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Maury Giles, Partner, Heart + Mind
mgiles@heartandmindstrategies.com


How can brands make decisions during the current uncertainty while taking into account long-term impacts?

Our family was on spring break at a restaurant when the Utah Jazz game on TV was cancelled due to a player testing positive for COVID-19. Within 24 hours the world changed – we worried if we would be able to get home and if we had enough toilet paper and food back at home. Life got crazy. Quick.

Brands face major uncertainty due to the rapid and dramatic changes brought by the pandemic, social unrest and chaotic presidential election. Human needs have changed. Market dynamics shifted overnight – it’s impossible to forecast and predict. As we all adapt and cope, emerging cultural trends are shaping behavior – social distancing, masks, order and delivery, drive-in concerts, etc.

Every company is asking their own version of how to respond. Whether the industry is decimated or overloaded, necessity requires short-term action. But those who become stronger will also focus on the longer-term impact of decisions made now.

Building “brand love” is an attainable and compelling long-term play we are seeing pay off for many brands today. For the last year we worked with Google to deploy multiple research methods and analyses to simplify what “brand love” means, why it matters and how it is built. 

None of us expected to build that model and then have a once-in-a-hundred-years pandemic test it. 

The Google Brand Love Framework offers a simple way to make hard decisions in response to the “new now” of our time. According to Scott Falzone, managing director U.S. telecom at Google, “brand love” results from trust that the company takes care of you (functional trust) and genuinely cares about you (emotional trust). This “love” pays off with more spend (5x), loyalty (4x), word of mouth advocacy (4x) and benefit of the doubt in a crisis (4x).

Thousands of cases demonstrated a clear path to trust. First, a brand must enable something meaningful in life. Second, the brand must make it easy and effortless to interact with them. Finally, “love” emerges when expectations are consistently exceeded through simple surprise-and-delight moments. 

Since COVID, Google had us check what changed. The results are stunning in two ways:

Brands with higher “brand love” scores are seen as having responded better (4x).

Brands that have focused on taking care of people (functional trust) by surprising them with real help and making the interaction easier have improved their brand love score.

We believe brands should:

  • Anchor in an authentic purpose – this can’t be faked.
  • Be clear on what you enable now and into the future.
  • Identify how you best deliver on functional and emotional needs.
  • During COVID-19 focus more heavily on how you take care of people.
  • Hold actions accountable to surprise and delight customers and make it effortless to engage.