Maxime Willems
YOURS FAITHFULLY
Epilogue
So here I am, in the middle of February, ready to hand in my final paper for the school subject "Marketing opérationnel & fidélisation", one out of the sixteen school subjects included in this Master's program. Remember, two months ago, when all this was just an assignment creating tremendous chaos in a classroom? It feels like a long time ago and my emotions of an inner revolution towards the entire project are long gone and belong to the past. Ironically, it was definitely one of these moments of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, or gin tonic"...
Over time, I understood why it had to be a stranger and not a friend or family member; it allowed me to make an analysis in order to understand what it was all about, this relationship between the brand and the person, and I would not just limit myself to my observations and expose them on a very basic level.
Besides, it proved the entire theory to be true: "You need to pay attention to others first in order to get their attention!" ("Il faut s'intéresser aux autres pour qu'ils s'intéressent à vous!"). Over the previous two months, I have been faithfully following, liking and commenting on Virgilia's pictures. To my astonishment she did notice my interest in her picture gallery and ended up checking my Instagram profile and commenting on a picture I have taken during the previous summer, before starting school, at the Brigitte bar in Luxembourg:
In the end, it is all very simple. So if all the brands out there would get inspired, on how to treat their costumers, by the healthy (!) interpersonal relationships between humans, the marketing world out there would no longer look like a heartless low-price battlefield. They should care a little bit more about their customers out there instead of focusing only on the results with dollar signs in their eyes. Mass consumption has achieved its limits and major changes are taking place on the level of customer behaviour and attitudes. In a world that has been pushed to its superficial extremes, new customer-centred values and missions are mandatory in order to stick out from the crowd and to be the brand/the goddess that will be followed and honoured and consequently survive and win.
As a conclusion, I believe that Virgilia has chosen these brands for a reason. All of them are brands with a history, based on a curious founder with the ambition to share his tasteful product with people that care, just like himself, about the quality of a product. All 3 brands care about providing the best quality product to their customers. Today, all of them encounter success, though they are expensive and one could easily prepare a cheaper gin tonic based on any other brand. So, there definitely is more to it than just the price; it's the detail that is in the fabric, the coherence and last but not least the sense they make.
Looking forward to drinking a well-deserved gin tonic with Virgilia once I get home.
Yours faithfully,
Maxime Willems
