Tag Archives: consumers

Shopping and Interpreting Space

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Environmental sensibilities shape cultural expectations about how every environment we interact with should be properly organized. The physical construct envisioned by the architect, the interior designer, the store owner, etc. are all varied to some degree based on how they understand and respond to vague notions like “shopping.”  Add to that the varied, contextually mitigated understandings of the consumer about an activity and space, and designing the elements that are meant to fit into a space becomes highly contentious.  Frequently, retailers and CPG companies build around assumptions that rarely factor in the complex underpinnings of why people shop in a broader cultural context. The misunderstanding and conflicts that can occur from mismatches in conceptions of context, time and space can create considerable dissonance in civility, understanding and sympathy.  And that leads to lackluster sales.

While there are a host of theories and design doctrines that go into constructing a retail environment, methods for retail space design have largely cantered around atmospherics for the last 30 years. Basically, the model states that pleasant environments result in an approach response,  and unpleasant environments result in avoidance. Simply put, if the environment is pleasant it increases arousal and can lead to a stronger positive consumer response. If the environment is unpleasant, increasing arousal level will produce avoidance. The arousal quality of an environment is dependent on its “information load,” i.e., its degree of  Novelty (unexpected, surprising, new, familiar) and Complexity (number of elements, extent of motion or change).  People seek out novel experiences, but novelty becomes a burden and a threat if there is too much happening for the brain to process. Humans want to explore and be entertained, but not to the point of confusion.

The problem is that while the parameters of avoidance and approach, novelty and complexity, hold true at the cognitive and biological levels, they can’t compensate for cultural motivations. They are simply too simple. A contextual model expands on these principles and asks what cultural and symbolic elements can be built into the space to reflect context and the reasons people are shopping in a venue. Are they there to entertain themselves or their kids?  Are they seeking escape from a busy mall? Are they looking to the retail space as an extension of the brand they are shopping for and/or using as a means of personal expression? The point is that brands and shopping serve a wide range or roles.  More so in an era of increasing internet shopping, increased expendable income and access to goods.  The retail space is more complex than cognition and biological responses to stimuli.

Indeed, cultural norms often dictate our notions of comfort and self-worth, as do the various shopping contexts in which we find ourselves. The good news is that the contextualization of these actions by location provides a deep and varied “interaction space” and sets the stage from creating a recognizable brand identity. The key is understanding how the product, the retail space and conceptions of self and other work together as a system of meaning. Shopping begins long before the need to purchase an item arises and you get at a deeper understanding of what matters, in context, by exploring the deeper meanings behind the objects and the activities.  Once you understand that selling toilet paper is about concepts of hygiene and purity, that selling heartworm medication is about our deeper fears of pollution and impurity, or that shopping for clothing is frequently about sex, your range of options increase.

What all of this means is how we interpret space and our physical environment, both public and personal, literal and symbolic, shapes on how a promotion, a marketing message or a brand is perceived. Promotions in high-tragic, high-messaging location, for example, are easily passed over unless the offering has a very clear purpose – it can’t simply be clever. As another example, a high-end grocery isn’t just selling food.  For a husband trying to prepare an anniversary dinner for his wife, the store is selling self-assurance, facilitating love and helping lay the groundwork for a pleasant memory.  That means, potentially, decreasing efficiencies and helping navigate the shopper to areas of the store he may not have considered.

 

 

Video as a Replacement to the Ethnographer

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Video is one of the most important and effective ways of communicating research findings. As such, video is often used to convey participant stories and communicate ethnographic findings. Increasingly, video has become a substitute for note taking and in some case, it has essentially been billed as a cheap, quick alternative to fieldwork.

But it isn’t a replacement for fieldwork and the trained ethnographer, regardless of what some might say. Claiming that it can do what fieldwork can do is akin to saying that hotplates can replace all other modes of cooking – in some instances that’s true, but not when you’re talking about cooking a meal for multiple people on a daily basis. Of course the analogy isn’t perfect here, but it hopefully conveys the point that while video ethnography is part of the tool kit in qualitative research, claiming it can replace ethnographic fieldwork is misleading and, well, often flat wrong.  Video is a tool. As with any tool, knowing when and how to use it is pivotal to its success. And while anyone can use a hammer, in the hands of a professional carpenter, the results will probably be superior to those of the average person.

So what do I mean when talking about video ethnography. Video ethnography is the recording of the stream of activity of subjects in their natural setting, in order to experience, interpret, and represent culture and society. At least, that is what it has meant.  Unlike ethnographic film, it cannot be used independently of other ethnographic methods, but rather as part of the process of creation and representation of societal, cultural, and individual knowledge.  Uses of video in ethnography include the recording of certain processes and activities, visual note-taking, and ethnographic diary-keeping. Video is not a replacement for fieldwork or the fieldworker. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, assuming that putting a camcorder in the hands of a participant and thinking they will capture everything needed for analysis assumes that the participant isn’t self-selecting. People record what they want, not what you need – context is often overlooked, unpleasant or uncomfortable situations are omitted, and the subjects of the video are driven by the participant’s biases. Second, using participant video as a substitute for the ethnographer on the ground means that the right questions to ask rarely emerge. It is like the story of the three blind men and the elephant. We end up with only the tail and base or analysis and recommendation on a small portion of the observed rather than the whole.  So, without accompanying fieldwork the video is of limited value and may yield conclusion that are misleading of flat out dangerous.

Video ethnography involves:

  • Observation, including extensive filming of practitioners
  • Allowing practitioners to view the video recorded material and reflexively discuss their practice
  • Building the capacity for the ongoing and critical appraisal of practice

Video-ethnographic methods seek to foreground practitioner knowledge, expertise, and insight into the dynamics of their own work processes. This is achieved by first talking with practitioners about their beliefs, structures, work and organizational processes, and by seeking an articulation of the social, professional, environmental, and organizational contingencies that both enable and constrain their practice. By allowing practitioners to discuss their practices in response to video footage researchers gain insight into areas of practice that may be benefit from redesign. Video ethnography is contingent on the researcher gaining the trust of practitioners, on becoming familiar with the site and on being trusted to be present at time and in places where critical conducts are undertaken. And that combined, collaborative structure of the research design is what produces real insight.

Despite the new rhetoric of empathy and inclusiveness, of involving the user and understanding people’s needs, the person pointing the camera still occupies a position of authority in relation to the subject. This is no less real just because it is concealed beneath a soft blanket of warm feeling. Whether the camera is held by the practitioner or the subject/researcher, the fact remains that even in an increasingly video-centric world, the camera is still an intrusion, altering the situation.  This is why we occasionally turn the camera off – seeing the changes that emerge when recording is off is as important as what we capture on film. So eliminating the researcher from the field equation means relying on a medium that is fraught with unresolved issues as subjects of the video negotiate power and meaning. In other words, if the camera is all you have to go on, especially if there isn’t even an ethnographer using it, there will people an enormous number of misleading statements and representations.

So what am I suggesting? It’s rather simple. Anyone saying they can produce ethnographic research and analysis without the use of an ethnographer in the field is selling a bill of goods.  It is cheap and fast, but yields information that is decidedly limited. As a tool in the larger project it has become indispensable, but as a replacement it is lacking.  In an era of budget cuts and the ever-present need to get insights quickly, it is tempting to look at something like video ethnography as it is often being billed (i.e. putting cameras in the hands of participants and leaving it largely at that) as a viable alternative to more complete research. But sometimes cheap and fast simply don’t make the grade.  For a marketer or designer, the question becomes, are the upfront savings worth getting your product or message wrong?

Writing Your RFP Response

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Landing a new client is, as everyone knows, a difficult process. For every ten RFP responses your write, only a handful will result in actual work. And when you consider the effort that goes into building an RFP response, that means many hours of work that result in very little payoff. But it’s important to remember that the RFP is not about the researcher, it’s about the client. Writing a proposal, then, is more than a matter of research plan design, it is the first step in a courtship.

The proposal is, in effect, an intellectual (not legal) contract between you and the person or people asking for work to be done. It specifies what you will do, how you will do it, how you will interpret the results, and how you will make them useful for the client. In specifying what will be done it also gives criteria for determining whether it is an actuality done. In approving the proposal and awarding you the bid, the client gives their best judgment that the approach to the research is reasonable and likely to yield the anticipated results.  And those results are about more than the research – they are about making the client look good in the eyes of their peers.  The research may in fact demonstrate the smartest, most productive, most innovative work imaginable, but if it doesn’t address the explicit and implicit needs of the client, it won’t get off the ground.

The objective in writing a proposal is to describe what you will do, why it should be done, how you will do it and how it will benefit the client. A vague, weak or fuzzy proposal can lead to a long, painful, and often unsuccessful bid A clean, well thought-out, proposal not only secures a job, it forms the backbone for the long-term relationship with the client.

Proposals help you estimate the size of a project. Don’t make the project too big or too small – make it fit the needs of the client. This isn’t to say that the quality of the work should be compromised or that there’s no room for adding imaginative elements to the work, but it is to say that it needs to fit the scope of what a potential client has asked for.  If they need a needs assessment and only have $50K to spend, then writing a proposal based on a lengthy, expensive process will be fruitless. If you’re unwilling to do the smaller job, walk away. The client will remember that frankness when they do have the time and money to conduct a project that fits your recommendation. The key point is simply this; write the proposal that fits what they’ve asked for first.

Proof read your proposal before it is sent. It is a simple enough task that is too often overlooked.  Many proposals are sent out with idiotic mistakes, omissions, and errors of all sorts. Having been on both sides of the vendor fence, it is amazing how quickly a simple mistake can destroy all credibility. Clients have seen proposals come in with research schedules pasted directly from other proposals unchanged, with dates, prices and methods that are clearly irrelevant research tasks. Proposals have been submitted to the wrong person at the company. Proposals have been submitted with misspellings in the title. These proposals were, of course, not successful. Stupid things like this kill a proposal. It is easy to catch them with a simple, but careful, proof reading. Don’t spend six or eight weeks writing a proposal just to kill it with stupid mistakes that are easily prevented.

Finally, no matter how much experience, training, and expertise you have, everyone retains a bit of skepticism. “Does this guy really knew what he was talking about?,” is the question on the minds of those involved in the selection process. Remember that knowing your stuff isn’t enough. You will need to answer questions, make changes and compromise.

Trucks, Women and Unexpected Markets

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The pickup truck has become an essential part of Western culture.  Even though trucks are needed and valued for their usefulness in farming, ranching and blue collar occupations, decorative additions are often made to trucks and these additions don’t always follow utilitarian functions.  Indeed, many truck owners do precious little in the way of physical labor – spend a few hours driving through the pricier suburbs of Houston and it become quickly clear that the truck is as much a fashion statement as it is a tool.  Perhaps more so.  Rather, pickups help negotiate and present group membership, notions of masculinity and femininity, and associations with class structure.  However, trucks don’t always present a seamless image, nor are the images always interpreted monolithically by those who own and decorate pickup trucks. There are a range of meanings associated with trucks and subcultures within the larger cultural framework.  But what is most important to this discussion is that trucks are far more than they seem.

Truck owners spend a considerable amount of money on customizing their trucks, with 45 percent spending at least $1,000 and 17 percent spending at least $3,000. The most common components customized are wheels and tires (36 percent), audio and video (29 percent), exterior trim (29 percent) and exhaust systems (19 percent). The high value that pickup truck owners place on their trucks and the amount of money that they spend in aftermarket products makes sense when you consider the fact that 64 percent consider their truck as an extension of their personalities.

As an example, when I was doing fieldwork with women who owned trucks, only one of them owned a truck as a function of her occupation.  Some used it as a means of establishing a sense of identity that said to the world, “I’m not a girlie girl.” Some used it as a way of asserting a sense of strength on the highway.  Some used it as a way of maintaining a connection with their past rural (or semi-rural) lives.  The point is that the truck became a symbol, an extension of themselves and utility played a minor role in the underlying reasons they chose it over a car or an SUV.

So why does it matter? It matters because it speaks to the fact that the products we own and use, whether they are thought of by their manufacturers and retailers as utilitarian or extravagances, are reinterpreted and redefined by their owners and that is a huge opportunity for marketers and designers. The truck is a fashion piece. It is a mobile living room.  It is a toy.  It is many things, and those things become apparent from doing deep fieldwork, not through surveys and interviews.  And just as trucks have a range of unexpected meanings, so to do laptops, beer brands, eye glasses, etc.  Regardless of your product or service, understanding people on a deeper level gives you a significant advantage over your competitors. That means getting out there and doing the kind of rich, immersive research that uncovers real insights, not just the low-hanging fruit.

It’s Not Just Price: The Role of Cultural Capital in Marketing

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It’s not always about the money.  Yes, the economy has driven people to be more thoughtful about how they spend their money, but it has equally driven people to think about how their purchases reflect on themselves, how they interact with the world and how positive experiences during the shopping act help them preference one location over another.  This isn’t always conscious – indeed, it rarely is.  People seek cultural and social capital when shopping and returning to our old friend Bourdieu can provides an interesting framework for our design decisions.

So what did Bourdieu have to say about these two concepts?  At the risk of being labeled a reductionist, the overarching themes are these: Cultural capital makes up the forms of knowledge, skills, jobs, education, and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society. It can also be argued that the things we possess and the places we buy those things provide a form of material cultural capital.

Social capital are the non-tangible resources we possess based on group membership, relationships, networks of influence and support. Bourdieu described social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.”

In a nutshell, then, not all capital stems from economics and systems of direct exchange.  The car we drive, the stores we shop at, etc. provide a means by which we project and exchange social and cultural influence. In one context, Levis are a sign of middle class stability, in another they become a sign of blue collar chic for the wealthy.  So while economics, traditional economics, plays a part in the overall pattern of shopping, it is not as simple as unit price.

Cultural capital has three subtypes: embodied, objectified and institutionalized.

  • Embodied cultural capital consists of both the consciously acquired and the passively “inherited” properties of one’s self (with “inherit[ance]” here used not in the genetic sense but in the sense of receipt over time). Cultural capital is not transmissible instantaneously like a gift or bequest; rather, it is acquired over time as it impresses itself upon one’s character and way of thinking.
  • Objectified cultural capital consists of physical objects that are owned, such as our cars, works of art, or even our groceries. These cultural goods can be transmitted both for economic profit (as by buying and selling them with regard only to others’ willingness to pay) and for the purpose of “symbolically” conveying the cultural capital whose acquisition they facilitate. However, while one can possess objectified cultural capital by owning an object; one can “consume” the car, the painting and the groceries (understand its cultural meaning) only if one has the proper foundation of conceptually and/or historically prior cultural capital, whose transmission does not accompany the sale of the object.
  • Institutionalized cultural capital consists of institutional recognition, most often in the form of academic credentials or qualifications, of the cultural capital held by an individual. The institutional recognition process eases the conversion of cultural capital to economic capital by serving as a experience-based model that sellers can use to describe their capital and buyers can use to describe their needs.

It is typically the objectified cultural capital that is the focus of many retailers, and it is perhaps the easiest for them to identify. However, embodied and institutionalized cultural capital are equally important because they reach the intangible.  They reach those depths of the human experience that are the most enduring.

Loyalty and the Global Stage

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Loyalty is a very tricky thing to define. Traditionally it is understood as a faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, cause, group, or brand.  It is anything to which one’s heart can become attached or devoted.  That goes well beyond the transactional elements of a retailer and touches ideas of identity, obsession and even love.  Loyalty can be rewarded, but loyalty usually comes from within, from a story we like to tell ourselves. We’re loyal to sports teams and products (and yes, to people) because being loyal makes us happy.

Businesses seek to become the objects of loyalty, in order to have their customers return. Brand loyalty is a shopper’s preference for a particular brand, be it a retailer or product, and a commitment to repeatedly purchase that brand in the face of other choices. Traditionally, businesses establish loyalty programs which offer rewards to repeat customers, and often allow the business to keep track of their preferences and buying habits.  But is it loyalty?  It could just as easily be understood as opportunism – it is transient and fleeting, driven by a transactional relationship rather than long-term engagement.  Truly loyal customers understand that there’s almost always something better out there, but they’re not so interested in looking.

And it’s wise to remember that loyalty takes on different flavors across the globe. In terms of loyalty programs, there is a wide variety. Hong Kong offers many loyalty programs which include Octopus Rewards, which started as a chip based smartcard for transport and now, the Octopus cards can be used to earn points in certain shops, including McDonald’s and Wellcome supermarket. The idea is that the rewards and loyalty are derived from the shared wellbeing of the group.  Loyalty is about more than an individual and the business, it is about facilitating interactions within the socio-cultural network as a whole.  It is a subtle difference, but important in that it moves the decision process away from simply finding “good deals” to a reflection of one’s place in the social structure, with Octopus Rewards becoming a facilitator of what it means to be a good person.  This is reflected in the historical and cultural underpinnings of China (see The Sociology of Loyalty by James Connor for more detail).

Increasingly, companies complain that loyalty program discount goods to people that are buying their goods anyway, and that the expense of doing these programs rarely pays. Other critics see the lower prices and rewards manipulate customers, providing them short-term gains, but ultimately leading to feelings of resentment. Loyalty programs established in Russia have been less successful than anticipated because they are seen as an intrusion into a person’s life.  To some, participating in a loyalty program funds activities that violate privacy (Doing Business in Russia by Sergey Kolpashchiko).  Again, as with China, history and cultural patterns shape expectations and beliefs about these programs.

So if rewards programs are no guarantee and significant cultural differences shape whether or not a loyalty program will take root, how do you establish real, meaningful, long-term loyalty?  Well, the good news is that there are universals.

As wealth increases and people have more free time to spend shopping experience and interaction with the retail space becomes more important (see The Comfort of Things by Daniel Miller).  Loyalty becomes less about price incentives and more about catering to notions of identity, personal comfort and local identity.  It becomes intertwined with establishing emotional bonds that translate into devotion.  Part of why Heineken has done so well in the global market is that it appeal to a sense of nationalism when appropriate (sponsorship of soccer teams in Latin America).  The reward is being associated with a winning team and the Heineken give-aways that happen at games.  In retail the challenge has largely been overlooked, but the possibilities for establishing long-term relationships rather than short-gain transaction increases are virtually bursting with possibilities.

Loyalty, then, relies on shifting the conversation to achieve a specific paradigm: quality of product, service and experience leads to customer satisfaction, which leads to customer loyalty, which leads to profitability. Marketing and advertising draw upon the positive experiences of those exposed to a truly loyalty-centered business model inspired ventures to attract new customers.

Rewarding loyalty for loyalty’s sake is not an obvious path, but it’s a worthwhile one.  The idea that shifting the focus from paying people for sticking it out so the offering ends up being more attractive to one of deep engagement involves risk, commitment and a well developed strategy. But the payoff moves the business to one of volumes to one of margins. Tell a story that appeals to loyalists, engage them and you win. Treat different customers differently, and reserve your highest level of respect for those that stand by you.  That’s when you will see devotion and brand loyalty that cuts across global borders.

Function and Symbolism: Going Beyond the Obvious Message

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To the credit of marketing, advertising, and research people the days of talking about the consumer as the sole focus of shopping activity are essentially gone. We recognize that the shopper and the consumer are not always the same. Indeed, it is often the case that they are not. The focus has shifted to the process that takes place between the first thought a consumer has about purchasing an item, all the way through the selection of that item. While this is a reasonable approach to understanding the people who buy and use a company’s products, it still has one principle flaw. Namely, it focuses on individuals rather than systems of people and the behavioral and cultural drivers behind their actions. The distinction is subtle but important because it assumes the shopping experiences goes well beyond the product itself, which is largely functional, and considers the product (and brand) as a means of facilitating social interaction. In other words, it thinks about shopping as a means of establishing cultural norms, emotional bonds, and identity.

Shopping as a Function
Think of the shopping experience as a continuum of cultural patterns with the shopper moving along the line as influences shape their intent and behavior depending on context, consumer, and people of varying influence falling at different points along the line. The baseline goal may be as simple as getting groceries in the home with the consumers all adding to the shopping list. On the surface, it is a reasonably simple process to understand. We need food to survive and we need to make sure the food we buy reflects the realities of personal tastes within a household. This is the functional side of the shopper experience. First, shopping is viewed as a collection of interdependent parts, with a tendency toward equilibrium. Second, there are functional requirements that must be met in a social unit for its survival (such as procurement of food). Third, phenomena are seen to exist because they serve a function (caloric intake). So shopping is seen in terms of the contribution that the individual shopper makes to the functioning of the whole or the consuming group. Of course, this is part of what we have to market to, but it is only one part of the shopping equation,
The problem is that this approach is unable to account for social change, or for structural contradictions and conflict. It is predicated on the idea that shopping is designed for or directed toward a final result. Shopping, it assumes, is rooted in an inherent purpose or final cause. Buying cookies is more than getting calories into your kids. In fact, it has precious little to do with the kids at all and it is at this point that the shopper begins to move to the other end of the shopping continuum.

Shopping as Part of Something Bigger
Human beings act toward the things they buy on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things. These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters. Shopping, then, can be viewed through the lens of how people create meaning during social interaction, how they present and construct the self (or “identity”), and how they define situations with others. So, back to cookies. The mom buying cookies is rewarding her children, but in doing so she is expressing to herself and the world that she is a good mom, that she is loving, and that she understands her role as a parent.

As another example, imagine a husband who buys all organic vegetables for his vegan wife. He is expressing solidarity, support, recognition of her world view, etc. He may, however, slip a steak into the basket as a personal reward for having been a good husband which he expressed through accommodating her dietary needs. The fundamental question is not whether or not he responds to advertising describing the products, but what are the social and cultural mechanisms under the surface that shape why he makes his choices. What the shopper buys and the consumer shares are individual, rational choices. They are gifts that create an obligation to reciprocate in some way. Through the gift, the givers yield up part of themselves and imbue the product with a certain power that helps maintain the relationship. The gift is therefore not merely a product but also has cultural and social properties. In other words, the shopper and the consumer are doing much more with products than fulfilling the need for which the product was designed. The product becomes a tool for maintaining relationships.

This has implications for where and how we do fieldwork. For example, if we’re interested in, say, how teen and collegiate athletes think about and use sports drinks, we need to think about how teen and collegiate athletes drink in general. What do they do before a night of partying and how can those rituals be used in product development and marketing? How can “pre-gaming” be transitioned from the bar to the locker room?

What that means for a marketer is that when we design a shopping experience, we need to dig deeper than the product. We need to address the underlying social and cultural patterns in people’s lives.

So What?
All of this means that when we are develop a new means by which we target shoppers, we need to remember to speak to both ends of the continuum and remember that shopping is both a functional and a symbolic act. While the argument could be made that there are countless ways to categorize shopping and consumption, for ease of application shoppers and shopping break into two categories. On one end is the purely functional element and on the other is the structural/symbolic element. Shopping for nuts and bolts clearly falls on the functional end, but not necessarily the tools with which they are used. Understanding and talking to both ends of the continuum leads to a broader audience and that leads to increased sales and brand recognition. Which is, when all is said and done, the ultimate goal.

 

Loyalty, Consumption and Religious Experience

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Loyalty is the focal point of many, if not most, brands. Understandably, getting repeat customers who will also serve as advocates is a smart move in a world where, due to the ease of online transactions, volume simply isn’t enough. But is loyalty enough or should we strive for something more? Should we strive for developing a shopping experience or brand that is largely impervious to economic conditions and the small mistakes and hiccups that all brands have to deal with during their lifetimes, no matter how good they may be at avoiding missteps? Of course. The question is how. The answer lies not just in how we execute the experience, but in how we conceive of the shopping experience. Shopping is a practice that has ritual structure and involves the creation of value and relationships. Loyalty stems from the development of these relationships but loyalty, though a strong influence on the power of a brand, has limitations and is subject to cultural shifts, a weak economy, etc. The goal is to move shoppers and consumers to the level of the truly devoted. In other words, we need to think of shopping in the context of sacred devotion.

Devotion is an ardent, often selfless dedication to a person or belief, but it can be extended to a brand and retail setting. Loyalty, in this sense, goes from feelings of strong but limited dedication to a state that borders on the divine. Like religious experience, it might even begin to manifest elements of cosmology. From my point of view, this is a far more powerful position for a brand to be in, but it requires more work. And to those who would question whether or not it’s worth the effort I would point to the growth of Apple stock in the last five years and the near fanatical nature of its devotees.

Devotion in the religious sense means paying homage and this carries over to brands and retail in that the devotee-shopper ritualizes the experience and treats the brand and retail space with a higher degree of engagement and devotion. In this case the nature of devotion is consumerism and the forging of identity through shopping. There is a public expression of respect to someone or something to whom or to which one feels indebted, as through an honor, tribute or reference. In the case of a brand, the devotee makes “pilgrimages” to its retail outlets and uses both logo and products as badges to signal inclusion for fellow believers, to recruit new believers and to keep non-believers away. After all, the goal is not in bring the half-hearted into the fold, but to draw in those who will embrace brand with the same degree of devotion and come to see the retail space as a manifestation of identity. When a consumer/shopper transitions from loyalty to devotion justifications of function and costs are set aside because they lose meaning to the devoted. All that really matters is the object of the devotion and the losing of one’s sense of self in the shared experience.

But it is not as if the devotee doesn’t get something in return. The devotee gets something back – a sense of fulfillment, a sense of greater meaning, a sense of belonging to a “special” group of people, a sense of ownership in the belief system. This leads to a sense of love that goes beyond romanticism and takes on an element of duty and personal involvement – and devotion. Rational interest becomes an expression of love which is not just an externally-focused love, but one that is co-authored. It is not the love of eros (passionate love, or the love of sensual desire) but the love of agape, or the notion that love is based on adulation, which being transcendent is not based on appraisal but rather the totalizing of otherness. It is not love subject to reason or explanation and is therefore unqualified. The aim of this sort of love is the loss of self through the merging with the beloved other. It is a creative act.

Devotional space leads to long-term repeat behavior on the part of the shopper. Even if they don’t make a purchase every time, they come to see the retail environment as a place of worship and the brand as a focal point in their own sense of identity. This leads to two centrally important points. First, when they do make a purchase cost is of minimal issue, though they may say otherwise. New product releases will garner immediate attention and devotees will wait an almost unimaginable amount of time to buy the product in the retail space. It is not enough to buy it online or at another venue – communion with the retail space is a rite. Second, devotees will bring others with them or advocate wherever they can, going from advocates to apostles.

So how does a brand achieve this level of devotion? There are several key points that lead to transforming the retail space to devotional space, all of which work together. It is an all-or-nothing proposition, but the payoff is worth the effort.

1. The Products

While it may seem obvious, retailers often forget about the power their products have on deep, social and cultural levels. The products must be of good quality, but they needn’t be the pinnacle of the industry. Retailers tend to spend a great deal of time talking about features and not enough time talking to shoppers and consumers about what the products do for them in terms of creating an image, a feeling, or a sense of well-being. It can be extremely difficult for us to remember that our products may be the best in the world, but if we do not articulate how they fit into the daily lives of our consumers they lose their relevance.

2. The Environment

The retail space is an extension of the brand, not simply a place to display merchandise. This means that in addition to the consideration put into the initial design of the space, a retailer must think about the space as a destination, a place of pilgrimage. Human perceptions of space, although derived from sensory tools that all humans share, are shaped and patterned by culture. Differing cultural frameworks for defining and organizing space are internalized by all people at an unconscious, usually shared level, and can lead to serious failures of communication. At the macro-level, these sensibilities shape cultural expectations about how every environment we interact with should be properly organized. This also means that settings can and do take on a “personality” depending on how they relate to cultural archetypes we posses about a given spatial frame. The surrounding stores and neighborhood need to be a reflection of or antithetical to your brand, the goal being to produce strong emotional responses. Products need to be displayed in such a way as to make them visually reverential (e.g. on a pedestal and under directed lighting). Touch needs to be elevated to tactile play and experimentation. Events must be incorporated into the retail space, allowing people to ritualize their visits and feel as if they are part of an ongoing, transformational experience. It isn’t enough to make the store look inviting and to reflect the brand standards of the company. The retail space needs to become a destination and take on a sense of “place.”

3. The Re-creation of Self

From an anthropological perspective, the individual is less of a coherent whole and more of a collection of various cultural identifiers. Culture, as a social practice, is not something that individuals possess. It is a process in which individuals participate. As such, culture is an important factor in shaping identity. In a retail setting this means that identity is developed as part of a shared system and that the retail space becomes a focal point around which people gather to find unity and shared understanding. As with religious communities, devotional space produces a heightened sense of belonging and a sense of being part of something “bigger” than the individual. Staff must appear to be part of the elect and use language and non-verbal communication to signal that the shopper has left the mundane world and has joined a special group, embodied in the retail setting. Architecturally, the gateway into the store must signal a transitional zone. Every element  of the entry process must let the shopper know that he or she is now part of something pure and experiential.

Increasingly, retailers are getting the point that loyalty stems from a more intricate retail experience. But it isn’t enough to cultivate simple loyalty. Understanding the retail experience as devotional space means thinking about the retail experience and the brand in general in a more holistic sense and thinking about how it can be used to cultivate a sense of shared identity among consumers. Again, shopping is a practice that has ritual structure and involves the creation of value and relationships. It is, or should be, a practice that goes beyond transaction to a sense of transcendence. Make your retail space a point of sacred devotion and you become inseparable from the lives of your consumers.

Semiotics and the Brand

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Marketers have long recognized the symbolic nature of shopping and consumption.  Products and brands are symbols for sale – products and brands are often purchased as much for their symbolic value as they are their pragmatic value.  And this is the heart of Semiotics.

Semiotics is the study of symbols , signs and sign processes.  I has been a fundamental part of anthropology since the beginnings of the discipline.  Experts in Semiotics are trained to identify and make sense of these symbol systems, uncovering how they construct and reflect the cultural contexts in which they are found. As it relates to business, Semioticians are trained to identify, interpret, and leverage these symbolic meanings for purposes of market definition, brand development, brand positioning, communication strategy, design and packaging.

Brands are symbol systems that consumers associate with verbal, visual, and performative elements of communication. They are temples to meanings that are rarely articulated in focus groups or surveys. That means that every element of a product or service, from cans of beer to amusement parks, is wrapped up in a series of symbols that consumers use to interpret what a brand means and how it relates specifically to them.  These symbolic dimensions add value to products by creating added dimensions beyond the obvious, functional needs. Brands allow consumers to create meaning for themselves, helping them construct who they symbolically want to be. This sense of self is an articulated schema  that functionally controls how self-referent information is structured and categorized.  It establishes how closely a brand reflects the self, which means they are tied to how people construct identity. The more closely the symbolic structures are tied to the sense of self, the more important they become to the individual. Brands, then, speak to those elements of existence that shape the unspoken needs we have as human beings for such concepts as love, status, ritual, power and belonging. In other words, they touch us on a deeper level that stirs our emotions and our interest.

As an example, I have done a great deal of work over the years around household provisioning.  From beer to toilet paper to cereal to soap. In all of these cases, the reasons for brand loyalty are only minimally tied to function. Yes, performance and price drive sales, but consumers are fickle and willing to turn away from brands they have no symbolic ties to when something else comes along. Not so for those brands with strong symbolic associations. Consumers who are loyal to a brand of soap because they associate it with being a good parent are more likely to stick with the brand no matter what. Brewers that talk less about calories and the affects of alcohol, focusing instead on nostalgia, connoisseurship, and status are more likely to retain their consumers.  The more the brand touches the underlying symbolic drivers behind the purchase, the more likely they are to see long-term commitment on the part of the shopper and consumer.

A brand is a sign, or more accurately a system of signs, that triggers a process of interpretation is a consumer’s mind, which means it is more than a series of functional, commoditized features and benefits. It touches on memories, associations with broad cultural ideals and individual desires. It is an act of two-way communication, not just a one-way projection by the company to the consumer. When brands speak to the rationale and meanings behind these semiotic structures, brands move beyond the codes governing a product category and enter the personal space of the consumer. That positions the brand to become something more than a commodity, it becomes part of the consumer’s life and promotes a wider array of associations between the brand and the consumer. That produces loyalty and great market share.

It’s Not Just the Products

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Shopping habits can be observed in multiple ways: how people react during social interaction, how they present and see themselves, and how they define situations with others. In other words, people need emotional connections to what you sell and how you sell it as much as they need to know about the products in your store. They need to feel a sense of increased social and psychic capital when they enter your store and when they leave it. Apple, after all, sells computers just like everyone else, but they have successfully bridged the gap between customer emotion and product knowledge. Steve Jobs challenged Apple with “changing the world” rather than simply fulfilling a function. It’s hard to deny that Apple has changed the world of how people see computers, tablets and MP3 players, and Apple’s growing market share is a testament to the strategy.

In terms of marketing materials and communication with your customers, creating an emotional connection does not mean using clichés and gimmicky messaging. It means conveying the things your products enable. By the time many customers actually consider locating a retailer, they have spent significant time researching specs, consumer reviews and feature lists. Therefore, it’s important to interact with your customers and ask key questions accordingly – giving them the information they need based on what they already know about the product. Marketing materials that convey how a product or service will fit into their daily lives in a realistic way are far more likely to capture their attention than price listings and technical information.

Keep in mind when creating ads and promotional materials:

  • Incorporate references to how non-tech-savvy people might actually use the phone.
  • Explain benefits in a realistic way.
  • In addition to listing performance and feature information, list at least one direct connection between these things and an activity a consumer might engage in.