HOW POWERFUL IS THE BRAND VALUE OF OPTIMISM?
When the clocks went back last week, and everybody got a bit overly excited about the fact that there was a chance that you could now go home at the end of the working day in daylight, it reinforced how strong the feeling of optimism is among us Brits.
The fact that there was snow in most of the country, and that London experienced driving wind and rain did little to undermine the feeling that summer was just around the corner. We are, apparently, laden with more debt as a country than ever before and the economy is shot (although that is not being felt at Start Towers at the moment). The next few years will be grim according to economic analysts, and we have the prospect of an election that may well result in a hung parliament, meaning that the immediate prospects for us all are more doom and gloom than uplift and inspiration.
Yet the British sensibility is that we treat such things as run of the mill. We treat the advent of spring/summer as momentous. I swear that the number of smiles in London has increased by a factor of three in the last week and it is purely down to the extra hour of daylight.
This is pure, unadulterated optimism. The prospect of long summer nights suddenly becomes attainable. The end of grey days, grey skies and grey moods.
There is a lot to be learnt from this. Brands that don’t take advantage of their equivalent of the dawning of summer are missing a huge trick. Tapping into optimism is always going to be a cost-effective marketing strategy, whether your summer is in fact summer or winter. Music festivals are a great case in point – people love the idea of festivals more than the actual experience, yet the totality of the experience including the many months leading up to the festival once you have secured your ticket outwieghs any negatives with the experience itself. Holidays are another example – how many people get more out of their holiday when they are still at work versus the holiday itself?
On paper, this may seem incredibly obvious -a very early morning flight demanding that you are at the airport at 6 in the morning, a two-hour transfer from the airport, buffet lunches galore and horrendous decor in your room, the German towel syndrome and constant heckling to do a horrific tour all point to a bad experience. Yet we still boldly book the holiday, highlighting the positives: “Amazing beaches. Crete (or wherever) is so nice at that time of year, and the people are fantastic”.
The fact is, we are a nation of optimists. And consequently we respond well to messages that tap into optimism.
How many people prefer pessimists to optimists?
The thing about about optimism though is that it is NOT about showing happy smiley people enjoying your product or service. It is a spirit rather than an action. The smiling faces are the outcome rather than the means of communication.
Will this be a summer of sun to remember? Of course it will.