New book by ESADE Prof. Oriol Iglesias explains how top brands transform desire into business
Innovation, experience, participation, culture of leadership and storytelling: these are the principles that a brand must embody in order to arouse desire in its consumers. These principles form the basis of a new book, Brand Desire (Bloomsbury Publishing), by Oriol Iglesias, Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at ESADE Business School, and Nicholas Ind, Associate Professor at Kristiania University College in Oslo. According to Prof. Iglesias and Prof. Ind – who presented the new book yesterday in London – desire is the deepest level of relationship with a brand, beyond preference and loyalty. Desire transforms consumers into a brand’s best influencers and even its best source of innovation. This relationship can only be compared with that of a company’s most fervent employees.
To reach this conclusion and develop their exhaustive representation model, the authors of Brand Desire conducted a rigorous academic study and interviewed executives from some of the world’s top brands. In the authors’ opinion, desire does not occur spontaneously; you have to build it, and it’s not just a matter of marketing. This process also requires profound reflection on the company’s entire organisational culture. “The most desired brands are those which are driven internally, but which also take external reality into account, commented Prof. Iglesias.
Sources of desire
According to Prof. Iglesias and Prof. Ind, desire for particular brands is drawn from five sources: sensuality, authenticity, surprise, deep meaning and social identity. “The most desired brands provide simple, immediate and personalised experiences, commented Prof. Iglesias. “If brands want to maintain that desire, they need to be consistent but also offer surprises. He added: “To achieve this, companies must invest in telling and building stories, making them evolve and aligning them with activities and experiences.
In the conclusion of Brand Desire, the authors demonstrate that, in a saturated supply scenario, desire for a brand can make any product or service stand out from the crowd and stay there. Desirable brands revolve around desirable experiences, and they show how companies can leverage these experiences in a personalised way for consumers.
About the authors
Oriol Iglesias is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at ESADE Business School. He previously served as head of the department and of the ESADE Brand Institute, a centre specialised in consulting services for large international brands. Prof. Iglesias is also the current head of the Research Group on Brand Management.
Nicholas Ind is an Associate Professor at Kristiania University College in Oslo and a partner at Equilibrium Consulting. He previously served as Director of Brand Consulting at Icon Medialab in Sweden. Before that, he ran his own brand consulting firm in the United Kingdom. Prof. Ind has written ten books, including The Corporate Brand, Living the Brand and Brand Together.
