothing brand, the clothes they make are really, really good. Okay, that's true. But what else? You know, that's step one, what's step two? What is it about that, and usually it's going to be for example, if it's a clothing brand, it's going to be, well, there's a certain kind of person who I think, would wear that brand, and I am that kind of person or I want to be that kind of person. And so that's where it connects to your identity in a certain way. And that's what you want from for your customers. You want to be able to give your customers that same feeling of there's a sort To the type of person who would connect with this brand, and I am that type of person.

So it's almost like looking at your avatar looking at your ideal client. And a lot of times I, you know, I go back and forth because I am like, you know, unfortunately, the relaunch queen, I've had so many different relaunches, fortunately, and unfortunately, right, there's been a lot of really tough ones, but they've impacted me and they've made me who I am. But I've been able to take all of that tribal knowledge and really help people along the way be able to get through some really tough situations, business situations, professional, personal. And a lot of times I sit here and I say, do I do this? Because I like it like these are my brands that I really love, or is it my ideal client? And what I've realized with my own relaunch brand is that it's really bringing those two together. And where sometimes I might, you know, will I go way out on the, you know, on the edge of like adventure, right? If I'm doing like an adventure type of company, what would my clients really want, they may not be as crazy as I am. So I have to kind of pull back a little, but I love the idea. What do you think about bringing not only yourself because you are a reflection of your business, but also your ideal client together, as you're doing this brand exercise,

that's you've got to you've got to be able to do that. The first day of introduction to marketing, I think, what I'm teaching the most basic course, on marketing, on the very first day, I always talk about the difference between the sales orientation, the artistic orientation in the marketing orientation. So the sales orientation is, I've got this product, it's okay, whatever, but I got a really big markup on it. And I'm going to trick somebody into buying it or cajole them into buying it or puts their arm into buying it or whatever it is, right? Get get people to buy this thing that they don't really want. So that's that's one approach, and obviously not a very good approach to business, the marketing orientation, which is much better than that, is, instead of trying to talk people into buying what I make, let me figure out what they want, I'll make that and then I won't have to work so hard at selling it to them, because I've got what they want already, I don't have to change their mind. So that's the core behind marketing. And that has a kind of virtue to it. Because it's very service oriented. It's not about you, it's not about what you want. It's about what the customer wants 100% Learn to make what the customer wants to buy,

learn to make what the customer wants to buy. You know, this also reminds me of the Simon Sinek TEDx talk about know your why it's so important to get to that the y factor first. It's not what you make, it's not how you make It's why you make it. And when you're talking right now, it just really resonated with me what you know what you're saying? But how can people? How can people start with that? How can people you know, what would be that first step you said, you know, that there are three things that you say on the first day in class? what can business owners actively do?

Business owners should start with the customer. So that's always got to be the basis? Who are you selling? To? What are their needs? How do they see the world? What do they want from you, and that has to be the grounding the 80% of what you do. And then you can look inside yourself a little bit and say, What inspires me about what I'm doing? What makes me feel that what I'm doing is more than just, you know, providing a widget for someone to you know, a tool for somebody to use, what makes me me feel that what I'm doing is important, some larger sense, and that how can I make add that to the product a little bit more? How can I enhance my offering? And how can I make that a more real part of the business and what I do so that it's it's focused on the customer and their needs, but it also lets the customer realize that the business is about something more than just selling them the next widget. There's something else going on with the business too, that they can then hopefully identify with and feel good about.

So when you are on stages and you're talking about your book, the things we love our passions connect us and make us who we are. What is the number one piece of information, the content the golden nugget, that silver bullet that you give to audiences that they're just like, wow, that is so good. I needed to hear that. That's why you're, that's why you're one of the best 20 books, business books of 2022. What is that message that people need to hear

that people's connection to products and brands is only superficially about the product and the brand themself. When you have a real passionate connection to a product and the brand, it's always about you, the consumer and your own sense of identity and what you want to be the person you want to be in the world. And it's about your social relationships, it's about the people that the brand or product allows you to connect to. So keep your eyes on the people, the person being the consumer and their own sense of identity and what matters to them, and what they feel proud to associate with, as well as other people in the consumers life, and how your brand can help them have better relationships with those people that will generate the passion.

And so you are known as one of the top scientists in in this idea of brand love what was the most surprising statistics or research that you did bring. And you you didn't you haven't mentioned this yet on this show, but the 10 years that you were developing this book,

I think the thing that surprised me the most and changed my mind the most. When I started doing this, I was of the opinion and many people still are of the opinion that it's very easy and very natural for people to look at Brands the same way they look at people. And that is to almost automatic, then we have the tendency to see people in terms of relationships, we see brands in terms of relationships. What I learned through this research is that that's not really true, the brain has two very different ways of approaching things. We see people in terms of relationships, we don't see rocks and other objects in terms of relationships. And for a lot of brands and a lot of products, people aren't that I want to have a relationship with them, they're not going to feel passionate about them, it's just going to be this practical little thing. But there are some brands, some products, which go above and beyond where the brain of the consumer thinks about that object as if it was a person in some way. And that the magic is if you want to get people to love your brand you have to do you have to get them to take the consumer take that extra special step where they not only think about it as a tool, but they it means enough to them, that they don't have to think literally that it's a person, they're not insane, right. But they may be they connected emotionally with a human being in their life. Or maybe it connects to themselves and their own sense of identity and their sense of spirit and what they're doing in the world. And so it takes on these personal qualities. And that's what leads to love.

That is so I mean, so spot on. And I remember when I was writing my book, it was the whole idea of the concept of Apple when they started to put the smiley face and how that you know, they were trying to connect with the person just trying to you know, hey, I'm here, I'm watching you. I'm actually you know, giving it more of that personal emotional connection, which is super interesting as well, even for the inanimate objects.

Apple's a fabulous example. They are in my research, by far the most loved brand in America, people move far more people love Apple, it's just really stands out. And it's not an accident. Apple studies brand love, they study the psychology of love, they research it. And they very intentionally designed their products and their advertisements to connect with people at this human level, so that they can create this kind of love that they've created.

Totally. Dr. Aaron, unfortunately we are we are quickly running out of time and I want to make sure how can people connect with you?

I have a nice website, the things we love.com I've got a blog with Psychology Today, you can sign up for the blog at the website. So come visit the website. Take a look at the book. See if that interests you. I tried to make it an interesting fun read. It's not a textbook. People tell me it's enjoyable. I hope you find it enjoyable also,

again, that website is the things we love.com it will be in our show notes. This has been so interesting and fascinating and hopefully have given people a lot of unique ideas to go on as you continue to bring your brand forward. And as you realize, even today, the connections of brands that We are claiming that we love going a little deeper just like your love relationships with a person. It's like why? Always asking yourself Why do you love that brand? Why are you saying you love that brand? And what about it triggers that emotional connection for you. So, super interesting Dr. Aaron, and we will definitely have all of this information up on the show notes. And for everyone out there, as you're listening to this as you're thinking about your own personal relaunches. As you're relaunching new brands into the world, we talk about that heart. And now's the time to really connect with that. So as I always say, live now, love now, relaunch now and we will see you next week. Take care of everyone and have a wonderful afternoon