Before Liliane Bettencourt, the owner of L’Oréal cosmetic company died, she launched one of the most successful advertising campaigns, which made a lot of impact in the field of marketing and yielded so much profit for the company. L’Oréal used celebrities to front this very campaign, using the slogan, “Because you’re worth it.” This simply means, use their products, spoil yourself, go for the best… because you’re worth it!
Because it is part of human nature to focus on ourselves, the slogan made heavy waves, and that version of advertisement became so profound and relevant in L’Oréal company, in the advertisement industry and other related industries.
Relevance and worth are the dominant mindsets of our modern culture. People desperately desire to become famous or resurrect flagging careers by all means. The cult of celebrity is expanding, and influencers, bloggers and and content creators are rising by the day. In the face of this scramble for relevance, may I ask, is your version still relevant? Like L’Oréal, is your measure of relevance still making impacts? Is your offer needed and useful? Do others consider it worthy of their resources, time, and energy? Do you attract monetary value and maximise profit with it? What’s the reputation of your brand?
A relevant version must not necessarily be packaged or designed on the surface to attract. Relevance is beyond the exterior. It is the degree of usefulness that brings value and productivity. It could be internal or external or both.The bible tells us that John the Baptist lived in the wilderness. He survived on locust and wild honey and dressed in camel skin. He was not attractive on the outside. Yet, people were impressed by the message of his repentance. They flocked to him from all over and got baptised by him.
By virtue of being children of God, we are valuable to God and to the world. The question is the standard of the value and how it is utilized to be relevant to the world. What’s your public attraction? Is it what people want? Is your price worth your value? We are in a vast world, and competitions are fierce. The tech world is evolving so fast. The version of your value must be very engaging in solving a problem or offering reliable services or in entertainment or strive to educate, influence, motivate, and so on.
There are many ways to create relevance. It could be in something as little as filling the need of others, or in channelling your passion, strength and talent towards the need of others, or creating a viable market for your products, services or ideas or in sustaining integrity, forthrightness and other virtues.
In my consultancy services, there was a period I engaged in a paid class with fellow consultants. I was having lots of consultations by them, and I was guiding them through the intricacies in the visa process. They asked related questions, so I decided to maximise the opportunity. I organized an elaborate training for all of them together. It was a huge success and high-yielding because it was relevant to the field and to those who needed it. In this case, they saw the version they needed and paid for its relevance.
If the version of your personality, your field of expertise, your passion, or your significance is no longer valuable, it is time to realign it to suit the public expectations to yield more value. Like basic economics taught us, you need to offer something rare and valuable if you want something rare and valuable.
Amara Ann Unachukwu.
