Strategic Significance of Brands

Via Andy Lark, a great interview with Virgin America’s Spencer Kramer in CMO Magazine. Kramer discusses the strategic significance of the Virgin brand and the launch of their new airline in the US.

Why is it so important these days for a brand to make an emotional connection with customers?

Brands that don’t make emotional connections, especially from the inside (product side) out, will eventually lose. Emotional marketing doesn’t mean much if the company’s people, products and services don’t back it up. Nike doesn’t succeed because Wieden + Kennedy makes great commercials. Rather, Nike succeeds because its core belief—its brand promise, its love of the potential for the athlete inside everyone—lives inside the people in Beaverton. When that love is manifested in their gear, consumers manifest it into their own lives. It’s not only an emotional connection, it’s an individual one. That’s what we’re hoping for, too: a one-to-one relationship, but with many thousands of people.