Brands have a strong presence in today's marketplace, largely due to the fact that communication keeps brands alive and current in the minds of consumers. Advertising, for example, can attempt to convince consumers to make certain purchase decisions, while also reminding consumers of their great decisions after the purchase. Despite the fact that brands live in this way, their real power is that they do not experience the limits of a physical lifespan.
Though consumers buy products with an understanding that those products will "die"—that is, wear out or deteriorate, be eaten, malfunction, etc., the brands are kept alive as abstractions that live on for the purpose of lasting impressions helping to inform future purchase decisions.
While brands are often looked at by consumers in much the same way relationships are—including with elements of trust, promises, broken promises, and comfort—they differ in the sense that they need the enduring immortality. Brands are extensively linked to memory, and live on in a way that is not reliant on physical lifespan. Just as individuals no longer with us leave impressions on our memories, so, too, do brands. Drawing power from persuasion and recollection of experience, brands look to achieve immortality, so to speak, in the ways they interact with consumers while consumers form judgments of a brand’s products and services. In the best outcome, the immortal presence is a positive one, linked to tradition and not easily disrupted or eliminated.
Key words: Brand, Connection, Consumer, Marketing, Products
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