I went to a talk the other day by Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi. His theme, Lovemarks , was that organisations should strive for ‘love’ as well as respect (odd to hear such a driven corporation talking about love). He suggested a graph with Respect on one axis and Love on the other. This leads to four boxes. Low Love, Low Respect: Commodity items e.g. salt High Love, Low Respect: Fads e.g. Rubik’s cube Low Love, High Respect: Brands e.g. Intel High Love, High Respect: Lovemarks e.g. Apple
He suggested that many organisations strive for respect because they think that’s what is needed and do not understand that ‘love’ is also required. In other words there is no emotional connection between the person and the organisation. Perhaps some charities hover in this box, but others might be too much in the high love, low respect box? In other words the emotional connection is there but is transitory and could easily migrate to another organisation. A useful planning exercise he suggests is to plot where your organisation is on this graph, along with your competitors, and then work out where you want to be and how you will get there. You can also play around trying to position everything from celebrities to countries.
I do think there is something in this about how people, users, donors, staff and trustees relate to organisations. Though part of me reacts strongly and negatively to advertising-types talking about love and respect!
A lot of work we’ve done recently on full value has been to encourage organisations to think about how they are of value to different audiences in different ways.
What the Love and Respect model opens up for me is the point that organisations create value, love and meaning in how they work, their processes and activities as well as the outcomes they deliver for users. And that this is important and some of it is worth capturing and communicating to audiences that matter to them.
From my (very) limited understanding of debates in marketing though, there is some interesting criticism of the Lovemarks idea. Partly this is because of its presumption of a traditional private sector advertising model; the brand is a solid, tangible thing that is owned and communicated by the company and advertisers to comsumers.
I think some of the interesting stuff around marketing now views the brands as a place, not a thing or product, which feels much more immediately relevant to voluntary and community organisations.
So the question for organisations is less “how do we get people to love what we produce more than they love what our competitors produce?” but “what benefits do people get from interacting with us?” Those interactions might be as light as a conversation which mentions the organisation, or as engaged as being a user of that organisation’s services, a staff member, voluteer or trustee.
And such interactions may well involve love and respect.
Oliver
NCVO Research TeamI went to a talk the other day by Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi. His theme, Lovemarks , was that organisations should strive for ‘love’ as well as respect (odd to hear such a driven corporation talking about love). He suggested a graph with Respect on one axis and Love on the other. This leads to four boxes.
Low Love, Low Respect: Commodity items e.g. salt
High Love, Low Respect: Fads e.g. Rubik’s cube
Low Love, High Respect: Brands e.g. Intel
High Love, High Respect: Lovemarks e.g. Apple
He suggested that many organisations strive for respect because they think that’s what is needed and do not understand that ‘love’ is also required. In other words there is no emotional connection between the person and the organisation.
Perhaps some charities hover in this box, but others might be too much in the high love, low respect box? In other words the emotional connection is there but is transitory and could easily migrate to another organisation.
A useful planning exercise he suggests is to plot where your organisation is on this graph, along with your competitors, and then work out where you want to be and how you will get there.
You can also play around trying to position everything from celebrities to countries.
Jake
I do think there is something in this about how people, users, donors, staff and trustees relate to organisations. Though part of me reacts strongly and negatively to advertising-types talking about love and respect!
A lot of work we’ve done recently on full value has been to encourage organisations to think about how they are of value to different audiences in different ways.
What the Love and Respect model opens up for me is the point that organisations create value, love and meaning in how they work, their processes and activities as well as the outcomes they deliver for users. And that this is important and some of it is worth capturing and communicating to audiences that matter to them.
From my (very) limited understanding of debates in marketing though, there is some interesting criticism of the Lovemarks idea. Partly this is because of its presumption of a traditional private sector advertising model; the brand is a solid, tangible thing that is owned and communicated by the company and advertisers to comsumers.
I think some of the interesting stuff around marketing now views the brands as a place, not a thing or product, which feels much more immediately relevant to voluntary and community organisations.
So the question for organisations is less “how do we get people to love what we produce more than they love what our competitors produce?” but “what benefits do people get from interacting with us?” Those interactions might be as light as a conversation which mentions the organisation, or as engaged as being a user of that organisation’s services, a staff member, voluteer or trustee.
And such interactions may well involve love and respect.