Every Customer Has a Story
Malcontent Strategy
The customer journey is filled with violent confrontations — and some are more valuable than others.
Every face you see on the street is hiding something. Although happiness can coexist with immense pain and sadness, more often than not, most people are carrying the weight of tragedy beneath a cheery facade.
When brands foster awareness among potential customers, they’re often triggering memories of suffering and despair. For example, when Amy* sees a billboard for a resort package in Cuba, she’s reminded of the uprising that forced her grandparents to flee in the dead of night, only to see them be accused by liberal arts students as being bourgeois traitors. When Ted* sees a misdirected Instagram advertisement for a Viktor & Rolf perfume at Sephora, he’s reminded of his ex-girlfriend, whose sudden midnight departure forced an uncomfortable self-reflection of his terrible behaviour over the course of their relationship. The skinny? People are always in their feelings — kiki!
*Names changed to protect the identity of the author
Purchases are often made when a customer is emotionally distressed. When the bottom-line is money, retailers would be wise to seek customers out at this vulnerable point. Startup BereaveMe, for example, allows Amazon and Walmart to reach out to mourners sitting shiva in the tri-state area, helping them purchase items like snacks and electronics without forcing them to leave their home. Similarly, Zara’s Chief Emotional Shopping Officer (CESO) Charles Lindbergh Jr reports that ads targeted to recently single women on Facebook lead to high sales of that white-and-blue off the shoulder top everyone seems to have.
If companies want their customers to advocate for them, they’re going to need to tap into the complexities of their story. This means restructuring and targeting from the top down. If brands want to appeal to their customers, better understand their stories, and cull emotions as purchases, they need to be where their customers are. That’s why it’s important for brands to work with therapists, counsellors, human-resources, bartenders, and hairdressers to identify the unique, painful and complex histories beneath every pair of sparkling eyes. There is, fundamentally, a hidden truth behind every person — and that truth translates to money.
