sxsw: brands that believe in sex after marriage

Brands that believe in sex after marriage

Noel FranusVP/Experience Director@nfranus

Sex is awesome.

Intimacy builds relationships.

Six different different types of love.

1. Eros: erotic desire.2. Ludus: playful love, entertainment, excitement.3. Storge: slowly brewing sense of attachment.4. Mania: obsessive love.5. Agape: altruistic, compassion, selfless.6. Pragma: practical love, social qualities, tradition.

...but with one overarching factor:

Intimacy.

It’s why we do what we do when we’re in a committed relationship.

(Robert Sternberg 1984)

You and I are in the business of creating long-term relationships.

Yet most of us are focused on one aspect of that relationship: the beginning.

THINK FEEL THINK FEEL BUY!

Some of us see and work toward the bigger re-engagement opportunity.

(And it’s a lifelong opportunity.)

Do our brands, products or services behave in a way that encourages meaningful long-term relationships?

• Products designed with planned obsolescence• Marketing that strikes an emotional chord but misleads

on product/service benefits• Emails high on frequency but low on intelligence• Loyalty programs = impersonal bribes• Coupons: cue, routine, reward. Is this enough?

Well...

“Retention” is a dirty word because it has no visbily humane outputs.

If we want customers for life, we must re-imagine how we’ll establish and maintain intimacy with them—as people, not as targets.

It’s not enough to put customers at the center of what you do. You need to understand them—intimately.

Thought exercise: how would you design your next product or service if there were no follow-up emails or coupons to bring people back? What if you had to bake intimacy into the thing itself from the start?

The good news? We’ve never had an opportunity like this before.

DATA UBIQUITY LOCATION AWARENESS INVISIBLE INTERFACES

NETWORKED PEOPLE ADAPTIVE ENVIRONMENTS

This opportunity is a value exchange. So, people will have demands.

Here’s a top-four list of what they’ll want to know from anyone who wants to get intimate with them.

4. What will you know about me?

3. Will you apply that knowledge in useful or inspiring ways?

2. Will you surprise me?

3. Where are the surprises?

1. What would life be like without you?

Conveniently applies to personal relationships, too.

1. What would life be like without you?2. Will you surprise me?3. Will you apply that knowledge in useful

or inspiring ways?4. What will you know about me?

“Of course I deal with the obvious. I present, reiterate, and glorify the obvious—because the obvious is what people need to be told. The greatest need of people is to know how to deal with other people. This should come naturally to them, but it doesn’t.”

(The first and last time I’ll ever quote Dale Carnegie)

Intimacy builds relationships.

Strong relationships = more fireworks.

Thank you.

Noel FranusVP/Experience Director@nfranus