Zen and the art of super-brands
‘Hello, my darling friends, I’m honoured to be with you today, so hop into something comfy and let’s get started.’’ These are the words I hear most days from my new digital bestie and yoga instructor Adriene.
If you haven’t heard of her over the past few weeks, you must have disappeared into the land of Zoom. The kind, humble, girl-next-door yoga instructor has become a super-brand of the lockdown period.
But don’t be fooled into thinking that her YouTube presence is anything but carefully constructed – from the ordinary yoga wear, and her homely and minimal surroundings, to her loveable mutt Benji.
The thing about Adriene is that we trust her. She is you and me – except a lot more supple. We trust her to make us feel better, to fix our aches and pains and not to cause us more injuries by asking us to stand on our heads or do other humiliating moves we’ve tried before in yoga classes.
It’s something we don’t really think about when we’re buying products or services, but trust is a big part of how we make our purchasing decisions.
Lost in the murk of lockdown and buried under the daily news diet of Covid-19 test results, the annual New Zealand trusted brand survey was recently published.
What on earth, I ask myself, has trust got to do with buying glue products, laundry detergent, lawnmowers or fruit tea products?
Readers Digest, which runs the public perceptions research, says trust is that intangible quality that signals reliability and integrity and reassures us we are making the right choice.
Cost, quality and desirability are important, but the customer experience and delivering on the promise are what wins us over, it says. Trust in brands, it seems, is much like trust in people – you trust them if you believe they won’t let you down.
This year, chocolate company Whittaker’s topped the poll for the ninth consecutive time. Chocolate is hardly something you’d associate with trust, but as my daughter put it: ‘‘At least you know it will taste good and hopefully they don’t use child labour.’’
Branding experts talk about an emotional connection – fair enough with chocolate – but what about runner-up Mitre 10? Who knew that buying a new hammer or a bag of nails evoked any emotion?
But here are a couple of my ‘‘click and collect’’ lockdown experiences that have made me think differently.
In managing my order, DIY shop Bunnings was efficient, safe and helpful. In contrast, The Warehouse still hasn’t responded, didn’t answer its live chat or email, and its phone message promised I’d be waiting an hour to speak to a human. Guess where my trust vote goes next time?
As far as professions go, in New Zealand we have the highest trust in doctors, teachers and engineers. We trust politicians and the news media least.
It will be interesting to see if Covid-19 changes that. Surely the media gets a vote of confidence for delivering useful, responsible and instructive information throughout the lockdown? And our political leaders haven’t been getting a bad rap lately either.
On the other hand, we may be thinking twice about our aged family members going into a retirement home after they became targets for Covid clusters.
As far as products go, hand sanitisers and cleaning products could well lead the trusted brands in the next survey. Although I’ll still find it hard to go past a good block of dark chocolate and a bit of online Zen with Adriene.