Teaching brands, or brands that educate consumers on not just the product they’re buying but the context in which they’re used—think Betty Crocker teaching women how to cook or Lunchables teaching kids how to assemble a sandwich—hold a special value and can build attachment above and beyond brands that don’t provide such education. The opportunity to learn from brands can possibly lead to longer-term loyalty and referral.
That’s the finding of new research out from VCU Brandcenter and the VCU School of Business, to be presented this Friday at the American Marketing Association’s Winter Marketing Academic Conference in Las Vegas.
The research originated with an idea from Caley Cantrell, strategy chair and professor at VCU Brandcenter, an idea she’d “been puzzling with. I was fascinated with how invested my students are in all things Apple. What part of Apple means the most to young people? Is it the Apple IIc or did it start with the iPod and iPhone? I started with this idea, ‘Does brand have a birthright, because it interacts with you at a transitional point in your life and it teaches you something?’” Cantrell said. “That learning gives you a skill and gives you access to a peer group you might want to be a part of.”
Caley, together with Brian Brown and Mayoor Mohan, professors at VCU School of Business, “started our research and put a line in the sand. [We said,] ‘Let’s do this.’”
With the go-ahead from the AMA conference, the team conducted the qualitative research for more than a year.
Standout brands include Trader Joe’s, which has taught its customers how to eat on a budget; Netflix, which has provided a skill of mastery over entertainment options; and IKEA, which has shown several age groups to define and create their individual style. And certainly there’s Apple, which has taught consumers how to enhance life through technology.
One discovery? That “maybe it’s not about a cohort, but maybe a brand that teaches something can span generations,” for example, several generations having an affinity to Apple. “Maybe many have an affinity to IKEA because it is evergreen in its teaching and its learning,” Cantrell said.
The takeaway for brands, she said, is realizing that consumers are people who want help with things, and that marketers could prioritize adding new skills to provide to their research and development agendas.
While the concept appears to apply across product categories, it’s not going to be a natural fit for every product, Cantrell concedes.
“There is a lot of buzz-worthy lingo that marketers get involved in. I’m not sure I would ever recommend to a company that they should go out and proclaim credit for teaching you something.”
And simplicity is key.
“It seems so simple, what Lunchables was doing. [Kids see it as,] ‘This isn’t something Mom made, this is me being able to put the product together, this is me making my lunch,’” she said.
“That idea of, ‘I have control over my lunch and I can combine it in the ways that I want and I’m learning to be more self sufficient as a young child’ has some power.”
“Apple is a brand that is talked about a lot,” she said. “Did they literally say they were going to be a teacher of all this stuff? Probably not.”
Here’s where intentionality could come in: When you look at the power of something like Skillshare, now a multibillion-dollar organization, built on the power of learning new skills in an area of interest, she said. Its growth points to the fact that people want to continue to learn throughout their lives.
“If a brand appreciates that learning and knowledge have cache, and that it continues to be important to people, then that might be part of their DNA in new-product development moving forward.”
There are additional areas ripe for additional research. One aspect the team will continue to explore is the question of whether consumers will want to achieve status or access from brands at the same time that they are being taught a skill.
The researchers also haven’t yet correlated financial performance to the extent to which brands provide a teaching component. But after additional feedback, the team will move forward with the model, incorporating it into the classroom and then introducing it among practitioners.
“Clearly this will be an interesting opportunity to see if it gains any traction,” Cantrell said.
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