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Wednesday with Marc Babej

This is the first in a series of Wednesday blog interviews. I hope to bring you many more interesting people and perspectives in the coming weeks. And now . . . Marc Babej.

Marc is the president of Reason, Inc. He holds degrees from Brown University (A.B.) and Columbia University (M.S., Journalism). During his years as a reporter for Forbes Magazine, Marc fell in love with the world of business - so much so that he didn't just want to observe it, but become a part of it: first as a Strategic Planner at creative agencies Deutsch Advertising and Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, then as a Senior Vice President at JWT and DMB&B. Throughout, he developed strategies that didn't just influence the way people felt about a brand, but motivated transaction behavior.

In 2001, Marc left the agency business to pursue his dream of a true strategy firm - one that would be aligned with clients, both philosophically and practically. First, it would offer a new approach that focused single-mindedly on business results. Second, the new firm would be demonstrably objective: free from the inevitable conflicts of interest that arise from up-selling other services, such as creative development or research. After more than a year of refining the concept, Marc founded Reason inc. in 2002.

Tom Asacker asks . . .

In your most recent Brandweek column you write, “We’ve heard it repeated so often that we have almost come to accept it as gospel: to get under consumers’ skins, you need to make an ‘emotional connection’ with them. It seems that every ad agency or brand consultancy under the sun has champions ‘emotional connection,’ claiming a unique ability to tap it, create it, and leverage it.” As someone who has been espousing a focus on people’s feelings as a basis for business strategy for as long as I can remember, I was a little taken aback by your lead in. Can you share your thinking on the subject and tell us how you got there?

MB: Having read A Clear Eye on Branding (which, i.m.h.o. is one of the few books worth reading on the subject), I know that, language aside, our views aren’t far apart at all. You and I both talk about emotional connection as a result, whereas conventional branding wisdom presents it as an end in itself. That’s sloppy thinking.

Emotional connection as a result vs. emotional connection as an end in itself? I’m a little confused. Please help me with that.

Conventional branding wisdom assumes that “emotional” and “rational” are somehow mutually exclusive, or opposed. That’s a false dichotomy. In reality, the two are very much intertwined. Save for a few image-driven categories, an emotional connection is the result of delivering against a tangible – call it “rational” benefit. By any standard, mileage per gallon is a rational benefit. But it elicits quite an emotional response, particularly with gas prices hovering around $3 per gallon. The Prius, is probably the most “rational” car in decades. It’s not cute, fun or sexy, but owners are quite emotional about it, for quite rational reasons.

So the emotional connection is really the result of an evaluative, cognitive process.

Exactly. Conventional advertising agencies and brand consultancies claim that what applies to purely image-driven categories (where there is no tangible benefit to speak of) is the rule and not the exception. They claim to have a magic sauce that enables them to build emotional connections even absent a tangible reason to choose. Not by coincidence, the magic sauce happens to be whatever the firm is selling: “creative” ads; brand identities; market research and so on. Unlike you, for example, most people in branding have little experience outside of marketing communications, so they have a vested interest in claiming that communications built on “emotional connection” can substitute for actual differentiation at the product or service level.

But isn’t there an emotional component transferred through things like design and marketing communications, even for products with rational attributes as their primary competitive advantage? I mean, I have some very rational friends who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Prius.

Of course. Different strokes for different folks. But I have never understood how the “emotional” vs. “rational” distinction advances thinking about marketing strategy. When I write a strategy, I don’t sit there thinking about whether and to what degree the connection it amounts to is rational or emotional. What matters to me is that it amounts to a reason to choose my client’s offering over the competition. And in most categories, such a reason is rooted in a tangible differentiation.

Makes perfect sense to me. Thank you Marc for sharing your views.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Marc's blog: www.being-reasonable.com

Posted October 12, 2005
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