No. ONE. CARES.

Many agencies and marketers claim that they will build a loyal and passionate community around your company. But the scientifically validated reality is that, just like computers, human beings have limited processing power. We use up our mental energy on things that matter. Of course, there are brands with large and loyal customer bases who think about, breathe, and live the brand daily: think Taylor Swift, FC Barcelona, or the One Piece anime as an example. But these are the 0.01% exception. Note that their customers probably don't even think of these three examples as brands (even though they are) and that they think of themselves as fans - not consumers.

It is likely that your brand does not have a fan club and will never have one. But here is the good news. You can use the fact that customers don't care to your advantage. When we are unwilling or unable to allocate mental energy to a decision, task, or message, we process information peripherally and use mental shortcuts (called heuristics). Heuristics are effective tools to position your brand favorably against the competition and persuade customers to buy your products or messaging.

Every day, from sunrise to bedtime, we make approx. 35.000 decisions, look into the eyes of 500 different faces, are exposed to 7.000 brands and see 5.000 different advertisements. No wonder we need shortcuts and won't be able to remember all of these stimuli. In the attention game, you need a strategy that makes your brand stick in the minds of consumers so that they retrieve you in relevant moments. This is not enough though.

You must be remembered with a positive valence. Achieving both aspects simultaneously is tricky. Of course, you can spend a small fortune on Google Ads and insert your message in front of every single YouTube video that your target segment watches. This will get you recall and recognition but at the cost of negative consumer attitude.  

Good thing then that repetition is not always necessary. A better strategy is to craft a brand that simply makes sense. If it does, it is easier for customers to find a folder that they can store you in on the powerful hard drive that is the brain. If they can't find the right folder they might just delete you and move on with their day. 

Entrepreneurs and marketeers know the who, what, and why of their organization from A to Z, but also spend all day working on and thinking about their products, branding, messaging, and USPs. Consumers don't have this time to spare. For them, a value proposition needs to make sense in minutes, or sometimes even seconds. 

Just because costumers don’t care about your brand, doesn’t mean you do not need to invest time and effort into branding. The mind is powerful and can make complex associations intuitively and subconsciously. Strong brands have that "je ne sais quoi" spark that customers can't really explain but do thoroughly appreciate.

There isn’t a standard recipe to create a spark, however, some guiding principles I find helpful in almost all contexts: Be clear on your value proposition. In your communications, avoid clichés but also don’t try too hard to be different. Don’t underestimate the power of storytelling and design. These are powerful tools to evoke complex, higher-order associations among customers and make those stick. And, lastly, always remember that the goal is not to build a fan club. It is to get your desired results.