Romancing The Brand: How Brands Create Strong, Intimate Relationships With Consumers

The must-have guide for convincing consumers to fall in love with your brand

As consumers, we don't just use brands—we engage in a rich, complex, ever-changing relationship with them. Seasoned marketers of the most successful brands know that consumers who feel emotionally connected to a brand stay loyal, resist marketing gimmicks from competitors, and influence others to try the brand they love. How can marketers work to cultivate and grow those consumer relationships that will drive lasting success for their brands?

Romancing the Brand shows how to start, grow, maintain, and troubleshoot a successful relationship between brand and consumer, sharing the secrets behind establishing a mutually beneficial "romance." Drawing on exclusive, in-depth interviews with managers of some of the world's most iconic brands, Tim Halloran shares the arsenal of classic and emerging marketing tools—such as benefit laddering and word-of-mouth marketing—that make best-in-class brands successful. He also reveals what most marketers are missing in their quest to master new techniques such as social media and big data. Ultimately, Romancing the Brand provides marketers with a new roadmap for making brands strong and resilient and keeping consumers coming back for more.

• Offers a relevant set of principles for fostering long-lasting brand-consumer relationships within a rapidly evolving marketing landscape
• Includes strategies, tools, and real-life examples of successful brands, such as Coke and Dos Equis, that continue to engage their consumer base
• Written by Timothy Halloran, a branding expert and consultant with over 20 years of brand management experience as president of Brand Illumination and marketing instructor at Mercer and Emory University

Romancing the Brand gives marketers an insightful guide to creating and maintaining a loyal following for their brand.

Tim Halloran is president of Brand Illumination. He has built, directed, and consulted with some of the world's largest brands, at top companies including Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Delta Airlines, glaceau (vitaminwater and smartwater), Georgia Pacific, the NBA, and Turner Broadcasting System. His successes include the national launch of Powerade sports drink and its sponsorship of the Olympics, codevelopment of Dasani bottled water, and the development of Coke's first Internet marketing initiative. He was awarded Innovator of the Year by Coca-Cola and named Max Award Finalist for Innovation by Georgia State University. He has taught at Emory University and Mercer University, and he lives in Atlanta with his wife and three children.