Hi, it's Liz here.
When the world feels unsettled and unsettling, it’s altogether understandable to seek quick highs.
Mainlining fast fixes feels inevitable in our overstimulated world - binge scrolling for rapid escapism, GLP-1s for rapid weight loss, AI searches for rapid answers.
This irresistible, high-velocity escape from the drudgery of slow, dull reality centres, of course, on your friend and mine, dopamine - the principal bestower of intense feelings of pleasure and reward (and arguably queen among the other four ‘feel-good’ hormones serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin).
But dopamine addiction isn't just happening to humans.
It’s endemic in businesses too, because (albeit easy to forget sometimes) companies are still ultimately directed by human minds and so, our most base desires.
Often, ‘brand dopamine dependence’ is most acute right at the very top of the business org chart and shareholders, casting a dopamine-seeking tint across the core business functions and even the development, delivery and mechanisms of the products themselves.
Maybe this is why dopamine is trending so highly, with big trend spikes across the topic (Exploding Topics, 5-year global view). We seem to be fascinated by how to achieve a healthier and more naturalised flow of this powerful, desirable and essential driver.
So how does brand dopamine addiction manifest across the key dimensions of a brand?
And more importantly, what might be our most powerful detox tactics?
1. Proposition
- Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Trend chasing (even worse if it’s a late trend that’s already waning); superspeed NPD with minimally tested new products; explosion of sub or side brands with low authenticity
- How to detox: Redefine brand and product strategy to secure a big, motivating commitment to a fresh plan based on real goals and strategic guardrails, with an explicit focus on how risky dopamine dependence can be for the brand and business
2. Customer Experience
- Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Over-rewarding customers in return for false sentiment spikes; treating customers poorly as a pressure release valve; replacing true service with inferior or frustrating technology experiences in an innovation effort; promising the world to customers but failing to actualise
- How to detox: Map out the well-trodden CX ‘process pathways’ - operational and mental - to reimagine them in motivating, unorthodox ways that reignite a love of the customer and a deeper understanding of the community (including how to attend to their own dopamine temptations in ethical ways)
3. Culture
- Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Uncertain or changeable employer brand that varies depending on immediate business needs or other short-term factors; compulsive hire and fire cycles that supercharge teams’ sense of thrill, anticipation and drama; entrenched gossip culture
- How to detox: Identify where internal insecurities or trust issues are boomeranging back as toxic buzz-seeking habits (often unconsciously); anonymised surveys provide quant data to help measure this often intangible but insidious challenge
4. Marketing & ROI
- Possible dopamine-addicted behaviours: Overdosing on performance marketing to chase quick results; major inconsistencies across messaging, tone of voice and visuals (including by agencies briefed poorly, even when that’s because of the excitement of a new engagement); false pricing strategies prompting customers to buy more when artificial reductions kick in - this one is especially tempting when Gartner predicts that 73% of tariff costs will go straight to the consumer
- How to detox: Shift focus to loyalty and LTV rather than quarterly (or monthly… or weekly…) indicators - while defining a clear separate strategic focus on short-term wins and revenue driving
This last point is at the heart of the story. The punishment for giving in to the temptation of quick wins is severe, but the huge business value and ROI rewards from the hard slog of long-term brand building are consistently proven, as Kantar BRANDZ’s latest data shows of the world’s most valuable brands:
As with so much in brand, business and strategy, real success and fulfilment often lie not in pushing harder, but in seeking sustainable balance. For the most progressive brands committed to nutritious behaviours rather than an overdependence on junk foods, this includes setting a new vision of growth. One that knowingly, deliberately settles into a long-term, slower view, described in Zoe Scaman’s Growth2 manifesto. Delayed gratification is a stealth value today.
Unlocking this progressive new incarnation of ‘sustainability’ means rebalancing to a semi-predictable, non-distracting, motivating flow of dopamine through your brand - after all it’s what helps us focus, work towards goals, and find things interesting.
And - brain or brand - that’s a good thing for us all.
Liz Hatherley,
Senior Brand and Content Strategy Consultant