The purchase decision is based on whether the two sides to the transaction have enough real or potential commonality for their brains to decide to strengthen or make real that relationship by means of a purchase/sale of goods or services. Many studies have shown that salespeople who emphasize what they have in common with a client or customer are more successful than those who concentrate on waxing lyrical about what they are selling. Studies have also shown that one of the primary motivators of salespeople is the need to create relationships with their customers.

What do we mean by brand? Most people believe a brand is a positive and distinctive impression of a service, product or even person. A more recent and in-depth definition from Marketing Management is “a multidimensional construct, matching a firm’s functional and emotional values with the performance and psychosocial needs of consumers” (Riley et al., 1998). It is where the brand intersects with these psychosocial needs that the role of culture and a sense of belonging to that culture comes into play. Professor Graham Hankinson of London Metropolitan University says that a brand is “a relationship with consumers and other stakeholders, focusing on behaviors rather than communications” (Hankinson, 2004). A brand, then implies both a relationship between the business and the customer and a call to action on the part of a potential buyer in order to promote or establish that relationship.

Looking primarily at the example of Apple under Steve Jobs, I want to show that a really successful company creates that relationship and underlines the call to action by bringing potential and existing customers into its culture. If you sell the culture people will buy the product.

Effective Executive Magazine, Marketing Management, Multidimensional Construct, Functional and Emotional values, Performance and Psychosocial, Relationship with Consumers.