The document discusses marketing strategies through an analogy to romantic relationships. It provides 9 rules for successful marketing/dating: 1) Know your strengths 2) Don't limit yourself to one type 3) Don't push for long-term commitment early 4) Listen to customers 5) Back up words with actions 6) Keep things fresh 7) Aim to be part of customers' considerations rather than demanding loyalty 8) Build trust but it can be destroyed quickly 9) Give customers space. The overall message is that treating customers with intimacy, empathy and focus on their needs and benefits leads to stronger relationships than traditional brand-centric strategies.

1. Wooing and keeping customers romantically Make love not war

2. Marketing is a battlefield, Is it? I have always been amazed at the similarity between marketing and warfare Terms such as penetration, tactics, objectives, campaigns, etc. The military analogy doesn’t end there – target audience, rifle and shotgun approaches to distinguish our methodologies.

3. Go gently On the flip side, there is a softer, gentler, marketing movement; the era of customer satisfaction, delight and now intimacy, However, customer delight, satisfaction and even surprise just don’t hit the mark. Intimacy comes close to the true benchmark for the brand-consumer relationship LOVE

4. Say what? Love is important :because all the hallmarks that define a human-to-human relationship apply to a brand-to-consumer one. In fact, the very reason we love brands -because they are parts of our lives that are intertwined with our own self concept and image.

5. Follow Copernicus Untilnow the focus on brand-centric solutions, but we need to flip the universe. Just as Copernicus and Galileo challenged the established convention that the earth is the centre of the universe, we too must shift paradigms. The consumer is the SUN, not the brand. May be hard to accept, but all truly great brands make the consumer their focus.

6. WIIFM? The successful brand emphatically answers the question WIIFM? (What’s In It For Me?) with ‘value’. “Unless you love your consumer,” says my friend, Sumit Roy, an Indian marketing expert, “don’t expect the consumer to love the brand.” Simple, but true.

7. Unoriginal idea I’m not the first to expound this theory. Kevin Roberts has been saying the same thing in Lovemarks, and so have many others Ries and Trout laid the basis for this when they told the marketing world that the consumer is in control of the brand; its flexibility, its success and its future. Embrace the consumer, they said, and you will succeed. So here are a few rules that work for the marketing/dating game.

8. Rule 1- Know Thyself Know thyself: The first rule of the marketing (dating) game is know what you have to offer and how you can stand out in the crowd. Evaluate yourself. Are you intelligent? Popular? A gifted talker? Usually you focus on the wrong thing which is why you don’t succeed in being noticed. What is the one thing you can offer that no other man (brand) can? Find it and learn to use it.

9. Rule 2- Don’t wait for Ms Right In the game you will often gravitate towards a certain type of girl; avoid the first instinct and inclination. If you haven’t had any success, it may be because you are trying to attract the wrong girl. When British Telecom wanted to increase talk time they did not focus on the young or on women, but on middle-aged men. Not the obvious choice.

10. Rule 3- Don’t look for commitment Congratulations, you managed to get the girl to go out with you. Don’t push it and start thinking long term. Why? Because being forceful does not usually work. In his brilliant book Games People Play, the late Dr Eric Berne put forth the theory that people interact to get ‘strokes’. Strokes are the recognition, attention or responsiveness that we give each other. If you expect 3 strokes from an acquaintance more strokes will leave you perplexed. According to this theory, asking the girl to marry you on date number one is out of the question, and so is asking a first time user to become loyal.

11. Rule 4- Converse don’t monologue! Most men are accused of being bad listeners; most brands have the same flaw. Relationships (of all types) break down because of lack of communication. Don’t talk, listen too. Being receptive is important and will keep your relationship healthy.

12. Rule 5- Let actions talk! Back in the 90s, Extreme had a hit song with More Than Words. The popularity of the song may have waned but the logic is still sound. Less talk, more action. Be ready to back up what you say with what you do. Say one thing and do one thing. From a brand perspective this means all the different communication modes – advertising, PR, sales – should enforce the same message through actions not words.

13. Rule 6- Keep it fresh! In the famous Microsoft ad, ‘Bring the Love Back’,remember what the girl says? “We are not hanging out in the same places anymore!” You need to update the relationship, in terms of not only what you say but where and how you say it. Remember that where and how you say it should be suited to her needs, not your own idea of what will work. If you don’t know how to win or keep her heart, ask those closest to her, or ask her yourself.

14. Rule 7- Can’t be the husband, be the boyfriend! Let’s face it, 100% loyalty is the stuff of fairytales and marketing textbooks. It’s the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In his book, What’s in a Name? John Phillip Jones identified different patterns of brand usage which varied from cyclical to random, to seasonal. Consumers usually rotate around two to three brands in terms of their loyalty. So your first aim should be to be part of her life, to be in the consideration set or confidence set.

15. Rule 8- TRUST Trust is the cornerstone of a vibrant brand-consumer relationship. Building trust takes a while; it’s a gradual process. Build trust through empathy and understanding; be appreciative. Trust, however, can be destroyed in an instant. My mother used to tell me this when I was growing up, “There are three ways of communicating; telephone, television and tell a woman!” The internet has added a new option – blogs and social media. Today, if you betray the trust and break the bond the whole world could know about it very soon.

16. Rule 9- Give Space In the USA they say that space heaters need space. They are not the only ones that need it. Earlier I said don’t rush things; you also have to avoid crowding the relationship. Give her time to herself, you want to make her feel loved not owned.

17. Follow these rules, make love not war (sorry for the cliché) and you will succeed in the marketing game.

18. About me: I’m a marketer who has worked in advertising as a media planner for over 5 ½ years. I’ve worked on a variety of accounts at agencies with associations with Lowe Partners and PublicisGroupe. I have written several articles for Aurora, Pakistan’s leading marketing and advertising magazine I can be reached at : tyrone.tellis@gmail.com Thanks