The Sharp Cut - Let's talk about brand love
EP 243 · Oct 8, 2026 · 27 min · Marc & V
0:00 / 26:55
The short version
Marketing runs on comfort blankets. The Sharp Cut cuts them up to see what's inside. This week: brand love.
Start with motorcycles. In 2015, the happiest owners in the entire category rode Victory, ahead of Harley. Two years later, Polaris shut Victory down. The happiest customers in the category could not keep the brand alive. That should bother anyone who spent a career being told marketing's job is to make people love you.
So Marc and V take the believers at their word and run three tests on lovemarks, raving fans, and brand love. Are the most loved brands the biggest? Are they growing the fastest? Does the love come first, before the buying? The evidence, from the ACSI to double jeopardy to ten years of Ehrenberg-Bass data, keeps pointing the same way.
Then they own up to it. Marc's Heinz loyalty that is really just shelf placement. V's Golf Town thank-you notes, where every bit of love showed up after the money was already in the books.
The conclusion is not that love is worthless. It protects you, and losing it hurts. It just is not what grows a brand. Plus what to do with all of this on Monday.
Chapters
00:00 What the Sharp Cut is
00:45 Today's comfort blanket: brand love
00:50 Victory vs Harley: the happiest owners, gone in two years
02:36 Where the idea came from
05:43 The money angle, and the JC Penney lovemark
06:28 The case for love, taken seriously
08:33 Three tests for the believers
08:59 Test 1: are the most loved brands the biggest?
10:20 Double jeopardy, and why loyalty is everywhere
12:04 The Apple challenge
12:45 Test 2: do loved brands grow the fastest?
15:12 Test 3: does love come first?
18:17 Confessions: Heinz, Matouk's, and the Golf Town tees
22:04 So is love a moat? The Kroger debate
24:14 Do people even want a relationship with a brand?
26:31 What to do Monday
Chapters
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Transcript
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SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Sleeping Baba podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Well, B, this is the sharp cut as you know as it is. And you know, a lot of times the marketing runs on these comfort blankets, the things that we all repeat because they're really warm and everybody else is saying them and they feel good. And then what we do here is we cut them up. Look what's actually inside.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest, I like staying under the covers, these blankets. It's okay. It's just nice and cozy. But you're right though. We're looking at the real-world evidence, experiments where they exist, and we'll tell you when they don't.