Return on Emotion Invested

What happens when you get closer to the girl you liked in your first interaction?
Chances are that as you get closer, your relationship gets richer. As you would get to know new things about her, you would like her even more. From talking to walking to laughing and even crying together would become a unique experience.
For you, everything about that girl would be special, just the way you are to her.
No wonder as time would pass and you would get closer to her, the bond would only get strengthened and both of you would explore new dimensions of each other’s feelings.

Isn’t it how it should be with brands as well?
Ideally it should be but unfortunately our interactions with brands follow a path, which is just the opposite of the boy-girl love that I mentioned above. It is almost like a journey of Diminishing Return on Emotions Invested.
I can say at least about the ‘popular’ product and service brands in India – be it Indian or MNC,

I would like to illustrate it with an example.
What happens when we want to buy a car?

Emotionally Charged Stage 1: We prepare a mental shortlist of cars basis some TV Commercials or friendly recommendations or basis plain liking for some cars that we have seen moving around or have glanced at in parking lots. At this stage everything is as rosy as perhaps it can be.
Almost like the romance of a beautiful girl in the neighbourhod that we have been exchanging glances with.
Next we go to some web sites and incase we are not as net savvy then perhaps we head straight to a dealership.

Emotionally Active Stage 2: What happens at the dealership?
Well, a salesman tries to make us feel comfortable by executing his ‘protocol’ as he asks “Sir Tea or Coffee?” But beyond this nothing is as rosy as it was in stage 1. The romance begins to wane.
Our salesman asks us about the car we want to buy and little does he try and understand why we want to buy that car. May be has too many customers to look after or may be he just does not know what it means to sell people what is ‘right’ for them and win their confidence.

Emotionally Confused Stage 3: Once we have given him our preference he tries to get us a testdrive (if we ask for it!).
What happens in the test drive?
Our salesman is again too busy with other customers and he details a ‘showroom driver’ to accompany us for the test drive.
During the test drive we discover that the driver accompanying us has no clue about the car and that his only job is to park cars in the showroom & deliver cars on predesignated dates and addresses.
The driver himself makes a point about how the salesman should have accompanied us for the testdrive for he is not placed to answer things that we ask him about the car during the drive.

Emotionally Disenchanted Stage 4: By the time we are back from the test drive and assuming that we have liked the car we then start interacting with another set of below par service. These are the finance company representatives. They are masters of over-commitment and under delivery (percentage of loan they would arrange, the loan disbursement date on one side & lower percentage of loan and delay in disbursal).
By this time our initial love for the car has been replaced by stress and anxiety about delivery of car, availability of desired colour on day of delivery, disbursal of loan etc.

Emotionally Distressed Stage 5: The story does not end with the delivery actually it begins from there and how I wish that companies also realized this!
When we go for the first service of our car, we meet another set of executives that are even one step below in service delivery as compared to their showroom and finance company cousins.

What we saw happening is that the quality of interaction with the brand goes down steadily from the first interaction through TVC or the personal reference.
How then can we expect brand bonding to happen when every consecutive stage in brand interaction is a step lower in quality to the previous stage?
How can love linger if relationships were nurtured thus?
It is time marketers started focusing more on brand delivery more than brand promise.
The future of branding is in action, not abstraction.