Joey Reiman thinks we should take more showers. Not to clean ourselves, but to think. The shower is one of the few places where we let our minds wander, the creative mogul says. From this wandering and pondering come great ideas — ideas that move business and build customer relationshps. Reiman, an advertising veteran and best-selling author, has become a leading authority on thinking and relationship marketing. He founded Atlanta-based BrightHouse to help clients with their customer retention programs through a more deliberate process of thinking. FuelNet recently caught up with Reiman to chat about the art and science of customer relationship marketing.

FuelNet: What tells you we’ve lost connection with customers?

Reiman: The majority of marketers today believe that creating a provocative message and buying lots of media will change behavior. But that has never changed behavior. Nothing changes behavior but the experience itself.

FuelNet: The experience as a customer?

Reiman: A coffee company can do $100 million of advertisements, but if they don’t open the store when I’m outside, even though it’s two minutes to opening, that impacts me much more than an ad. What we must do is have people inside our companies deliver the message.

FuelNet: This is your notion of appealing to hearts, not minds?

Reiman: Yes. Nobody reads five sentences and decides to buy something. People buy things because they feel this product, this restaurant, this neighborhood — I want to be a part of it. I’m a better me because of that or them. That’s emotional. It has very little to do with product features. Otherwise, we’d all buy generic brands.

FuelNet: How do you go about creating that emotional appeal?

Reiman: It’s what we put into the brand. You can take a rose and say that rose is beautiful. But if I give you the rose, that’s a beautiful act, not because the rose is beautiful but because of all the poets who talked about the rose. Every time another rose is given, that rose’s brand equity goes up. So now, when I give a rose, all the love of all the poets, of all the artisans, of all the lovers goes with that rose. That’s why roses cost up to $10. Not because they’re designed beautifully, but because of what they represent.

If someone gives me a rose, I’m loved. If I wear Nike shoes, I can fly. If I use an Apple computer, I’m more creative than someone using a PC. The story is everything. If you can create a story and have a customer be part of that story, and the approach is novel, then you’ll have a best seller.

FuelNet: How does studying human brain activity fit into a customer relationship management strategy?

Reiman: The smart marketer will try to figure out how someone thinks and [see] how that is meaningful in their lives and will then build around the how versus trying to sell the what. If we figure out how the brain thinks, we’ll be able to instruct companies on how to make things that are useful. That’s what we’re interested in. We’re trying to understand how the mind works so we can better serve people, rather than determining how a product might be served up better.

FuelNet: One of the hot consumer marketing trends is neuromarketing. What are your expectations for the field?

Reiman: There will be those who use this to try to figure out if indeed there is a buy button in the brain. But there is no buy button in the brain. I can share that with everyone now. But by trying to understand preference and how we make decisions, [we are on] a worthy journey. And it will be a long one, as well.

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