Easy-to-process things feel truer, safer, and more appealing.
More quotes“Strengthen the brand-consumer relationship.”
Fine. Which relationship? Most buyers recognise a name, find the product and continue with their lives. Marketing calls this disappointing because it has spent years describing soap and software as if they were emotionally available partners.
Grand verbs quietly dictate the evidence. “Drive engagement” makes interaction look valuable before anyone has shown what it changes. “Build loyalty” turns repeat purchase into devotion, even when availability did the work. “Force reappraisal” dismisses recognition and memory because neither produces sufficiently dramatic paperwork. Once the language has chosen the theory, the measures obediently confirm it.
The damage reaches creative work too. A brief demanding “deeper engagement” invites visible busyness: extra clicks, extra copy, extra reasons for the customer to demonstrate commitment. A brief asking for faster recognition might produce one distinctive shape used relentlessly. The first looks ambitious in review. The second may do more while asking less of everybody outside the business.
The embarrassment begins when the verb is translated into an observable event. More buyers find the product. More prospects include it at renewal. More trial users complete the first valuable action. These sound modest beside “relationship”, yet they give creative choices and evidence something useful to do. A brand can become commercially important without becoming personally significant. Customers owe it neither affection nor active engagement. Their money is already an unusually clear form of participation.