Brands and human relationships

Yesterday I got thinking about how similar our relationships are to brands as our relationships are with human beings.  What got me thinking about this though wasn't an emotional connection thing, I was thinking more about messaging and the things we say and why we say them.  We all say stuff to each other that we know is appropriate in certain situations and stuff that isn't, but we say the appropriate things we do so that we don't rock the boat.  Yesterday someone said to me, knowing that I'd just been to the hairdressers, 'Have you had your hair cut? It's just, it looks the same'.  Honest, but most certainly not what I wanted to hear.

Is it the case that this is how brands work too?  Sometimes they're completely stripped down honest, no frills or fuss, we may not like it, but at least it is the truth.  It might not be for everyone, but that is ok.  I'd say that polarising brands are very successful - Marmite, Pot Noodle are examples of brands that know they're not everyone's cup of tea all of the time and they're honest and proud of that and stick to it.

Sometimes brands know what their audience wants to hear - they know them so well and know exactly what they want that crafting a message with general, broad appeal in that situation is the most successful option.  It might seem sugar-coated, but it works.  Women want to know that their periods are going to be bearable, men want to know that they will have the closest shave.  Ok, so these are broad examples, but I am sure you get the picture.

Any views welcome... 

Tampax, targeting men?

This latest campaign by Tampax is certainly a fresh take on the usual positivising periods for women - it shows a man - 16 year old Zack - who wakes up one day with a vagina and has to experience the harsh realities of periods

I think this is a really interesting move, opening the issue up to everyone and not being afraid to push gender stereotypes to their limits and break them.  Men famously don't understand what on earth women have to put up with, but whoever this campaign is targeting -  men or women - it's interesting to shift perspectives and tackle it from this angle. 

It's definitely much more compelling that the competition - periods are not nice and no matter how many times Always and Kotex and them lot tell me they have something new that'll make it bearable, it's just not going to cut it.