The Conversation Manager

Last week, fashion brand Mer Du Nord launched its own radio station: radio MDN. You can listen to their radio through their own site or download it as an iPhone, Ipad app.

Listeners are motivated to share this radio channel with their friends through Facebook & Twitter. The station plays non-stop music. It contains a playlist that demonstrates the images of the brand through music.

Music: something that creates emotions that normally aren't there. Ever watched a movie without the sound? It takes away all the emotions we have when watching a movie. Music is one of the key ingredients to make people feel happy or sad. By launching its own radio station, Mer Du Nord, opens up a new channel where brand fans can connect on a more emotional level with the brand.

Some marketers still tend to believe that people take pure rational buying decisions. But let's face it, people and brands: it's all about emotions. Problem is that there is no real emotional brand value study in which brands can monitor their emotional evolution. The proxy that I like to use to measure the emotional strength of a brand is the number of fans a brand has on Facebook. We know that about one out of three Facebook users is at least fan of one brand. Besides, in order to become a fan, you need to click on a button. You could say that it is a choice you make to link your own image to the image of the brand. Adding all these aspects together, I feel the number of fans could be quite a good index to measure the emotional value of your brand.

So, I took a look at the current status of the most popular brands on Facebook (source: www.allfacebook.com) and here's the top 10: