brands: have to be empathic?

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Says the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy that empathy is the "mental and emotional identification of a subject with the mood of another."

Thanks to mirror neurons, people are empathetic. That is nothing that we say to "step into the shoes of another". Feel what the other is feeling, albeit to a lower degree. Understand the other person emotionally, because to understand the rational in his words and just need our ear.

Empathy gives us what is missing ear. Thus, colloquially, I call mirror neurons "sixth sense". Because with them we feel within us the emotional part that speaks. Thanks to them we can understand the human being in its fullness. Words can have many meanings. Deduce which of them is the context. An essential part of that context is the feeling you want to convey who utters them.

Recently, in another post, we conclude that the marks needs to be emotional. But a brand can it be empathic?. Based on the definition that the dictionary could not understand. It clearly says "... of a subject with the mood of another." So it's something between people.

Some people ... What is a company?. Not a company a group of people?. Until relatively recently, there was a tendency to dehumanize companies. So that was something of a corporation as an entity whose purpose was to make money. The bodies were already for scary movies. Today a company is identified with an entity, also terrifies the consumer. Companies are groups of people working to cover in the form of product or service, the needs of others that we call market.

The company that best connects with your market is the one that succeeds. That is the group of people who best understands the other group is the one who gets the upper hand. Because it makes products and services for what they want and need. And if that connection is mutual, the market has a high degree of loyalty to the company that provides ... Conversely, the company must also be faithful to its market.

We are talking, then, that a group of people have to connect with another. They must understand perfectly and is reciprocal. And people to be well understood, have said they need to do, also, with the "sixth sense". Therefore a company, necessarily, if you want to do more than survive selling off, empathize with your market needs. Displayed as a connected group of people with people. Companies need to be empathic.

And brands?. A brand is not just a means of communication. The way companies do reach their customers and prospects what they are. And when I speak of what they are, I mean covering needs with its products, but also what they feel as individuals. If communication between people is essential to empathy and brands are a means of communication between people and companies, and brands have to be, by necessity, empathic.

Those brands that are just a nice way, but their substance, not empathize with your market, are only traces. A brand is an attention getter, which connects the customer how are the people behind it. Being told to feel those forming the corporation (or product) that identifies them. Take the first step in establishing a link between them at first. Then is the symbol that keeps the relationship. A brand is an experience of values, sensations and feelings. And as such, if not empathize, can not achieve their purpose.

In the XXI century mark if not empathize with your market is not brand. Likewise, if a company does not empathize with their customers is not company, is a being empty.

Why brands need to be emotional?

Versión en español, pulse aquí

Lately,  people would often ask the same question: Really brands and companies have to be emotional?. Could it be simply that the emotional is fashionable?. I will try to answer the two questions in this post.

It is true that lately it seems that everything has to excite the customer. If it does not sell thrills, even claim. It is one of the strongest trends of marketing. But it is much more than a fad. It has a scientific basis.

Until recently, we thought that the man was a rational being. We believed that the reason, that sets us apart from other species, was the one who controlled all voluntary acts of our lives. However, something seemed to fit that thesis. We all happened before we've found two products, one above another in performance, but something has to tip the balance toward that rationally, was lower. Something that we can not explain, however has made that "we have been wearing." Remember the first iPhone smash?. iPhone was GPRS. Its direct competition was 3G. However it was sales leader. Or how many times to get home have said: Why I bought this?. Something that, rationally, not needed, but that mysteriously clings to our hand. Later we thousand reasons to justify that purchase to ourselves. But the reality is that we needed.

These examples and many others (not only in the world of marketing), suggested that the famous theory of being absolutely certain it was not as rational as we thought. Indeed, the ability to reason makes us different. It's an evolutionary advantage to our species that is found in the "newest" of our brain. So, which appeared later in the timeline of evolution. That leads us to one conclusion: we have been using the other parts of the brain for much longer. The reason, the rational influences in our lives, yes. But the non-rational, impulsive, instinctive, emotional, too. And much more strongly the latter. Why harder?, Because we, as a species, much longer using a brain without rational part with it. Do not know how to use our brain so that "the boss" is the reason. We have not learned yet.

Man is not rational, it's just a being that is capable of reasoning, but man moves irrational stimuli. We could say that the "emotional brain" is much stronger than "rational brain". This does not mean that the latter does not influence anything in our lives. If so, it would be meaningless existence. But you will agree with me that it is much stronger emotional. What happens when the team loses a big fan?. If the rational dominate, surely it would save a great hard time, but not, we can emotion. What heartbreak?, Rationally there are many people we fall in love, there's no reason malratos. However, the emotional can. Had bad because that person has left us of that, emotionally, we were in love and we do not attend to reason.

Marketing aims to bring companies to their markets. He tells companies what their customers need and then give it as a product, at the same time disclosing these to your potential market. That is, marketing is responsible for the customer-company relationship will be fruitful for both. If customers and businesses are people and people are more emotional than rational, does not it make more sense that the marks are just so emotional?.

That's why that emotion is not fashionable, it is the language of man. The Neuromarketing handles precisely applying marketing knowledge that brings neuroscience. The neurosciences are those that have shown that man is emotional. Neuromarketing is responsible that brands start talking over emotions and less of reasons.