Impassion Yourself to Arouse Shoppers

Developing within your customers an allegiance to your store is great. Even better, though, is them having a passion for shopping with you. A time-tested way—and surely a necessary way—to arouse such a passion is for you to serve your customers well. Still, researchers at Louisiana State University, Louisiana Tech University, and University of Richmond say that good customer service, even if necessary, may not be sufficient. They suggest you also develop within yourself passion for the brands you carry. Your own emotional arousal by the brands stimulates within shoppers a devotion to spending time in your store that goes beyond allegiance.
     The researchers found that retailers’ passion toward the brands in the store is more likely when the brands have three characteristics, each of which contributes to an impression of brand authenticity:

• Distinctiveness. The brand can be easily told apart from others in the same product category, perhaps through unique features or an unusual logo design. 
• Scarcity. The brand is not especially popular, and that lack of popularity implies exclusivity and/or the need for special effort to obtain the brand. 
• Continuity. The brand has been around for a while, and for the duration, the brand has been associated in the retailer’s mind with consistent fundamental characteristics. 

     Maybe the brand has been around for a while as it extends into new products. A University of Connecticut study looked at the LEGO brand during the time the company was expanding beyond building block products to children’s books, stickers for art projects, board games, and video games. Was LEGO losing its authenticity?
     Here’s my version of the research results, in the form of four questions you can ask yourself:

• How well does this extension maintain brand standards and style? Degree-of-agreement items on the Connecticut researchers’ inventory included, “The standards of LEGO are apparently contained in this extension.” 
• To what degree does the extension honor the brand heritage? “LEGO seems to have abandoned its roots with this extension.” 
• How well does the extension preserve the brand essence? “This extension captures what makes LEGO unique to me.” 
• Does the extension avoid brand exploitation? “With this extension, it seems that LEGO was more concerned with preserving the brand than growing the market.” 

     How does a retailer’s passion about a brand carry over to shoppers’ sentiments? It’s via the stories the retailer tells about the brand. So those stories themselves should indicate authenticity.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more: 
Offer Scam-Free Scarcity
Challenge Smart Shoppers
Gather Your Love Tribe Together
Assess the Costs of Customer Satisfaction
Craft Powerful Stories
Let Go of Irritating Brand Extensions
Puff Down for Authenticity