Culture Machine

A purchase becomes “An Experience”, a customer service representative becomes a “Geek” or a “Genius”, and a product becomes a “Badge of Your Musical Devotion.” On the surface it may seem trivial, harmless and basic marketing rhetoric until you have an entire country running on disposable electronics, cheap coffee and donuts.

Emotional Branding
I believe it is a phenomenon of contemporary marketing and we are at its pentacle. Created to provide the consumer a more engaging interaction with the vendor, Emotional Branding has become a new business model for success in the consumer marketplace. The idea of Emotional Branding was best described by Marc Gobé,

Emotional Branding has opened the pathway to an entirely new kind of thinking, which explores how brands can connect with people in a more sensitive and humanistic way and touch people profoundly at the level of the senses and emotions.

Marc Gobé, Emotional Branding - The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People.

In theory I believe Emotional Branding is a wonderful idea. It is empowering to the consumer, it insinuates a higher level of customer service and most importantly it places the practicing business at the same level as the consumer.

Darwin Marketing
However Emotional Branding has evolved into a powerful tool for building a culture around a product. Traditionally a culture is founded by a history of shared experiences, emotions and values. In this case culture is manufactured and is a shallow, substance-less framework created to transfix a group by projecting idealistic values around a product.

Generation Who?
The corporations in question cannot be held entirely responsible. The age falling into this culture trap seems to most commonly be those from ages 15-30. This group arguably has the weakest sense of self-identity to ever be targeted by marketers. There has been no radical movement, no revolutionary musicians, no influential political leaders and no major wars to claim scores of its youth.

For the corporations, the trap was already set. All that had to be done was to create an appealing culture around a product using Emotional Branding techniques. Armed with their new pseudo-culture this league of buyers becomes loyal to a product beyond reason.