Cellular branding: The search for love via the emotions industry

Culture and art form part of the brand designer's toolbox. Referring to artistic creations and/or developing unique artistic genres form part of marketing strategies whose aim is to create a brand or transform a brand into a cultural and artistic agent. As part of the branding process, "brand narratives" are embedded in the marketing mechanism, expressing, among other things, a connection with a particular time and "truth" imparting a sense of narrative authenticity. This being the case, the Cellcom Company, one of the largest cell phone concerns in Israel, has branded itself by means of emotional references to love, i.e., by means of using emotional imagery, Cellcom is attempting to transform itself into an emotional cultural agent distributing intimacy and love by becoming a beloved brand in its own right. Thus the purpose of this chapter is to examine the characteristics of emotional branding as exercised in the emotions industry. In order to analyze this topic, a qualitative research technique - narrative analysis - was employed in order to examine the branding strategies implemented by Cellcom, an Israeli cell phone company. The research field examined included the content project, "First love", promoted by Cellcom in 2010-2012 in which young men and women told about their first love and an advertising campaign launched by Cellcom from 2004 to 2014 that focused on the contribution of the cell phone to emotional empowerment. The results indicate that Cellcom's brand narratives dealing with love blurred the perception of a specific locality, encouraging a feeling of no sense of place, while creating a large community of young people whose emotional common denominator was stronger than their socio-economic identity. Furthermore, the brand narratives dealing with intimacy and belonging called for the adoption of "new" technologies, while also emphasizing the importance of "traditional" emotions related to home, family, friends and community.