In the current competitive market, marketers often face difficulties to gather a large volume of loyal customers. In the past, to grab the attention of the target audience, brands used to run emotional advertisements that compelled customers to rush to the stores and purchase the advertised product. For example, the advertisement of Coca-Cola that carried a powerful message of happiness which attracted the customers to buy that product. Similarly, the advertisement of the famous brand Nike triggered the emotion of cultural leadership and influenced the customers to make impulsive purchase decisions.

Moreover, these emotional advertisements are still remembered as they carried remarkable emotional messages. However, Marketing products in the current era is difficult as customers have gotten bored with the traditional advertisements and marketing practices. So, here lies the important question: how can a marketer place his/her products and services in the market such that it still captivates the customers in the current digital age? The answer is simple. The best way to attract customers and compel them to make repetitive purchases is by conducting Lifestyle marketing. 

What is lifestyle marketing?

To know what lifestyle marketing is, we have to first understand the term ‘lifestyle’. Lifestyle is a type of behavior that makes an individual different from the other. It is categorized on interest, ideas, attitudes, activities, opinions, and aspirations. When marketers connect lifestyle and marketing, it becomes a marketing approach that allows a brand to connect itself with the ideals, values, aspirations, and activities of the target customers.  

Lifestyle marketing is the new marketing technique that allows brands to position their products and services in such a way that they possess aspirations, ideals, and aesthetics touch, and the target customers can easily recognize the same.

However, lifestyle marketers mainly use digital media like smartphones and television to advertise their products in such a way that the customer can relate them with their lifestyles. The common lifestyle marketing platforms used by most successful brands are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The key elements of lifestyle marketing are social norms, work, location, demographics, wealth and fitness, and religion and spirituality. By incorporating these essential elements, lifestyle brands give the target audience the idea that the products and services are closely connected to their lifestyle and the way they want to live. Lifestyle marketers often create lifestyle advertisements to convey their message about the targeted lifestyle to the audience. So, what is lifestyle advertising?

What is Lifestyle Advertising?

Lifestyle advertising is a promotional technique that aims to influence the lifestyle of the customers. In lifestyle advertising, companies often create a world full of unrealistic needs portrayed through their brands over digital interfaces. 

You must have gone through online lifestyle magazines where lifestyle brands create advertisements with pictures of their products endorsed by some celebrities, shot in the best location with the brand name on it. Such lifestyle advertisements have been very successful in today’s world as the lifestyle portrayed through the ad attracts its target customers as they also want to have the same lifestyle.  

The essence of lifestyle marketing

It is a fact that the life of consumers of the current generation has become pretty boring. They work up, work for the whole day, come back from the office and spend a little time with the family. The weekends are spent quite lazily and the same routine is repeated in the following week. Brands with a lifestyle marketing approach have figured out that the customers aspire to change their lifestyle and become more active, fashion-conscious, adventurous, and rebellious.

Considering such, the marketers have come up with the lifestyle marketing approach where

they connect the products with the lifestyle their target customers are willing to have. For instance, by wearing a sports shoe, a customer can feel to get associated with the athletic community. Regardless of making any change in the daily routine, if a customer rides bullets or jeeps, he/she will surely feel more adventurous. Similarly, wearing apparel from a luxurious clothing brand, one can feel wealthy and affluent. Thus, it can be said that lifestyle marketing brands inspire customers to change their lifestyles and start living the life they want. 

How to do lifestyle marketing?

Connecting lifestyle and marketing is an easy process. However, making a lifestyle brand

is a long-term strategy. The main motive of a lifestyle brand is to make the audience aware of the vision of the company. The steps that you can follow to initiate lifestyle marketing are discussed below:

I. Define the customer segment

If you want to do lifestyle marketing, you first need to define the lifestyle that the brands are going to follow for marketing the products. For that, you need to identify the target market for your products. Then you have to align its brands with the cultural values, ideals, and aspirations of a particular customer segment.

II. Highlight the lifestyle associated with the product

After identifying the customer segment and lifestyle feature, you need to create a captivating brand advertisement that will be highlighting the lifestyle. For instance, if you are going to sell shoes, you should not advertise the quality or design of the shoe. Rather, you should advertise how the shoe can make the audience a better athlete. By doing so, the customer can connect with the ideas you want to convey through the advertisement and relate it with his/her lifestyle. 

III. Engage the target audience

To make the lifestyle marketing approach successful, you have to interact and share information with the target customers. In this digital age, social media platforms are the best to engage with the target audience and convey information about the lifestyle segment your product associates with. 

IV. Create content for promotion

For successful implementation of lifestyle marketing, the creation of innovative and attractive content for promoting the brand is essential. The content should convey an emotional message that will connect the product and customers’ lifestyles. The content should not put much emphasis on the features of the product but should have the ability to make customers feel that the value delivered by the products is closely associated with the life they want to have.      

V. Build a community of followers

For the long-term success of the lifestyle brand, you must create a community where the customers who prefer similar lifestyle products must interact with each other. This will help the brand to promote the lifestyle to a large audience base. To develop a community for followers, you can use lifestyle marketing platforms like Facebook and Instagram where the audience can easily communicate and share information about their purchase experience. 

Successful lifestyle brands 

However, identifying a lifestyle brand is easy in the current market. A lifestyle brand sells an image or identity, rather than a product or service. They want to market a lifestyle that will compel the target audience to associate with the brand. Some successful brands that have been able to attract a large volume of customers with lifestyle marketing are discussed below:

Nike

Nike is the leading lifestyle brand that has successfully convinced its buyers to have a lifestyle of an athlete. The company does not only sell custom sports shoes but also ensures its customers that by investing in the lifestyle that the brand offers, anyone can associate with the athlete community. Nike’s brand logo “just do it” conveys the emotional message that anyone, regardless of their work or place, can achieve an active lifestyle like those portrayed by the brand ambassadors, by pushing their limits.  

Red Bull

The marketers of Red Bull have efficiently identified the boring lifestyle of the customers. So, they have come up with an idea to market their product to give the consumers a sense of excitement in their everyday lives. Red Bull is a successful lifestyle brand that uses digital lifestyle marketing platforms to sell customers the idea of epic adventure and excitement. The customers, who desire to go above and beyond the ordinary seeking thrills, can achieve the lifestyle they want from the Red Bull product. The current generations have been found to readily get associated with this lifestyle brand, which makes the lifestyle marketing strategy of Red Bull work for the long term.

Apple

Apple is a successful lifestyle brand with a robust lifestyle marketing strategy that makes it stand out from the competition. The lifestyle marketing strategy of Apple is based on the aspirations, motivations, and interests of its customers. The products offered by the brand reflect a luxury lifestyle. And hit the emotions of the customers by allowing them to express their real identity. For instance, while opening an Apple product like Mac Book or iPhone. Customers get the essence of a status symbol that represents affluence or wealth. In the current era, it has been found that many customers convey their experience of purchasing the high-end luxury product of Apple through social media platforms. Thus it is evident that Apple has been successful to carry out its lifestyle marketing strategy. That has brought a large volume of loyal customers to the brand

Marks & Spencer

Likewise, several companies offer food, consumer goods, and clothing together. However, Marks & Spencer have been successful with its lifestyle marketing strategy as the brand gives its customer the sense of luxury and a better standard of living. The British brand never advertises the features of its products. Rather it conveys the message of “spend it well” to its target audience to raise their standard of living. The brand identity focused on a shared community which is an essential element of lifestyle marketing.

Harley Davidson

The USA lifestyle brand, Harley Davidson has also achieved great success with its lifestyle marketing strategy. The brand value of the motorbike company promises the customer a lifestyle. That encourages them to go anywhere, anytime, without any restrictions. Customers purchasing the product get an emotional attachment with the brand as they sense freedom while riding the motorbikes. Customers owning Harley Davidson feel they belong to a community. Where income, power, job, and the rider’s status does not matter to other people of the community. They are all considered as the owners of ‘freedom’.

Shared characteristics of lifestyle brands

Meanwhile, most of the lifestyle brands of the current period have some common characteristics that help customers to distinguish them from others.      

• In short, lifestyle brands do not try to convince every customer. They connect with the niche market segment, identify the target customers and convince them to stick to their brands. 
• Lifestyle brands attract customers with emotional advertisements.      
• Lifestyle brands cultivate the respect and trust of the audience. As they inspire them to have an exciting and better life.
• Marketing activities of the lifestyle brands are more focused on customers’ demands rather than the products.

Conclusion

However, with the emergence of digitalization, there has been a lot of noise in the marketing and advertising space. To make the products and services visible in the crowd. Clever marketers have incorporated lifestyle and marketing together. And presented it in the form of the most attractive advertisements. Instead of convincing customers to buy the products that base on the product quality. The lifestyle brands will create a tempting aura around the products and services. Such that the target customers aspire to purchase the products and connect with the brand.  If you are planning to incorporate a marketing approach that will make your products and services strive in the current competitive market scenario. You should try lifestyle marketing. In conclusion, it is beyond selling particular products or services. Similarly, it is about selling the ideals.

We hope you liked the blog and found it informative. Stay tune with BloggerBunny for more such blogs. Also, read our blog HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED AS A BRAND NEW ENTREPRENEUR.

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