A Direct Marketing Agency - Helping Brands Acquire and Retain Customers

Serenity, peace, relaxation, calm and spirituality.  I recently read an article titled, Zen and the Art of Brand Maintenance, and began to reflect on my own personal affinity towards brands that attach spiritual experiences to their product and wondered what has prompted this trend and how does it affect the way in which people buy.  If you think back to your management classes and the discussions about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it becomes clear.  The '90s were a time of prosperity.  American consumers (me included) were trying to fulfill their esteem needs and purchasing everything their money could buy.  Did we find happiness in these worldly possessions?  For a short time perhaps, but eventually it just brought frustration.  Too many toys, and no time to play because we’re too busy working to pay off the bills.  For many, this has created the desire for simplification as they journey down the path to self-actualization (truth, goodness, simplicity, totality, uniqueness) through their brand experiences.  Having less, but truly more. 

So how does this affect the way people buy?

Consumers are willing to pay more for brands that fulfill a higher need such as self-actualization.  Brands that offer customers an emotional experience become truly memorable and sought out, such as the Starbucks example in the article above. And cause marketing, if properly aligned with the target market’s needs, interests and passions, plays a more significant role in influencing brand perceptions and forging stronger connections with consumers. 

The Dalai Lama in his book titled, A Simple Path, states that “everything beautiful and good, everything we consider desirable, brings us suffering in the end. That is the nature of things – they change.”  Therefore, spiritually-infused brands will, in time, have to evolve too, as trends, like all things – they change.