The quote by Michael Lazerow (chief marketing officer of the Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud) absolutely stunned me:
"[Consumers] are searching for emotional connections to companies, not just transactional relationships."
Really? I understand that people are certainly more open to developing brand loyalty, much of which comes down to their responsiveness to consumer demands. I understand that people are looking to have input into what the company produces and how they practice their business (e.g., there's an interesting series of videos on Tyler Oakley and how he's negotiating relationships with companies like Taco Bell using his YouTube channel). I also understand that companies are legal 'persons.' But are individual people really looking for an emotional connection to a company? In their loneliness, are they looking to products and services to fill the void? Perhaps not, but as they seek to fulfill their need for emotional connection by using social media, companies are certainly taking advantage of the screen's real estate.
Advertising is all about emotional appeal--simulating or attempting to elicit an emotional connection between a potential consumer and the product or service. This article highlights that it's just going to get more pervasive and focused. As transactions become more emotionally loaded, we will plunge further down the path of materialism (and debt) many Canadians are on right now.
If anything, we need more rational connections to companies. We need to consider who we are outside of our purchasing power. And we need to pursue emotional connections with people in spaces free of commercial transaction distractions.