Chapter 1: Charity Lovemarks - What are they?

Chapter 1: What is a Lovemark?

A recent article by Stephen Pidgeon for Third Sector talked about Kevin Robert’s book Lovemarks. In short the book is aimed at the commercial sector, stating that in order for a brand to become truly important in a person’s life, that brand has to earn their respect and their love.

Brand loyalty is shifting into Lovemarks, where brands had our respect, Lovemarks have our respect and love. Companies are looking for ways to integrate their products or services into our everyday lives, to have us build their products into our identities. Do you use Google or Bing? Wear Nike or Adidas? Who uses Bing?! They want us to pick them and stick with them beyond reason.

Companies, brands, products… how does this relate to charities? Your cause is your brand. The general public is your target market. In his article, Simon Pidgeon reflects on hearing the Chairman of Macmillan Cancer support at the time, 10 years ago, ask why they couldn’t become a Lovemark. Have you heard of Macmillan Cancer Support? Is that a silly question? It can be done.

Companies are looking to shift the emphasis of selling their product over to “…adding experience and pumping excitement,” and answering the consumer question, ‘How will you improve my life?’ I struggle to see how a charity couldn’t add experience to people’s lives and get people excited about what they’re doing. As for improving their life… this is too easy! Okay, it’s not that easy because there are still companies out their failing and falling behind but surely charities are even better placed than companies to be employing these ideas and strategies.

There are three key ingredients to becoming a Lovemark according to Roberts – Mystery, Sensuality and Intimacy. Our next blog will look at ideas on how charities can use these ingredients to set themselves up as Lovemarks.

Keep an eye out on our news page further chapters of how to introduce your Lovemark.