ARTICLE - THE GLUE VALUE OF BRANDS
Marketing science and practice have lost credibility due to the increase in unpredictability of
consumer behaviour.
Two assumptions about predictability of consumer behaviour:
1. Hypermodern: Consumers are still predictable, but marketing managers have to
collect data and apply statistical techniques to forge models that explain consumer’s
behaviour.
2. Postmodern: Consumers are not always predictable, marketing managers should be
more aware of their idiosyncratic preferences and behaviour, and be able to react to
their signals.
Hypermodernism: a belief that consumers should be made aware of their best choices and
of their latent needs, marketers should create this awareness and manipulate the
consumers’ purchasing processes. Target market; companies decide who should buy the
product and why.
Postmodern: recognise the capability consumers have to make the best choices by
themselves and to add values to commercial propositions. Marketers should support
conversations between consumers and eventually intervene.
Both companies and consumers are involved in the process of value-creation. Products do
take marketing initiatives as well sometimes.
The Glue Value of Brands:
A model that shows the extent to which a brand has the power to gather people around its
value proposition.
The cultural and social references implied in a brand’s meaning constitute its symbolic value.
The cultural dimension: the extent to which consumers recognise its symbolic value.
- If the cultural reference system for understanding this symbolic value is smaller, then
the emotion called up by recognising it, is probably stronger.
The social dimension: the extent to which a brand has some kind of ‘grouping’ power. Extent
to which consumer tend to gather around the value proposition in the form of e.g. events or
internet-based discussion groups.
Brands belonging to the left upper quadrant do have a meaning that is broadly recognised
and clear to most consumers; have a more functional value proposition.
, The lower right quadrant are brands that have a more emotional value proposition, a
stronger meaning for small groups of consumers. In its most extreme case this emotional
value is totally attributed to the brand by consumers themselves. → The brand is ‘hijacked’
by consumers.
Having a high glue value is NOT tantamount to saying that the brand is strong or successful.
Hyper- and Postmodern marketing:
Two types of solutions to an alleged marketing crisis:
1. Hypermodern: Based on the assumption that more information about consumers’
characteristics and behaviour can lead to better ways of predicting and manipulating
their purchasing behaviour.
2. Postmodern: Consumers add values to a company’s proposition spontaneously, and
therefore consumers’ behaviour cannot be predicted and manipulated.
Postmodernism shows how social projects are inevitably deemed to fail in favour of
individual projects and that better conditions of life can only be achieved eventually by
recognising society’s ability to self-organise. Manipulation is more modern than postmodern
in nature. The Glue Value of Brands can be considered as representing the extent to which it
signifies belonging to a specific neo-tribe.
Hypermodern approaches reflect strategies aimed at manipulating consumer’s behaviour
and/or perceptions, whereas postmodern approaches reflect strategies that do recognise the
possibility of consumers to self-organise around a value proposition, and even to shape it;
prediction and control versus adaptation and ‘small interventions’.
Marketing science and practice have lost credibility due to the increase in unpredictability of
consumer behaviour.
Two assumptions about predictability of consumer behaviour:
1. Hypermodern: Consumers are still predictable, but marketing managers have to
collect data and apply statistical techniques to forge models that explain consumer’s
behaviour.
2. Postmodern: Consumers are not always predictable, marketing managers should be
more aware of their idiosyncratic preferences and behaviour, and be able to react to
their signals.
Hypermodernism: a belief that consumers should be made aware of their best choices and
of their latent needs, marketers should create this awareness and manipulate the
consumers’ purchasing processes. Target market; companies decide who should buy the
product and why.
Postmodern: recognise the capability consumers have to make the best choices by
themselves and to add values to commercial propositions. Marketers should support
conversations between consumers and eventually intervene.
Both companies and consumers are involved in the process of value-creation. Products do
take marketing initiatives as well sometimes.
The Glue Value of Brands:
A model that shows the extent to which a brand has the power to gather people around its
value proposition.
The cultural and social references implied in a brand’s meaning constitute its symbolic value.
The cultural dimension: the extent to which consumers recognise its symbolic value.
- If the cultural reference system for understanding this symbolic value is smaller, then
the emotion called up by recognising it, is probably stronger.
The social dimension: the extent to which a brand has some kind of ‘grouping’ power. Extent
to which consumer tend to gather around the value proposition in the form of e.g. events or
internet-based discussion groups.
Brands belonging to the left upper quadrant do have a meaning that is broadly recognised
and clear to most consumers; have a more functional value proposition.
, The lower right quadrant are brands that have a more emotional value proposition, a
stronger meaning for small groups of consumers. In its most extreme case this emotional
value is totally attributed to the brand by consumers themselves. → The brand is ‘hijacked’
by consumers.
Having a high glue value is NOT tantamount to saying that the brand is strong or successful.
Hyper- and Postmodern marketing:
Two types of solutions to an alleged marketing crisis:
1. Hypermodern: Based on the assumption that more information about consumers’
characteristics and behaviour can lead to better ways of predicting and manipulating
their purchasing behaviour.
2. Postmodern: Consumers add values to a company’s proposition spontaneously, and
therefore consumers’ behaviour cannot be predicted and manipulated.
Postmodernism shows how social projects are inevitably deemed to fail in favour of
individual projects and that better conditions of life can only be achieved eventually by
recognising society’s ability to self-organise. Manipulation is more modern than postmodern
in nature. The Glue Value of Brands can be considered as representing the extent to which it
signifies belonging to a specific neo-tribe.
Hypermodern approaches reflect strategies aimed at manipulating consumer’s behaviour
and/or perceptions, whereas postmodern approaches reflect strategies that do recognise the
possibility of consumers to self-organise around a value proposition, and even to shape it;
prediction and control versus adaptation and ‘small interventions’.
