Most users of personal computers treat them as implements. But Mac users love their computer – true affinity.Justin Sullivan
Affinity
By Martin Goldfarb and Howard Aster
McArthur & Company, 300 pages, $29.95
Martin Goldfarb is familiar to many as the pollster who divined the thoughts of Canadians for Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, but he had a lesser-known, but also influential, role as a market researcher for companies and brands such as Ford Motor Co., De Beers, Bank of Nova Scotia, Wonderbra, Petro-Canada, and Hellmann's Mayonnaise.
With long-time collaborator Howard Aster, a political scientist and consultant, Mr. Goldfarb brings together his thoughts on modern marketing along with insider tales from some of his marketing campaigns in Affinity: Beyond Branding. For the politically inclined, he also has some provocative thoughts on that sphere, with advice for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
Branding, the book argues, used to be about provoking awareness in people. These days, that's not sufficient. Companies must go further. "Success now lies in connectivity, in provoking affinity between the brand and the customer," he observes.
He points as an example to the Mac computer. Most users of personal computers treat them as implements. But Mac users love their computer - true affinity.
To develop affinity, marketers must behave like anthropologists. They must understand culture and values and the way we live. "What good brands do is attach themselves and propagate values that are enduring. Therefore, they can outlast the many economic cycles or demographic cycles that are part of social transformations," he writes.
In our global culture, certain values are enduring - and smart companies try to adhere to them. First is frugality: People want value for money. But it goes beyond price. As environmental consciousness increases, consumers want to know that their vehicle has good or exceptional fuel efficiency.
Quality is another key cross-cultural value, as is the importance of family. People want cars, for example, that last a long time and don't break down, and their family's well-being is paramount. So when it comes to vehicles, safety is vital.
"From North America to Europe, from Mexico to China, people care about family, durability, quality, reliability, frugality, safety, and transparency," he writes. "If the product is imbued with the correct values, then a strong bond or loyalty between the consumer and the product is forged."
To understand values, with Wonderbra as a client, Mr. Goldfarb found himself in the early 1970s in San Francisco strip bars, watching the female customers who were watching the female strippers, and then interviewing those onlookers to understand female attitudes about sexuality and undergarments. At the time, San Francisco was on the cutting edge of the sexual revolution, and he felt the movement was defined by a preoccupation with appearance and a sense of freedom.
Some women didn't want to wear a bra, because they were intent on rejecting the constraints society was imposing on them. Others were less brave, but he found they still wanted freedom - to wear less, to abandon constraints. His report led Wonderbra to stop making foundation garments and girdles, and to produce Dicey - sheer, light underwear for teens and younger women. The all-important story - given that branding is about stories - was that Wonderbra cared about the shape you're in.
For Ford, in that same era, Mr. Goldfarb's team went to Los Angeles County's famous Van Nuys Boulevard to figure out why young men were customizing their Ford Ranger trucks to make them into personal use vehicles, with different colour paint, leather seats, and upgraded sound systems. The auto maker used those ideas to develop Ford Ranger personal use trucks and later the Explorer SUV.
When it comes to politics, he argues that the Just Society, the brand developed by Pierre Trudeau (which that politician often didn't live up to, suffering accordingly at the polls), has become not only the Liberal Party's brand but also Canada's. However, Mr. Ignatieff has shied from embracing that sentiment, perhaps, Mr. Goldfarb speculates, because of the inconsistencies of his having adopted political positions too closely related to the American value system. "To be successful as the leader of the Liberal Party, Ignatieff would have to embrace the concept of the Just Society, add attributes that are pertinent and timely to it, not change the brand or the promise," the author advises.
Mr. Goldfarb refers to advertising as the poetry of everyday life. Affinity, at times, has that poetic flavour, with graceful, flowing writing. Unfortunately the structure of the book results in too much repetition. But his thoughts on branding are interesting, if not all that novel, and the stories from the front lines of his market research are often engrossing.
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IN ADDITION
Is a book that takes only about seven minutes to read truly a book? In format, 50 Lessons On Leading For Those With Little Time For Reading (Lilja Press, 105 pages, $11.95) by consultant Steve Boehlke is a book, albeit of compact size. Can a book with only 50 messages, short statements without verbal elaboration, be useful?
Probably, since the statements are provocative, the visual design enhances the message, and the author suggests that after you rush through it, you randomly open it to a page and for a week ponder lessons such as "leadership is believing in others as much as yourself," "leadership can only be practised in public," and "leadership is making plans, not imposing them."
Special to The Globe and Mail