My blog post today has been inspired by the feedback I’ve received from two previous posts that I’ve written. And I’m going to expand on the ideas and insights a little further (free of charge of course). Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post called 4 Insights Into the Future of Advertising that has received some buzz. The article itself addressed what the future of advertising will look like. And I highly suggest you read it before or even after this article.
Not too long after that article, I also wrote a guest blog post on idaconcpts.com called How to Market to Millennials, which received some significant buzz. It dealt with the mysterious issue of marketing to the Millennials (or Generation-Y) demographic. Again, I highly suggest you read it before or after this article.
By Christopher Chan
The idea behind today’s article originally stemmed from a comment left by Carol Phillips but involves ideas from both articles. She suggested a 5th insight into the future of advertising where it “may be the beginning of the end for the ‘product brand’ and a golden age for ‘lifestyle brands’.” And I completely agree with her on this. Either brands will have to transform or it will be the end of them.
Previously, brands have been an aspect of life. Something we interact with and use but most important, something we did not necessarily need for life. It seems that there is a shift occurring where brands are becoming a part of our life, representing a style of life. Some brands have all along had this aspect of “lifestyle brand” (for instance Virgin, as brought up by Carol). But there are some outlier brands that are taking this type of brand strategy serious.
Apple would definitely be the simplest and easiest one to dissect. And it’s a brand that is quite frankly apparent to everyone, regardless if they are an Apple product user or not. The fact of the matter is that Apple is simply not selling a product, it’s selling a lifestyle. A lifestyle that is being pushed by the Millennials. A lifestyle that is putting outlier brands into the mainstream.
Imagine for one second if you couldn’t use your iPhone, iPod, MacBook or iPad. The brand is not simply reflecting your lifestyle. It is becoming your style of life. We are making these products more necessary to life than they have previously been.
Though, Apple is simply a small piece in a pie that is getting larger. In a recent article, Chanel and BMW were considered top brands by Gen-Y amongst others. One thing all these brands have in common is that they are not selling you a smartphone or a purse or a car. Rather they are selling you an iPhone, a Chanel accessory and a BMW 6 Series. And it’s an aspect that dominates the Millennials way of thinking.
Rather than waiting to buy products that they can truly afford (and when I say truly I mean they are not simply working for the next thing they want to buy but actually have the capital to live that lifestyle), all Millennials want to live their dream lifestyle now. And it doesn’t really have to do with the products being luxurious. It has to do with the products being part of a dream lifestyle. It has to do with the product representing who you are and how you want to be perceived.
In the next five to ten years, we’ll all be witnesses to lifestyle branding. Some of these brands have always set themselves in that category. And there are plenty that are emerging. However don’t be surprised if you start to see less obvious brands take on this different role. After all, they are all trying to sell to you.
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[...] Product-defined brands are giving way to lifestyle-defined brands. [...]