Customer Experience And The Zen Of Brands July 21, 2009
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience.10 comments
In my speech at Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum, I discussed what it takes for companies to be good at customer experience. Customer experience excellence is not about creating magical moments with charming characters or providing Internet access and couches.
Costco, for instance, was tied for 3rd in Forrester’s 2008 Customer Experience Index (CxPI) and took the #1 spot in the 2007 CxPi. And they achieved these results without attempting to be anything like Disney or Starbucks.
There’s no one-size fits all approach to designing customer experience. So what should companies do? Look to your brand! The reason that Costco and other firms can excel at customer experience is because they:
Consistently deliver on brand promises that resonate with customers
That statement represents what I feel is the essence of customer experience. To better understand what it means, here’s a deeper dive into the components of the statement:
- Consistently delivering. Great customer experience is not about periodic heroic efforts. You need to design for and institutionalize repeatability, dependability, and consistency.
- Brand promises. I write a lot in this blog about brands. Brands are more than color palettes and logos; they represent the essence of who you are as a company. Unfortunately, many firms have lost site of their brands. To deliver great experiences, organizations need to thoroughly understand the promises that their brand is making to customers.
- Resonate with customers. At the end of the day, you need to deliver value to customers. If they aren’t interested in the promises that you’re making, then your customer experience efforts will go to waste.
The bottom line: Great customer experience is brand-specific.
My Marketing/Branding Favs Over 2 Years July 1, 2009
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, CMO advice, Customer experience, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction.1 comment so far
In a continuation of the look back at my first two years of blogging, today I’m listing some of my…
Favorite Marketing/Branding Posts
From my perspective, brands aren’t color palettes or logos. They’re not tag lines or advertising campaigns. They’re an organization’s raison d’être. Here’s how I describe branding:
True brands are more than just marketing slogans, they’re the fabric that aligns all employees with customers in the pursuit of a common cause.
- Brands Are Dying; Deal With It (3/6/08). It’s time for companies to reinvigorate their brands.
- My First 8 Steps As A New CMO (9/13/08). I was pleasantly surprised by the enormous readership of this post which outlines how CMOs can get started.
- JetBlue’s “Happy Jetting” Is More Than Empty Promises (5/8/08). JetBlue showcases some basic principles of brand building.
- Ford (Finally) Turns Employees Into Brand Ambassadors (4/16/08). It’s critical to get your employees on board (and engaged with) any marketing efforts.
- CMOs: Start Building (Real) Loyalty (4/3/09). Highlights different research that can help CMOs build loyalty.
- 6 Steps For The President To Revive “Brand USA” (11/3/08). Even the USA has a branding problem.
- Marketing Lessons From An Ex-Marine (12/20/08). Find out how marketers can apply a Marine approach called BRASS.
- John Hancock Repositioning Provides Lesson About Empty Promises (4/24/08). Advertising should be used to reinforce branding, not create it.
- Firms Need Some Soul Searching (9/25/07). An important lesson from Aretha Franklin.
- Don’t Let Profits Replace Purpose (8/13/07). Brands are much more than color palettes and logos, they represent a company’s reason for being. Many companies have lost site of that.
The bottom line: Most organizations need to re-establish their raison d’être.
CMOs: Start Building (Real) Loyalty April 3, 2009
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, CMO advice, Customer experience.Tags: Hamish Pringle
5 comments
As I’ve mentioned before, brands are dying. While there are some exceptions (Zappos, Apple, Southwest Airlines, etc.), firms just aren’t developing strong brands. Why does it matter? Because weak brands can’t build strong loyalty.
People often say that prices are being driven down by customers empowered with information. But I don’t really buy it. Price competition is being driven by the lack of strong brands. Here’s what I said about brands in an earlier post:
True brands are more than just marketing slogans, they’re the fabric that aligns all employees with customers in the pursuit of a common cause.
I just completed an analysis of what consumers want from different companies in 12 different industries. It turns out that good customer services was preferred more frequently than low prices across every industry.
But my research isn’t the only source of insight about the importance of strong brands. Here are a few recent studies that I’ve read…
1. Emotional Advertising Lowers Price Sensitivity
In a new book called “Brand Immortality,” Hamish Pringle, Director General of The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, shows that emotional advertising is much more powerful than rational, hard-selling ads. Here’s an excerpt:
What the data show us is that emotional campaigns are almost twice as likely to generate large profit gains than rational ones… It turns out that emotional campaigns… excel in one noteworthy area: reducing price sensitivity, and hence strengthening the ability of brands to secure a premium in the marketplace.
2. Advertising Price Is Not Very Effective
In a recent post called Time Is More Valuable Than Money, I discussed research that shows how advertising that mentions time drives more sales than ads that mention price. Here’s some of the research from Stanford:
Because a person’s experience with a product tends to foster feelings of personal connection with it, referring to time typically leads to more favorable attitudes-and to more purchases
3. Loyalty Programs Must Build Attitudinal Loyalty
An article in AdAge called Redesigning Loyalty Programs to Last Beyond the Next Purchase discusses the difference between behavioral loyalty (temporary) and attitudinal loyalty (which is lasting). According to the authors:
Behavioral loyalty might be described as consumers doing what you want them to do, while attitudinal loyalty involves consumers believing what you want them to… As a result, loyalty programs that provide only economic benefits may be appropriate in some instances but may actually conflict with brand-building efforts that ultimately attempt to create attitudinal loyalty.
The bottom line: Don’t let your brand go to waste!
Brands Are Dying; Deal With It March 6, 2009
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction.Tags: Adaptive Path, Helen Walters
19 comments
In my presentation at Adaptive Path’s Mx Conference earlier this week, I mentioned that brands are dying. This turned out to have more of an impact than I thought. Helen Walters from BusinessWeek (who was in the audience) ended up interviewing me and posting a video of our conversation on her blog.
Why did I say it?
I often discuss Experience-Based Differentiation (EBD), a blueprint for customer experience excellence, in my blog (and in every other forum where people will listen). In my research, I track how large companies progress towards EBD. It turns out that they’ve actually regressed when it comes to the second principle of EBD: “Reinforce the brand with every interaction, not just communications.” Here’s one of the data points from surveys of large North American firms:
Why are brands dying?
It’s simple: Companies have let profits replace purpose. As firms optimize left-brain management techniques for squeezing out additional profits, they’ve lost something very important — their raison d’être. True brands are more than just marketing slogans, they’re the fabric that aligns all employees with customers in the pursuit of a common cause.
This quote from Mohatma Gandhi gives insight into how companies should think about their brands:
All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.
The bottom line: Don’t let your brand slip away.
Leadership Insights From Obama’s Inauguration Speech January 21, 2009
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Executive leadership, Managing in a recession, Political inisghts.Tags: Barack Obama, Inauguration
3 comments
This is an edited excerpt from President Obama’s inauguration speech. In addition to delivering a powerful set of messages to US citizens and other people around the world, Obama’s words also contained extremely valuable lessons for executives trying to lead their organizations through the recession. Here’s my take on some insights in his speech:
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious, and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: they will be met.
My take: Leaders need to communicate the reality about the difficult economic environment, but still maintain a vision of hope for employees (as well as customers, suppliers, and investors).
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor – who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.
My take: The success of a company comes from the day to day activities of all employees. So it is critical to keep them engaged in the shifts being made to react to the recession. How? By making sure to actively communicate and look for their help in finding solutions. Remember the 4th law of customer experience: unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers.
Our workers are no less productive when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed.
My take: It’s important to acknowledge the core strengths of the company, but recognize that this is a time for making tough decisions. This may call for cutting off entire initiatives while raising investments in others. As management guru Ram Charan recommends: Just say no to across-the-board cuts.
The state of our economy calls for actions: Bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth.
My take: It’s time to take decisive action that protects your company in the short-term and also prepares the company for its post-recession future. Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO, captured this nicely in his advice to GE’s top executives on how to manage through the recession: “Keep your company safe but keep building the future.”
We will restore science to its rightful place and wiled technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its costs.
My take: Don’t just do less of the same thing in this downturn, rethink how you operate. Look for opportunities to use technology to create more even value at lower costs. For a great example of this type of thinking, just look at Aravind Eye Care.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between safety and our ideals… Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake
My take: Don’t forget the common purpose that holds your company together. Even in a downturn, make sure that decisions are consistent with the ideals of your brand. As Gandhi once wisely said: “All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.”
The bottom line: Take this moment in time to rethink your leadership approach.
Marketing Lessons From An Ex-Marine December 20, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, CMO advice, Customer experience.1 comment so far
When Marines get rifle lessons, they learn the acronym BRASS: Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze, Shoot. Casey Jones, who has been both a Marine and VP-global marketing at Dell, discusses how those military lesson make sense when it comes to marketing. No surprise: he thinks marketers do a lot of shooting without aiming. Jones offers a lot of good advice, including this:
Breathe: Set aside time every week to focus on what your brand is communicating. Relax: Remember that the brand will not fail if you pause for a moment to focus. It may fail, however, if you continue to waste marketing shots that are off-target.
He also recommends that all messaging briefs contain these four elements:
- A clear definition of the target audience
- A clear statement of the audience’s current mental and emotional perceptions of your brand.
- A short statement of the “desired” perceptual state — one that is reasonable given your budget.
- A clear list of the minimum points you must communicate in order to achieve your goal.
The bottom line: Don’t forget to breathe, relax, and aim.
Ford Lacks An American Idol Storyline November 28, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience.Tags: American Idol, AT&T, Buyology, Coke, Ford, John Kotter, Martin Lindstrom, Storytelling
5 comments
In an article in Advertising Age, Martin Lindstrom (author of “Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy What We Buy“) discusses neuromarketing research which looked at how brand impressions impacted 2,000 consumers. As part of the study, they examined the value that Coke, AT&T, and Ford received from their $25+ million sponsorship deals with American Idol.
It turns out that the connection with the hit TV show increased the brand equity for Coke and AT&T, but it had a negative impact on the Ford brand.
Lindstrom suggests that these results stem from how the brands were incorporated into the show. Coke and AT&T were integrated within the flow of the show, but Ford’s impressions lacked a clear purpose. According to Lindstrom:
What we learned was that if a brand is part of a story line, our brains will accept the role of the brand and remember its presence. However, if a brand and its role don’t support the story line, the opposite will happen: Our brains will simply erase it.
My take: Storytelling is a powerful, yet under-appreciated, tool. People have a hard time remembering a bunch of disconnected facts, but they can remember an abundance of details about a story that resonates with them.
Whenever I am doing a research project, I’m constantly asking “what’s the story?” Even when the research is completed, I end up spending an enormous amount of time fine-tuning how we tell the story. Is it worth it? I really think so. As the management guru John Kotter has said:
Over the years I have become convinced that we learn best–and change–from hearing stories that strike a chord within us.
The bottom line: Words are cheap, but a great story is priceless.
Apple, Not Obama, Is My Marketer Of The Year October 25, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience, Political inisghts.Tags: Apple, Coors, McCain, Nike, Obama, Zappos
1 comment so far
Obama’s campaign just won “Marketer of the Year” from the Association of National Advertisers. Here’s how the group voted:
- Obama: 36.1%
- Apple: 27.3%
- Zappos: 14.1%
- Nike: 9.4%
- Coors: 8.7%
- McCain: 4.5%
You have to give Obama a lot of credit for successfully using social media and digital marketing techniques to reach the grass roots constituents and raise a ridiculous amount of money: $150 million in September!!! I outlined several good the things in the Obama campaign in my post Five Lessons From Clinton/Obama Battle.
But even with all of that cash flowing into the Obama campaign, it wouldn’t have been my first pick on the list. Who would have been my number 1? Apple.
Apple has done an amazing job with Mac and iPhone marketing. The Mac ads are fantastic; delivering clear, on-brand messages (Mac is fun, Vista is broken) in a fun and memorable way. The iPhone marketing campaign has created enormous buzz around the iPhone experience, pushing people to actually switch wireless carriers. In addition to the product-specific campaigns, Apple does a great job of blending its product design, store experience, and Genius service into the marketing mix.
And, we can’t forget that Apple is successfully outmarketing companies like Microsoft, HP, Dell, Verizon, and RIM (Blackberry). These are major consumer brands. Obama, on the other hand, is only out-marketing McCain who has significantly less resources.
The bottom line: Apple is my marketer of the year (P.S. I’m also a huge fan of Zappos)
HTC On Innovation, Simplicity, And Branding October 8, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience, Disruptive customer experience strategies, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction.Tags: HTC, John Wang
1 comment so far
I ran across a very interesting Q&A with John Wang, CMO of HTC, the Taiwanese company that delivered the first cell phone using Google’s Android operating system. The article focuses on how HTC cultivates innovation through it’s Magic Labs organization, which is a group of people across multiple disciplines (called “Magicians”) that focus on long-term innovations. The CMO runs the group and his business card says “Chief Innovation Wizard.”
While the article provides interesting insights about how HTC handles innovation, I really enjoyed Wang’s discussion about two of my favorite topics: simplicity and branding.
The way most companies compete is by adding features to their products and services. So, over time, the offerings become more complicated than what’s actually needed by large segments of customers. And the interface to those products becomes increasingly complex. That’s why I’ve defined ULTRASIMPLICITY as one of the Five Disruptive Customer Experience Strategies. Here’s some of what Wang had to say on the topic:
Everybody was talking about simplicity, everybody was talking about usability. What did people do? Well, they rearranged the menu and called that improving usability. That’s not simplicity, that’s rearranging menu items…. The true mission is not to reduce learning, but to eliminate learning… The baby is probably the best expression for zero learning because the baby has not learned anything yet. If she wants to see the monkey on the other side of the block, she simply reaches out and turns the cube.
When I discuss brand, it’s often in context of the 2nd principle of Experience-Based Differentiation: Reinforce the brand with every interaction, not just communications. Brands need to be about walking the walk, not just talking the talk. All too often, though, I find that ”the brand” only exists in advertising groups. When that happens, the rest of the company doesn’t really reinforce any of the brand value; leading to empty promises in marketing. So I really appreciated the following comments from Wang:
There is a very important difference between brand value and brand recognition. Brand value means something to the end user. Brand recognition, all it means is a bunch of advertising to make people recognize the brand name. At HTC we care about brand value, not brand recognition. Building brand value is like earning respect; you have to earn respect, you cannot buy respect.
The bottom line: “Innovation + Simplicity + Brand Value” is a great formula.
Gen Y Brands Gain, Financial Brands Lose September 23, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience.Tags: Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Blackberry, Citi, Coca Cola, Disney, FedEx, Ferrari, Ford, GE, Giorgio Armani, Google, H&M, IBM, Intel, Kodak, Marriott, McDonalds, Mercedes Benz, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nintendo, Nokia, SAP, The Gap, Toyota, UBS, Visa, Zara
1 comment so far
Interbrand just published its annual ranking of the 100 best global brands. Here are the top 10 brands on the list:
- Coca Cola
- IBM
- Microsoft
- GE
- Nokia
- Totota
- Intel
- McDonald’s
- Disney
Here’s some of the other interesting details from the rankings:
- Google is the only new entry to the top 10; it was 20th last year. Which company dropped out? Mercedes-Benz was 10th last year and is 11th this year.
- The listing also provides the change in value of the brands since last year. Here are the biggest changes in brand value:
- Top gainers: Google (+43%), Apple (+24%), Amazon (+19%), ZARA (+15%), SAP (+13%), and Nintendo (+13%)
- Top losers: Merrill Lynch (-21%), Gap (-20%), Morgan Stanley (-16%), Citi (-15%), Ford (-12%), and UBS (-11%).
- The top gainers are what I call “Gen Y brands,” they came to age during the early adulthood of 20 year-olds, while the losers are dominated by large financial institutions.
- There were 7 new brands on the top 100 list this year: H&M (#22), Blackberry (#73), Ferrari (#93), Giorgio Armani (#94), Marriott (#96), FedEx (#99), and Visa (#100).
- The highest ranked company on last year’s list that did not make this year’s top 100 was Kodak (#82 in 2007).
- For fun, I went back and looked at the top 10 brands from 2001. Here they are:
- Coca Cola
- Microsoft
- IBM
- GE
- Nokia
- Intel
- Disney
- Ford
- McDonald’s
- AT&T
The bottom line: Just about everyone recognizes this: 
