Can a Brand Be Your Friend, or Just a Clever Parasite?
Let’s talk about brand parasocial relationships. You know, when you start to feel like Whittaker’s is rooting for you. Or that Air New Zealand actually gets you, man. On paper, it sounds nice. Like a warm hug in a cold, transactional world. But here’s where it gets interesting.
Brands are getting frighteningly good at mimicking emotional intimacy. The social media manager drops a casually unpunctuated tweet, a knowing wink to the zeitgeist. The packaging says, “You got this.” And suddenly you're buying peanut butter because it made you feel seen. That's not marketing, that's theatre.
This isn’t malicious. In fact, it’s brilliant. Smart brands have realised that loyalty isn't earned with discounts, it’s earned with tone. Consistency. Relatability – calibrated down to millimetres. The magic is in the slippage: they talk like a person, but they never forget the KPIs. It makes you ask, are we bonding with creativity or being puppeteered by it?
The solution isn’t to push back, it's to admire the craftsmanship. The way the IRD pulled off a feel-good TikTok campaign that didn’t implode. How Les Mills sounds like a motivational cult leader you *want* to follow. Somewhere between manipulation and empathy, expertise lives. And if I’m honest, I’d rather have that than another stale loyalty app.
Brands are getting frighteningly good at mimicking emotional intimacy. The social media manager drops a casually unpunctuated tweet, a knowing wink to the zeitgeist. The packaging says, “You got this.” And suddenly you're buying peanut butter because it made you feel seen. That's not marketing, that's theatre.
This isn’t malicious. In fact, it’s brilliant. Smart brands have realised that loyalty isn't earned with discounts, it’s earned with tone. Consistency. Relatability – calibrated down to millimetres. The magic is in the slippage: they talk like a person, but they never forget the KPIs. It makes you ask, are we bonding with creativity or being puppeteered by it?
The solution isn’t to push back, it's to admire the craftsmanship. The way the IRD pulled off a feel-good TikTok campaign that didn’t implode. How Les Mills sounds like a motivational cult leader you *want* to follow. Somewhere between manipulation and empathy, expertise lives. And if I’m honest, I’d rather have that than another stale loyalty app.