Love in the marketing mix.

         The Wall Street Journal is my favorite source of marketing news. I started reading it regularly after a senior Macy's executive tipped me off. But still, yesterday a front page article in the "Personal Journal" section surprised me.

          It was headlined, "Show Me the Love or Not". Apparently the Wall Street Journal is a different paper away from the office.

          The article said "some people are hugger-kissers who crave a lot of affection, and others are reserved and feel smothered or embarrassed by too much affection". It went on to give these questions from a researcher at Columbia University to help assess your "attachment style":

           1. Do you tend to shut down during an argument? You may be Avoidant.

           2. Do you feel your partner keeps you at a distance emotionally, physically, or both? He or she may be Avoidant.

           3. Does your partner devalue you, jokingly or otherwise, say by getting irritated by the way you eat or joking about your weight? Again, he or she may be Avoidant.

           4. Do you feel that you love your partner more than he or she loves you? Looking for rejection is a hallmark of the Anxious attachment style.

           The reason I bring all this up is that I believe it relates very closely to marketing and advertising. In our fields, it's been shown again and again that if you offer a little love, welcome, and positive attachment to somebody, they're going to love you back.

            Showing care and concern to your customers by producing only quality products and services that are worth the money, and presenting them in  helpful, rewarding ways, is the path to a customer's heart.

            Walk into a Sears store and compare it to Target...which store cares more about you? The cold, impersonal Sears, or the warm, inviting Target? No wonder you can always get a parking space near Sears.

             Check out some ads in your favorite magazine, or on TV or on Facebook. Are the ads that talk down to you and the ones that shout at you the ads that win you over? Or do you warm up to ads that treat you like an intelligent person, with brains and a sense of humor? Which kind do you want to welcome into your home?

              Even if, as the WSJ says, our styles are different, we're all human. Not just those of us doing the marketing, but the rest of us on the receiving end. In a way, that's the difference between good marketing and so-so marketing.

              How much love you put into the mix.