Part of the Whole
Not long after my husband and I were married, he pushed me out the door. No, no, not literally. But he knew I was at loose ends, having recently resettled in the New York area after seven years of living in Boston, and I needed an activity apart from job hunting. So, one evening while he was reading the paper, Tom handed me the page of community announcements and said flatly, “You need to check this out.”
“This” was a local theatre group in need of volunteers. Set painters, stagehands, box office helpers — skilled and unskilled labor of all sorts was needed to stage productions (I fell somewhere between those two categories). In short order, I slapping paint on flats and pouring coffee at intermission. Yes, the budgets were shoestring and the hours were ridiculous, but the results were often startlingly professional for an amateur group.
The pride I felt as the applause came up for shows I had worked on was just one of the benefits I got from belonging to the troupe. I gained skills that just don’t translate into the real world (if you ever need a sandbag tied off to counterbalance a flying scrim, give me a call) and several that do. And I made a lot of friends.
Belonging feels great. According to philosopher Joseph Myers, people need four kinds of belonging — public, social, personal and intimate. When the strategic thinkers behind brands recognize this need for people to connect on many levels, they often uncover surprising and creative ways to build bridges to consumers.
Understanding who those consumers are and what motivates them is key. Guest columnists Kelly Hlavinka and Pat Furey each offer a take on how to build such understanding (starting on pg. 71). Then in our cover story (pg. 26), Senior Editor Betsy Spethmann discusses what can happen when retailers and manufacturers join up to create communities of relevance for shoppers. Do such umbrella programs create a risk that individual brands may be diluted? Perhaps, but greater overall consumer loyalty is the typical result. And as that other great philosopher, Samuel Goldwyn, said, “I’ll take 50% efficiency to get 100% loyalty.”
