It´s not about a "consumer" and the deep psychology of his/hers innermost thoughts. To achieve success with marketing, to gain "fame" and change behavior, you need to focus on people and how the are connected and connect with others.
That´s why it´s so important that a Brand has a clear stated purpose or ideal if you like. The Brands answer to questions like: "What are we fore?" or "Why are we in the market?"
This is even more important now that brands realize the importance and potential of Real Time Marketing, Branded Content, Performance Marketing, Big Data etc - which are just buzz words on new possibilities to achieve what has always been important within marketing to ensure growth: being perceived as more prominent and relevant than your competitors. But new technology has enabled marketeers to do this more efficient and at a faster scale. When a brand create content or do something that becomes content that people choose to communicate to each other on Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn o.s - that´s when you have succeeded in resonating with the market. With culture.
Cases and white papers shows that people who are exposed to content via social (i.e clicking on a friend´s FB post link) deliver high scores on different communication KPI´s and tactical KPI´s. These cases however are about brands that do NOT focus on talking about themselves and their product features. But creates and/or do stuff that focus on pursuing the brands purpose that it shares with culture. A good example is Apple´s "Think Different" TV spot. Not a word about the functionalities and did not even show the computer. But it resonated and if it was 2013 it would - in addition to IRL WOM - be shared, liked, favorited, retweeted, remixed, pinned, starred etc massively by people and thus Apple would become part of the stories between people. Which would then again make people interested to learn more about the product and it´s features. Aspire first - then attributes.
Read the book HERD by Mark Earls.