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02. Analysis:
Defining behavioral brands
as future of business
beyond AI
as future of business
beyond AI
VALUE of INDISPENSABLE RELATIONSHIP
at SCALE
at SCALE
By Van Rais
December 2024
Geopolitical and technological shifts are reshaping the ground beneath every business. In this environment, “classic brands” built on products, features, and functional benefits lose relevance quickly. Businesses that lead with indispensable relationships endure beyond product cycles and political or economic turbulence.
The opportunity is primal. New opportunities will rise from a better understanding of our true inherent strengths, where survival instincts, trust, and solidarity are considered new values. How can businesses move closer to our natural habitat to be better fit, not just faster—more effective, not just less expensive to run?
In this article, I’m considering businesses that lead in the market by creating additional value for customers in a hyper-competitive and noisy market. This value is measured by the outcome of new behavior with the purpose of improving customers’ lives.
For customers, this feels like an indispensable relationship, and for businesses, it creates competitive moat isolation. These are behavioral brands.
Would you trade
your old puppy
for a new one?
your old puppy
for a new one?
_____
Imagine this. Your beloved puppy is sick.
Someone offers you a healthier, younger, bigger puppy in exchange. Would you make the trade? Most people wouldn’t. By all economic and rational measures, the trade makes sense. But what matters is not the “specs” of the puppy, it is the indispensable relationship with another living creature.
Someone offers you a healthier, younger, bigger puppy in exchange. Would you make the trade? Most people wouldn’t. By all economic and rational measures, the trade makes sense. But what matters is not the “specs” of the puppy, it is the indispensable relationship with another living creature.
This trade might be logical when applied to cars, but not to relationships. And that is the point: we must redefine how we evaluate relationships, and how to recognize and apply that thinking to business and branding. The same principle applies to behavioral brands and business, the category I want to define in this article.
We don’t truly value BBs for features, technology, or efficiency alone. We value them for the relationships they embed into our lives. If those brands disappeared, we would not simply miss their utility, we would struggle to replace them.
What are values of
indispensable relationships at scale?
indispensable relationships at scale?
_____
Behavioral brands create value through their actions, fostering indispensable relationships with customers. For customers, this represents a shift from transactional interactions to genuine, enduring relationships with businesses.
For businesses, these behavioral values translate into higher effectiveness and create competitive insulation in a fragmented, content-saturated market. An indispensable relationship cannot be reduced to features, speed, or technical logic. Those can be replaced by newer, faster versions.
Behavioral brands creates new behaviors that people couldn’t do before. These behaviors improve lives and reset customer expectations, making the brand indispensable.
________
Three defining behavioral
values
values
_____
Remember your first iPhone?
When it launched, it wasn’t simply a “better phone.” It was a new way to relate to each other. It collapsed entire categories, phones, music players, cameras, maps, even wallets. The nuance was huge technological leap forward, but by far more psychological. It changed our behaviors in ways we could not reverse: how we communicate, connect, entertain ourselves, share, and navigate the world.
When it launched, it wasn’t simply a “better phone.” It was a new way to relate to each other. It collapsed entire categories, phones, music players, cameras, maps, even wallets. The nuance was huge technological leap forward, but by far more psychological. It changed our behaviors in ways we could not reverse: how we communicate, connect, entertain ourselves, share, and navigate the world.
This was not just a device upgrade. It was a massive behavioral leap. And it brought us closer to our fragile origin, to who we really are. Closer to what we desire the most. Relationship to another human. At that point iPhone become and indespesivle.
Classic brands rely on storytelling, emotional appeal, and logical narratives. They persuade with campaigns and consistency, adjusting to markets by reflecting values consumers want to associate with. Behavioral Brands live in a different parallel world. They achieve more by solving psychological problems with logical solutiuons for customer. The outcome is new customer behavior, tangible improvements in quality of life.
_______
Relationship economy. BBs prioritize the quality of the relationship over the volume of transactions. They build both emotional and functional trust while reducing uncertainty. They influence by focusing on psychology rather than business logic. They create value measured not by promises, but by the behaviors they inspire and the outcomes they deliver. From transaction to long term relationship.
Airbnb trusting strangers at global scale. Neutralizing fear of strangers and belonging as drivers of travel, reshaping how millions of people live and connect, creating new behavior as outcome.
_______
Competitive insulation. BBs live and act on their behavioral values that is hard to replicate. Once they reshape actionable behavior, competitors cannot easily dislodge them. Understanding customers at a psychological level enables more persuasive and targeted marketing. Campaigns resonate because they connect to biases, emotions, and habit patterns. From stories & features to actionable new behavior.
Peloton elevated the stationary bike from a forgotten basement tool to a centerpiece of the living room. Even alone, riders relied on social proof, leaderboards, instructors, and applause, to fuel motivation. The brand became indispensable not through attention, but through its role in daily life of customers.
_______
Raising expectations. Classic brands focus on experience. Behavioral brands raise expectations permanently. Once people experience behavioral value, they expecting it everywhere. BBs align with survival needs and decision patterns. They create satisfaction by reducing uncertainty and mitigating risks. They turn expectations into new standards of experience. From experiences to expectations.
Uber is no different from a taxi at utility level. The ride takes the same road and time. But Uber removed the pain of uncertainty: when, where, who, and if a car would arrive. That behavioral reliability, not product difference, made Uber the preferred choice.
Businesses that create new behaviors people could not perform before qualify as behavioral brands. Not a technologically superior product, but an indispensable relationship where outcome is new behavior.
__________
Businesses that create new behaviors people could not perform before qualify as behavioral brands. Not a technologically superior product, but an indispensable relationship where outcome is new behavior.
__________
Hoover. From cleaning tool to mindfulness brand. A catalyst for mindful living and everyday well-being, encouraging new behaviors and reducing procrastination at home, without changing what Hoover makes, only how people relate to it.
See Hoover case study ➡︎
Adoption of
behavioral brands
is dramatic
behavioral brands
is dramatic
____
Tesla and Dyson appear revolutionary. Tesla electrified cars; Dyson reinvented vacuums. But neither has created the behavioral transformation that defines them as behavioral brands.
Dyson still clean our homes the same way. Machines are better, but behavior is unchanged. To become a Behavioral Brand, Dyson would need to evolve into a mindfulness brand: helping us build healthier relationships with our homes, clean proactively, procrastinate less, even integrate cleaning into wellness. That would create new habits, but it is a difficult leap.
Tesla driving is still driving. The behavioral leap will come with reliable autonomy: a car that drops you at work, picks up groceries, takes your child to lessons, and texts you updates on safety. At that point, it becomes a partner organizing your life.
Without behavioral transformation, adoption of Tesla and Dyson remains incremental, around 10%.
Conversion from gas to electric vehicles or from standard vacuums to high-tech Dyson models hovers near 1%, underscoring that these brands achieved a substantial technological shift but not a behavioral one.
By contrast, adoption of behavioral brands is dramatic, as seen with the iPhone or Airbnb, which rapidly captured significant market share. Abundant data supports this pattern.
__________
GE HealthCare. Guide transformation from a technology to a customer care brand. Reframe how employees relate to the company’s new brand color, as a symbol for customer compassion.
Steps to evolve classic brands into the behavioral brands
______
Relying only on traditional MBA expertise is limiting. The shift is about rethinking what really matters in the business. Branding used to worship business logic and gut instinct, the “eye test” of iconic leaders and following customer insights to offer what they desire and want to experience. It’s like moving from Mad Men era advertising (intuition and storytelling) to Behavioral Branding: data, psychology, and relationships.
Relying only on traditional MBA expertise is limiting. The shift is about rethinking what really matters in the business. Branding used to worship business logic and gut instinct, the “eye test” of iconic leaders and following customer insights to offer what they desire and want to experience. It’s like moving from Mad Men era advertising (intuition and storytelling) to Behavioral Branding: data, psychology, and relationships.
______
Understanding something your competition doesn’t is a breakthrough.
Add a psychological research component to your brand practice to broader perspective not only to unlocks new opportunities but also creates competitive isolation. Centralize Behavioral Branding both internal and external brand integration.
Add a psychological research component to your brand practice to broader perspective not only to unlocks new opportunities but also creates competitive isolation. Centralize Behavioral Branding both internal and external brand integration.
______
Delivering more value to customers is a breakthrough. Deep-dive into accurately defining the psychological problem your business is solving for customers. Tailor actions for new behaviors. Updating strategic logic with applied psychological insights is a growth breakthrough that can also uncover additional internal resources.
______
Knowing your customers better than your competition is a breakthrough. Collect 60%+ more customer data to drive meaningful branding actions. Reduce uncertainty, procrastination, and emotional risk.
______
High-end creative design execution fully integrated with behavioral science is a breakthrough. Fusing applied behavioral science with brand strategy is a breakthrough.
______
Innovate new behaviors customers don’t yet have. Build trust so deeply that your absence would feel like the loss of a relationship, not just a product.
Keep testing and refining your BBs perspective
_______
Ask yourself:
If a brand disappeared tomorrow, would life become harder, less safe, or less connected?
Ask yourself:
If a brand disappeared tomorrow, would life become harder, less safe, or less connected?
Is Hilton brand indispensable?
NO. You could easily switch to Holiday Inn for a nearly identical service.
Is Airbnb brand indispensable?
YES. Without it, you’d lose access to unique stays across the world—and it would take years to rebuild my trusted network on another platform.
Behavioral brands in the AI era
______
Any technological evolution is psyhological and not technological.
A better vacuum, a more efficient car engine, or a smarter algorithm is surface evolution. Unless it reshapes how humans live, it is pathology disguised as progress. As AI takes over logic, humans will focus more on strengths: psychology, relationships, and experiences. We will lean on social norms, community belonging, and social proof, our original nature.
Behavioral brands succeed here by building ecosystems and communities at scale. Peloton proves it: the product works alone, but the brand thrives because no one wants to ride alone on the leaderboard. In an AI-driven world, BBs will win by amplifying what makes us human.
An uncomfortable
return to better
return to better
_________
Better is our want but also it is need.
Why does choosing Airbnb often feel more difficult, particularly as we age, while selecting a hotel remains effortless? The answer lies in the values that modern commerce has prioritized. Over decades, we have systematically stripped away social values from business, replacing them with economic efficiency and convenience. Hotels embody this shift: predictable, transactional, and low-friction.
Airbnb, by contrast, reintroduces social variables, trust, reciprocity, and human interaction, that many of us have learned to suppress in market exchanges. What feels “uncomfortable” is not the platform itself, but the rediscovery of dynamics that require us to be social actors rather than passive consumers.
The managerial challenge is not to mandate a wholesale return to the past but to lower the barriers that prevent social strengths from emerging. When organizations enable trust, cooperation, and shared experience, they unlock the most powerful force in human behavior: our innate capacity to connect and create relationships. Businesses and brands that tap this resource will not only differentiate themselves but also create more durable forms of indispensable behavioral values ◼︎
About Van Rais
I successfully brings together strategy, high-end creative, and applied Behavioral Science into a unified system for transformation. My expertise lies in business and brand development, leading Behavioral Branding initiatives for Microsoft, GE, Starbucks, and various scale-ups. My love for art and pop culture makes him feel alive, living in New York City.
Thank you!