Brand moves on... the key question now is:
"What was it like for you?"
A short presentation to the Gloucestershire CIM. September 2004. This is the Summary paper.
Introduction
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL"
- Maya Angelou
"When the memory is gone, the emotion remains"
- Vincent Grimaldi
"The only thing that matters is how you touch people"
- Peter Drucker
These simple messages are the beating heart of a good brand. We see it everyday in corporate advertising on the TV - feelgood about this, get excited about that.
But in the real world, day-to-day, do we take enough care about how we make our customers feel? Are we even aware of how we make them feel? And if we do sit back for a few minutes and think about it, do we soon get bogged down by how complex everything is and ultimately shirk our responsibility?
To get to brand communications that engage how customers FEEL, there's a whole range of guidelines, tools and best practice that you can use. This paper will give a brief overview of just a few of them. We've chosen some approaches you may not have considered before, so our aim is to provide you with ideas you can adapt for yourselves and get thinking about your own customers.
1. The first one is Fans & Foes - our 'take' on why firms must engage with their whole brand community.
2. The second is Touchpoints - this is where the business really takes place, so every one of them should leave your customers feeling good about you.
3. And finally, the importance of a "Wow!" factor for competitive advantage and brand-building, using what we call the "4 Es".
Fans and Foes
Understanding of stakeholder interest and very careful positioning is required for your communications to be truly effective. Because although all your messages should be aligned and consistent with your core brand story, not all your stakeholders will be equally on board.
In fact, they will run across a spectrum of feeling - from detractors who question and oppose almost everything you stand for, to advocates who support and endorse you at every opportunity. These extremists may be few in number and it is therefore tempting to ignore them; but you do so at your peril.
McDonalds is a well know example of a business that has been caught in the trap of ignoring, dismissing and arguing with a minority opposition; it has seen its brand star, though still strong, waning. In fact the New York Times talks of "falls in their global profits and corporate closure of many stores", with US executives admitting that recent years have been the "most challenging" in McDonald's long history.
Closer examination of the dynamics of communication shows how extreme views can have power and influence beyond their numbers, especially the "anti" elements who can make a good story for the media - and particularly when introduced as a "balance" to your own position.
Touchpoints & Experiential Parameters
Touchpoints are all those points of contact - directly or indirectly - with your publics (aka stakeholders aka brand community). It is here where your business really happens, not in your office, not in your factory. Each touchpoint is an opportunity to impress or disappoint. Each will leave your public with an emotion of some sort - details may be forgotten, but people will remember how it made them feel. Successful brands live through their touchpoints and ensure the scales of positive experience always tip in their favour.
Experiential Parameters (XPs) are the components of each touchpoint - aspects you can measure, things you can improve on. They might typically include:
Behaviour, competence, tools, environment, process/backup, fulfilment, salience, relevance, meaning, look and feel, tone of voice, vocabulary.
How do your Touchpoints measure up?
Market research budgets can produce a Rembrandt but even a simple sketch will start to pull out some valuable insight, if you put yourselves in your stakeholders' shoes and see your business totally from their point of view. The best way of course is to be informed by them directly, so look for opportunities to engage and listen, and see whereabouts on the map they place your pin. What do they believe is important and how well do they think you meet or exceed expectation?
Identify the touchpoints, form as comprehensive a picture as you are able, then map them out, on a scale of important to extremely important.
Considering the XPs for each, how well do you perform?
Move your touchpoints up or down between Awesome and Awful. ANYTHING below the halfway line is going to do you damage. Focus on the extremely important end first. But aim to shift them ALL up as high as you can.
Achieving the Difference has used these techniques with clients to help clarify, focus and prioritise both remedial action and improvement opportunities.
The 4 Es
Your products and services must be distinct from their competition but still meet the needs of the markets they serve. The concept of the 4 Es provides a simple way of analysing your proposition to understand where the value is - and especially what is the Exciting part?!
Essential – the basic "category-defining" attributes, without which you are probably not a player, or can only be one in a low cost low quality position
Expected – the attributes which are defined by the existing market; those things that all, or almost all, the competition include as standard
Enhancing – the elements of your product or service which are also offered by some other players; you would need low cost operational efficiencies to compete using these; or you might use tactically as loss leaders to gain market position or share
Exciting – a real differentiator combining emotional appeal with a unique user benefit; a new technology application, a design statement or even your own brand "story" could work well here - and make it very hard for competition to catch up and copy. You can redefine your market's expectation by making your "exciting" attributes the perceived market "essential" - you'll have a head start over the competition.
When mobile phone operator Orange was launched they created a strong position for value, honesty and customer friendliness by finding exciting elements to distinguish themselves from the three other operators in a crowded market. One of the key elements was launching with "real time (per second) billing" when the established operators all billed in 1 minute increments.
Within 12 months every network had to offer per second billing to stay in the game.
Audi were the company that first offered permanent four wheel drive to the mainstream car market. Today, almost all model ranges from virtually all manufacturers include a 4WD road car.
Using 4Es helps to identify where the value is in the product range and where it needs improvement.
Conclusion
We began by stating our belief that emotional engagement was at the heart of a successful brand. We took 3 aspects of emotional engagement and showed how any company, large or small, can achieve a difference in their market through applying some checks and balances. In summary:
- Fans & Foes
- Map out your "brand community"
- Don't ignore the "vocal minority" but don't "argue"
- Engage early
- Touchpoints
- Cover all of your bases, nothing is "inconsequential"
- Walk in your customers' shoes
- Deliver substance not fluff (don't ignore processes)
- Wow, the 4 Es
- Benchmark your competitors on each E
- Strive to innovate, identify the Exciting
- Aim to turn your exciting into the market essential
