Dr. Aaron Ahuvia knows a thing or two about superfans. He co-authored the publication that popularized the term “brand love” and is the world’s most widely published and cited academic expert on non-interpersonal love. He’s the author of The Things We Love: How Our Passions Connect Us and Make Us Who We Are.
Aaron is a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan Dearborn. Aaron researches, teaches, and consults for governments, non-profits, and corporations across the world, including Google, L’Oreal, Samsung, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Ford, and many more.
In this episode, Aaron and I discuss the way our brains process love and how you can adapt his scientific research to create superfans for your brand.
listen to the podcast
show notes
2:40 – How does Aaron define ‘brand love’?
3:30 – How is brand love different from interpersonal love?
7:08 – What are the steps to creating brand love?
7:39 – The difference between valuing something and loving it
9:30 – The human brain decides if something is a human or an object at two different times
10:05 – In order to love anything, your unconscious mind has to treat it as if it is a person
10:34 – The three different ways you can get your customers to think of your product or service as a person
12:55 – Brittany connects Aaron’s research on brand love to mascots
16:03 – Why it’s easier for some salespeople to cultivate ‘love’ than others
17:45 – In order to get people to love a brand at an unconscious level, you’ve got to get people to sort your brand into the social world
20:35 – the importance of cultivating brand love with your employees
24:30 – Why mission-driven companies are more likely to have brand love
27:13 – the correlation between religion and brand love
29:47 – How did Aaron coin the term ‘brand love’?
31:38 – What has changed over the last 30+ years since Aaron started studying brand love?
32:50 – What brand is Aaron a SUPERFAN of?
Get his book: The Things We Love
Visit his website.
