Latest / The CMO Podcast with Fexingo: Marketing Leadership, Budgets, and Executive Strategy / Why CMOs Are Measuring Brand Love Instead of Awareness
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I want to ask you something. Can you name a brand you actually love—not just like, not just use habitually, but love? Luna: Love? That's a high bar. I'd say Patagonia. The way they repair old gear, the activism, the consistency. I'd pay more for them. Lucas: Right. And that's exactly the point. For decades, CMOs have obsessed over brand awareness—aided recall, reach, impressions. But more and more of them are starting to realize that awareness doesn't predict loyalty, and it certainly doesn't predict premium pricing. Luna: So what's replacing it? Are they just swapping one metric for another? Lucas: In a lot of cases, yes, but with a specific name: brand love. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute ran a study last year that found only 22 percent of consumers feel a genuine emotional connection to any brand. That's shockingly low. And the brands that do generate love—think Apple, Patagonia, Nike—they command a price premium of up to 20 percent over competitors. Luna: So love is literally money. But how do you measure something that emotional without it becoming another vanity metric? Lucas: That's the million-dollar question. Some CMOs are using a combination of net promoter score and something called 'share of heart'—a survey tool that asks things like 'Would you be disappointed if this brand disappeared?' and 'Do you feel this brand understands you?' REI's CMO, for instance, has been tracking this since 2023. They found that members who score high on share of heart have a lifetime value three times higher than the average. Luna: Three times? That's the kind of number that gets a CFO's attention. But doesn't share of heart rely on self-reported data? People can say they love a brand and still buy the cheaper alternative. Lucas: Absolutely. That's why the best implementations combine survey data with behavioral signals—repeat purchase rate within a category, share of wallet, social media engagement quality. The CMO of a DTC brand I spoke with told me they look for what they call 'unsolicited advocacy'—people who tag the brand in posts without being prompted. That's a love signal. Luna: I like that. It's action-based, not just intention-based. So why is this shift happening now? Why not five years ago? Lucas: Two big drivers. First, social media algorithms now reward engagement over reach. A thousand people who love your brand and interact with your content are worth more than a million who saw your ad and scrolled past. Second, younger consumers—Gen Z and Gen Alpha—are really good at detecting inauthenticity. They punish brands that feel generic. Love, or the lack of it, directly impacts churn. Luna: That tracks. I've seen data that says 60 percent of Gen Z will stop buying from a brand they perceive as 'fake.' So if you're a CMO measuring only awareness, you might see high numbers but miss the fact that nobody actually cares. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the trap. Awareness is easy to buy. You can run a Super Bowl ad and get 80 percent recall for a week. But love has to be earned over years of consistent product quality, customer service, and values alignment. Patagonia didn't build that relationship in a quarter. Luna: But what if you're a B2B brand? Can a software company inspire love? Or is this mostly a consumer play? Lucas: Great question. It's harder, but not impossible. Salesforce has a Net Promoter Score in the 70s, and they've built a whole ecosystem of user groups and conferences. That's love-adjacent. HubSpot does it through education. The key in B2B is that your product is often part of someone's daily workflow—so reliability and support become emotional drivers. Nobody loves a CRM that crashes. Luna: Right. So the metric shifts from 'how many people know us' to 'how many people would miss us.' That's a much more meaningful question. Lucas: And it's a question that some CMOs are now putting at the center of their boardroom presentations. Instead of showing a chart of impressions going up, they show a chart of share of heart over time, correlated with customer lifetime value. It changes the conversation from 'we're spending efficiently' to 'we're building an asset.' Luna: An asset that can survive a bad quarter or a product misstep. If people love you, they'll give you a second chance. Lucas: That's the whole thesis. And it's why I think this trend has staying power. It's not a fad—it's a response to a media environment where attention is cheap but trust is expensive. Luna: Speaking of things that are cheap but valuable—a quick thought. These conversations we have every week, they take a lot of research and prep. If you've gotten something out of them, a couple of dollars a month at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo genuinely makes a difference. Keeps us ad-free and independent. Lucas: Yeah, it really does. We don't have a big network behind us. It's just us and our listeners. So if you've ever used something from this show in your work, that's the best way to keep it going. Luna: Alright, back to love. So Lucas, if a CMO came to you tomorrow and said 'I want to start measuring brand love,' what's the first step you'd recommend? Lucas: I'd say start with a simple survey to your existing customers. Ask three questions: 'Would you recommend us?' 'Would you be disappointed if we disappeared?' and 'Do you feel we understand your needs?' Then segment the answers by customer lifetime value decile. If your highest-value customers are also your highest-love respondents, you've got a correlation you can build on. Luna: And if they're not correlated? Lucas: Then you've found a gap. Maybe your best customers are loyal for functional reasons—convenience, price—but they'd switch in a heartbeat if a competitor matched your offer. That's a vulnerability. And it's invisible if you're only measuring awareness. Luna: So brand love becomes a leading indicator of retention risk. I think that's the real value—it's not just a feel-good metric, it's a risk metric. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why I think we'll see more and more CMOs adopt it in the next two years. The ones who don't will be blindsided when their awareness numbers look great but their churn suddenly spikes. Luna: Alright, I'm convinced. I'm going to go ask a few brands if they'd miss me. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And to our listeners—if this episode sparked a thought, we'd love to hear about it. Until next time.