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THE EMPATHY ERA
EDU110 PGCHE Journal Review by Darren Whittington 12/14
The book I have chosen to review is titled The Empathy Era by
author Belinda Parmar OBE.1Belinda Palmer set up Lady Geek Ltd, a
consultancy that helps promote empathy as a business tool and is
currently creating a campaign targeted at CEOs of the worlds
largest organisations to use empathy as the new pathway to
profit.
The book sets out the importance of embedding empathy into every
aspect of business and suggests a methodology to achieve this by
deploying what Belinda coins the three pillars of empathy.
In order to keep this review concise I will be concentrating on
the 4th chapter Strategic empathy at work which breaks down these
pillars of empathy and will be reflecting on it as a tool for the
creative process to help understand audience and create engaging
communication.
Empathy allows you to understand what consumers want, and giving
consumers what they want is the secret to winning in business.
Richard Reed, Innocent Co-Founder.2
In this chapter Belinda Palmer sets out the three pillars of
empathy as Emotion, Reassurance & Authenticity, it reinforces
the way they can work in practice by using examples of leading
businesses such as Twitter and Google to show how each individual
pillar can be used to good effect and transform employee and
consumer relationships. Whilst this chapter is focussed on the
business methodology, it actually delves into brand culture and how
to engage with consumers which is at the heart of the creative
process in Advertising; know your audience and youll know how to
talk to them.
The first pillar in Belindas empathy methodology is Emotion, or
put in a more empathic tone; Make me feel. In brand communications
this is usually termed as giving your brand
personality/language/tone of voice, but the dominant systemiser
brain sees this as something that requires
quantification/definition.
Belinda suggests Twitter as a shining example of how brands can
in just 140 characters create a fully-fledged personality/ideal
version of themselves and project a human side that consumers can
relate to and empathise with. This is true, it allows brands to
express themselves as personalities and engage in conversation with
the world. The clever bit here though is the notion of engagement,
being able to talk like a friend, someone who understands rather
than just as a major company, as Belinda puts it tangible
personality, an invaluable human touch. Basically we are talking
about treating the consumer as a real person, creating a
relationship, but surprisingly most global brands use the
systemiser perspective and just use platforms like Twitter to send
out endless links to products without considering the context of
the product/brand in their consumers day to day life.
Whoever said money cant buy happiness apparently never heard of
potato salad Old Spice,Twitter feed3
The second pillar outlined is Reassurance, simply put; Make me
trust you.Trust is one of those intangible virtues that is hard to
gain and you need to work hard to achieve, in this second part of
the methodology Belinda focusses more on letting people know you
care; make the person on the other end of the conversation believe
that their issue is important to you, that they are valued and in
return are more willing to reward the brands that really engage
with them.
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John Lewis is a great example of this, trading on its promise -
Never knowingly undersold, and with its Christmas campaigns over
the past 3 years John Lewis has adjusted its message to evoke the
notion of always being there for you through the good times and the
bad.
As Belinda points out, local businesses /start ups are the
places where empathy rules, the family florist, mechanic, pub
landlord, these are the places that command loyalty. A little bit
goes a long way, and in a modern world where the physicality of
brands is compromised by online consumption the authentic
interaction/service really can cement a consumer relationship.
3 times as many consumers would choose a small business for
goods or services, over a large business, if the prices and
convenience was equal AXA (2013).4
The third pillar of empathy is Authenticity; Make me believe you
and in a social world where consumers are questioning, rating,
reviewing, and making brands trend by popularity its more important
than ever to be as transparent as possible and give people a reason
to converse with you. Belinda follows this same thinking and
dissects Innocent, the UK smoothie company and looks at how they
created a believable dialogue with their consumers, a living,
breathing ethos that their employees want to be a part of and a
door that gets left open for consumers to swing by for a visit and
a natter. This might sound cheesy but in truth it comes across as a
company that cares about what it does, who works for it and the
customers that consume it, evoking honesty, trust and in return,
belief.
We live in a much more transparent world, so jerks are going to
be found out a lot quicker: be they jerks as individuals or jerks
as companies. Jon Mackey, Whole foods CEO.5
Whilst the systematic brain might bypass these 3 pillars as
add-ons to a successful way of communicating, they are actually the
bed rock of brand, not a sound bite. To understand brand you need
to follow the traditional stepping stones of values, myths,
language, personality and audience, but what is interesting with
Belindas approach is that she starts with audience, putting
yourself in your consumers shoes, find the benefit, the value to
their lives, make a connection and look at values that reflect
their customers own beliefs not just the brands.
Audience has always been in the driving seat but this approach
gives creatives a clearer way to build brands for a world that
wants to converse, a world where brands can have the values of a
real person, be approachable, be believable.
When put in practise within the educational environment the 3
pillar methodology helps designers and creatives understanding the
basic principles of brand, it helps them reflect on what they are
creating, to who and why.
Throughout the past week I have tested this methodology within
learning groups to design and advertising students who are trying
to develop their thinking around brand, this reflective process has
helped them move forward much more quickly than the traditional
stepping stones. Its the honesty of it, the ability to help them
think outside of themselves, it breaks down the language in an
emotive sense that they can easily relate to rather than a hard
edge process that can feel mechanical. It created an instant
understanding of what they were trying to communicate and allowed
them to reflect on their audience, the benefit, the encounter and
the conversation.
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The chapter argues the case for empathy as a business tool, but
what Belinda Palmer has created is a methodology that allows us to
practice it.
On a side note, if you want a reference for how not to do it,
just think Ryan Air; aggressive, abusive, lacking in humanity and
if you ring to complain expect to stay on the line for the
week.
Just a thought.
REFERENCES:
1 Palmer, Belinda. 2014. The Empathy Era. London: Lady Geek2
Reed, Richard. 2013. Interviewed by Belinda Palmer3 Spice, Old.
2013. (Twitter post) @OldSpice. Available at:
https://twitter.com/OldSpice/status/3518554325890007044 AXA. 2013.
Consumers want a better highstreet with more small, independent
businesses. Available at:
http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/news/outlook/2388913/consumers-prefer-to-buy-from-small-businesses-on-likeforlike-items.thtml(Accessed
03/12/14)5 Mackey, Jon. 2013. Interviewed by Belinda Palmer
