Long Yun Siang of Raw Points believes they do.

Where does your brand live?

Go to any busy coffee shop and you will see the fruit seller amongst all the food sold there. Not far away, perhaps satay stalls, usually at night. The lottery seller strolls through selling you hope for a future by the beach. Walk to a number forecast outlet (4D), you will probably see illegal DVD sellers, bean curd drink vendor and sometimes pisang goreng (fried banana chips) right at its door step and occasionally, a fortune teller.

But notice the fortune tellers there don't do very well. You see good fortune tellers don't live outside 4D outlets. The good ones are tucked somewhere between rocks, or in housing areas where you are referred by an aunt's cousin's whose swollen toe was cured by the collective licks from the resident house flies whose previous lives were shamans in Mongolia.

The not so accurate fortune tellers are convenient. The good ones, they live somewhere else. Every business has an ecosystem it thrives in. The way you define it will open up new opportunities. How have you defined your brand's ecosystem?

Is your brand's love transactional or relational?

Business is very real. It is all about the money. Money makes the world goes round. Some say love makes the world goes round. Some say, when consumers love you enough they buy you, money changes hands. Thus, the world goes round.

For consumers to love you, fall in love with you, you need to start courting them. How have you planned that courtship? Is that courtship plan too transactional? In that case it won't work. He would be marrying you for the money. Not love. So, don't make your potential lover feel you want money from him but you want him to love you too. It just doesn't work that way.

What love have you sent out there today?

Long Yun Siang is the author of the book "500 Questions to Inspire a Better Marketing Plan." Raw Points is a collection of short articles crafted to provoke thought on various aspects of marketing communications, branding and sometimes anything. Long's blog can be followed at rawpoints.blogspot.com.