JetBlue’s “Happy Jetting” Is More Than Empty Promises May 8, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction, Experience-Based Differentiation.Tags: JetBlue
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I’ve written posts that have chided marketing campaigns from JP Morgan Chase, Circuit City, and John Hancock because they appear to be disconnected from the reality of how the firms treat their customers. Those myopic marketing efforts fail to meet a fundamental tenet of Experience-Based Differentiation: Reinforce the brand with every interaction, not just communications.
I even developed this diagram to show how these marketing campaigns can lead to empty promises:
Probability Of Success For Branding Efforts
Given my recent negativity towards marketing campaigns, I was thrilled to read about JetBlue’s “Happy Jetting” initiative. I call it an “initiative” because it’s more than just an external marketing campaign. Here’s some of what Andrea Spiegel, JetBlue’s VP-Marketing, had to say about “Happy Jetting” in an Advertising Age article:
This is much more than just an ad campaign, it’s a brand campaign because it speaks to what the core of JetBlue is. It’s executable across every touch point for crew members and customers. [It's also] the most integrated internally and externally. We’ve brought to life this new world of jetting internally for crew members through training programs, screensavers and posters all over the company.
Now that’s what Experience-Based Differentiation is all about!
The bottom line: Don’t push ad campaigns, embrace brand initiatives.
Ford (Finally) Turns Employees Into Brand Ambassadors April 26, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction, EBD #3: Treat Customer Experience As A Competence.Tags: Ford
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I just read a BrandWeek article called Ford Asks Employees, Dealers to Spread Ad Message that talks about Ford’s new campaign called “Drive one” which includes a push for employees and dealers to spread the word. Jim Farley group vp-marketing and communications for Ford explains it this way:
The whole idea behind this campaign is not fancy ads. It’s talking to the customer, who talks to a friend. It’s the only chance we have to break the apathy.
My take: As I talked about in my previous post about John Hancock, advertising alone can’t dramatically change a company’s positioning. It takes a shift in how you interact with customers. That means you need to get employees involved (and for car makers, it means dealers as well). So this approach makes absolute sense. Yet, something is wrong.
The fact that Ford is making such a big deal out of this approach means that it’s an unusual occurance. So the car maker does NOT regularly engage employees and dealers in its advertising efforts. That’s a problem. Employees and the entire front line need to be developed into ambassadors for any campaign. And if they can’t promote it, then that’s probably a good sign that the campaign is not a good one.
When I interviewed the CMO for JetBlue several years ago, she told me that she spent half of her time communicating the brand message internally. Sounds like a good benchmark.
The bottom line: CMOs need to become CMMOs, Chief Marketing And Motivational Officers.
John Hancock Repositioning Provides Lesson About Empty Promises April 24, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction, Experience-Based Differentiation, Financial services.Tags: John Hancock
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John Hancock announced a new ad campaign called “Cursor” that showcases two areas: the rise of digital communications and the opportunity for financial success. It is trying to reintroduce the company to the public as a relevant and inspirational brand. Here’s how Jim Bacharach, vp-advertising at John Hancock described the campaign:
The thinking behind the campaign was to recognize where consumer sentiment is today. The unstable economy is a source of anxiety for a lot of folks. One of the key differences from what we’ve done in the past is that today, more than ever, these conversations take place through electronic media.
My take: Right below is the John Hancock homepage (from earlier this week). Other than the discussion of the new “Cursor” ad campaign in the lower right, is there anything about this page that reinforces the notion of relevance, inspiration, or digital conversations?
I didn’t bring this up to pick on John Hancock’s Website or even to discuss its repositioning efforts. Instead, I wanted to (re)make a point that advertising alone can not reposition a company.
While ad campaigns can certainly introduce new brand promises, repositioning can only occur of the company actually keeps those promises during all of its interactions. That’s why the second principle of Experience-Based Differentiation is: Reinforce the brand in every interaction, not just communications.
Without designing all touchpoints to fulfill the new brand promises, the hope for repositioning is likely to just lead to empty promises:
Probability Of Success For Branding Efforts
The bottom line: Don’t waste your marketing dollars on empty promises.
Note To Circuit City’s Board Of Directors March 9, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer experience, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction, Executive leadership, Experience-Based Differentiation.2 comments
Since my previous post talks about customer service and my next post will talk about customer loyalty, I felt compelled to squeeze in something about Circuit City. The retailer just announced that both its CMO and president of small stores are leaving — just a few months after the retailer’s exec VP of multi-channel sales also left the company. In the midst of this turnover, I have a few thoughts for the Circuit City board of directors as they retool their efforts.
To being with, let’s look at how customers rate Circuit City. Here are some findings from my research which shows Circuit City’s rankings:
- Overall customer experience: 26th out of 27 retailers
- Usefulness rating: Last out of 27 retailers
- Ease of use rating: 26th out of 27 retailers
- Enjoyability rating: 26th out of 27 retailers
- Phone interaction satisfaction: 47th out of 78 firms
- Web site interaction satisfaction: 46th out of 83 firms
- In-store interaction satisfaction: 44th out of 70 firms
- Customer intentions to switch: 110th out of 112 firms
- Customer plans for repurchasing: 106th out of 112 firms
It’s clear that Circuit City has it’s work cut out for itself when it comes to Customer Experience. I think it makes sense to repeat advice that I gave to JP Morgan Chase in ”Chase Can’t Advertise Its Way To Customer Friendliness:” You can’t advertise yourself out of this problem.
So here’s a suggestion for the Circuit City leadership team: Transform your latest marketing slogan, ”Simplicity guaranteed,” from a tag-line into an operational blueprint. How? By following the second principle of Experience-Based Differentiation:
Reinforce brands with every interaction, not just communications. Traditional brand messaging is losing its power to influence consumers — that’s why branding efforts need to expand beyond marketing communications to help define how customers should be treated. To master EBD, firms must articulate their brand attributes to both customers and employees, clearly describing how the firm wants to be viewed. That’s just the first step, because companies must go on to translate brand attributes into requirements for how they’ll interact with customers.
The bottom line: Circuit City should stop guaranteeing simplicity and start delivering it.
Chase Can’t Advertise Its Way To Customer Friendliness January 11, 2008
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Branding, Customer experience, EBD #2: Reinforce The Brand With Every Interaction, Experience-Based Differentiation, Financial services.add a comment
J.P. Morgan Chase is planning to unveil a new campaign called “Chase What Matters” in an effort to reposition itself as being more customer friendly. Here’s a quote from a news release on the topic:
“We’re launching it across all lines of business at Chase, working in partnership with our retail side so all branches and all Chase-branded products will be under this campaign,” said Sangeeta Prasad, svp-branding and advertising for Chase
My take: First of all, lets look at some data that I’ve published about Chase:
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In Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, Chase came out 72nd for its credit cards and tied for 103rd for its banking, out of 112 firms. That’s 8th out of 11 credit card providers and 13th out of 14 banks.
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In an analysis of multi-channel customer experience of 4 large credit card issuers that we published last May, Chase did the poorest with it’s Website and the best with its IVR, email, and cross channel transitions. But overall, none of the four firms did very well.
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In an analysis of financial services brand perceptions that we published this past February, consumers were considerably less likely than the industry average to describe Chase using the following terms: “honest,” “friendly,” “family-oriented,” and ”helpful.”
Chase certainly has its work cut out to be viewed as customer friendly.
But is the firm’s problem really its advertising slogan? Will a high recall rate for “Chase What Matters” make customers think that Chase is customer-friendly? I doubt it. To change customer perception, Chase needs to follow the second principle of Experience-Based Differentiation:
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Reinforce brands with every interaction, not just communications. Traditional brand messaging is losing its power to influence consumers — that’s why branding efforts need to expand beyond marketing communications to help define how customers should be treated. To master EBD, firms must articulate their brand attributes to both customers and employees, clearly describing how the firm wants to be viewed. That’s just the first step, because companies must go on to translate brand attributes into requirements for how they’ll interact with customers.
The bottom line: Don’t waste money on brand promises that you can’t keep.
