Does Your Brand Deliver On Its Positioning Strategy Every Day . . . Or Are You Just Faking It?

Many marketers are asking the question “is brand positioning still relevant in the 21st century”? I've written on this topic before, and the majority of comments, both public and private, agree with me that positioning is still an important and viable tool in marketing. At the same time, almost all acknowledge that effective branding is much more difficult in a world where an angry tweet, critical blog post, or catchy YouTube video can cause serious damage to your brand image.

United Airlines discovered this during 2010 when their “friendly skies” were revealed as not so friendly by the YouTube video “United Breaks Guitars”, which has over eight million views (and counting). So did Maytag, Nestle, and others who saw angry, empowered consumers calling them out as branding frauds based on their actions.

But what caused that damage? Is it simply the availability of technology that allows a disgruntled customer to broadcast their dissatisfaction to large numbers of people? Or is it nothing more than poor brand management?

A brand that has been under fire this past year for major branding missteps is Toyota. Toyota shook up the automotive world with a quality message that Detroit either ignored or could not match. And for 30+ years they have enjoyed the benefits of that brand position. But all of that customer brand loyalty is now threatened because somewhere, along the way, Toyota managers failed to understand that a brand built on product quality must live that strategy every day to be successful.

One of the biggest mistakes that marketers make is not realizing that branding happens in every interaction and point of contact between a company and its target customer. They work hard on their advertising and other external communications, but don’t understand that brand communication is much more than just what the brand manager and ad agency say about it.

It’s how your staff answers the phone, how easy the web site is to navigate, what message the packaging sends, the tone of the copy writing, and even, in the case of a retailer, how the store looks and where it is located. It’s the sum total of any and every experience people have with the company.

Consistency is a critical element of an effective branding strategy, and one brand that I have always admired for its belief in the power of delivering on expectations every day is McDonald’s. Every owner and manager must attend Hamburger University in Chicago, where they not only learn the operational aspects of running a franchise; they also study the importance of providing a consistent experience for the customer. Few customers would say that McDonald’s makes the best hamburgers, but the company continues to dominate the fast food marketplace in part because the customer knows what to expect. No matter where they are in the world.

This devotion to consistency was most apparent when McDonald’s entered Russia. McDonald’s execs felt that native Russian potatoes did not deliver the same crispness and flavor that McDonald’s is famous for serving. So they delayed their introduction into Russia for two years, imported their own seed potatoes, and waited until they got it right before opening the first restaurant. That is a great story and a great testament to the power and need for consistently delivering on every aspect of the brand promise.

Branding is a tough job. And it’s certainly not getting any easier when even the slightest misstep by anyone in the organization can have a snowball effect. But some brands get it right, by building on a platform that is truly representative of the core values of the company, solves a relevant need, and is consistent over time.

Has the Internet changed more than just how we buy, but also how we decide what to buy?

McKinsey research on the Internet and its effect on our buying habits says "yes". The explosion of products, media alternatives and access to word-of-mouth experiences through social media and other Web 2.0 access points has created a radically new buying decision process.

The McKinsey study concludes that consumers no longer proceed in a linear "purchasing funnel" process when deciding to make a purchase. The funnel analogy has been a basic guideline for marketing thinking and planning for many years -- consumers start with a number of potential brands in mind (the wide end of the funnel) and then systematically move through linear stages of familiarity, consideration and purchase by narrowing the choices along the way to get to the one brand they ultimately purchase. It sounds logical, and has been until now.

Marketers and their agencies must acknowledge this new "consumer decision journey", as McKinsey describes it, and revise the focus of their marketing to be in the right place at the right time to reach consumers when their message is most likely to influence their purchases.

The first step in the buying decision is the same. The consumer considers an initial set of brands based on brand perceptions and exposure to recent touch points. It should be noted, however, that other research has confirmed that the initial consideration set is typically much larger than it might have been in previous buying decision based on the greater number of products and a decline in brand loyalty from a preferred brand to a preferred set of brands.

It's the second step in the buying decision that has been most affected by the web. Rather than narrowing the choices, the consumer enters an active evaluation phase where the number of choices may be dramatically expanded. Internet access to information from a variety of social media and other word-of-mouth touch points can have a dramatic effect on the brands that were initially considered, and those original choices can be easily replaced with more informed choices based on trusted input and evaluation.

This active evaluation phase shows a profound change in consumer response and requires much more consideration by marketers if they want to be successful. The traditional "push" marketing elements, that most likely affected the initial consideration set, can be easily modified by an empowered consumer who now takes control of the decision process. Today's empowered consumer actively seeks corroboration of previous brand impressions and new input from Internet reviews and other information sites as well as word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family and other trusted sources. The McKinsey report concludes that traditional marketing remains important, but argues that marketers must move aggressively to learn to also find ways to influence these consumer-driven touch points in order to remain in the consideration set.

Ultimately, the consumer selects a brand to close the purchase, but the McKinsey study shows that even this stage has seen changes. Their study places much greater closure importance on the impact of the in-store (or on-line store) experience as well as recollections of past experiences. They conclude that many purchases become a last minute decision.

Another important finding from this study is that the post-purchase experience has changed dramatically as well. Many consumers go online to conduct further research after the purchase, a stage never considered in the original funnel model. This post-purchase research can either confirm the wisdom of their decision, or have a significant impact on future purchases by exposing the consumer to new, previously unknown, alternatives.

This new knowledge on the "consumer decision journey" requires that all marketers re-evaluate their marketing programs to ensure that they are influencing and impacting consumers at every stage of the process. It certainly tells us that we must do everything we can to develop touch points during the consumer-driven stage of the decision process. For many marketers, this will require a mind-set shift from a reliance on buying media to a more balanced program that supports developing assets such as interactive web sites, mobile marketing, social media properties, and rich media applications that provide a way for consumer to learn more about their products and services.

This also presents a new challenge, and a new opportunity, for agencies to help their clients navigate these new alternatives to find the best solution for their brand. As I have said in previous posts, clients are not just looking for an agency to develop an ad or design a web site, they are looking for someone to help them build a bridge between the brand and their customer. Helping them understand how their customer reaches the ultimate purchase decision is an crucial ingredient in finding that bridge.

As marketers, we know that the Internet has dramatically affected the buying process for many products as online purchasing continues to grow at a dramatic pace. Preliminary results from this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales confirm this as fact, But we should also understand that the Internet has had a major influence on the buying decision process as well.

The complete McKinsey study can be accessed by following this link: http://tinyurl.com/yatjepz.

The New Importance of Customer Service As A Business Model

Last week, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos .com, gave a record PSAMA luncheon audience of over 300 attendees an inside look at his own company’s approach to customer service, and says there is no doubt in his mind that “Delivering Happiness” (his description of customer service) is, indeed, a route to building a long term sustainable business.

Based on his New York Times bestselling book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, Tony shared his philosophy on why customer service and delivering the best customer experience for customers, employees and vendor partners can pay dividends. After all, he sold Zappos to Amazon last year for over $900 million.

But Tony is quick to stress that delivering a WOW customer experience is about much more than financial success. It’s about personal fulfillment and pride. It’s about having a passion for your job that builds a fierce loyalty to do the right thing every time. And it’s about having a company culture that strives to make every person in the company feel that they are part of something bigger than selling shoes. Happiness is a framework for business that can produce profits, passion and purpose both in business and in life.

At Zappos, they let their customers do their marketing for them.
Tony describes the Zappos approach to business this way, “at the end of the day, we aren’t in the selling shoes online business, we are in the stories and memories business. If we can create a WOW customer experience every time someone interacts with our brand, then those customers become our best marketing effort.”

To create and sustain that WOW experience, Zappos constantly asks these important questions:

1. What do customers expect?
2. What do customers actually experience?
3. What emotions do customers feel?
4. What stories do they tell their friends about us?
   

Answers to those questions led the way for Zappos to offer free shipping both ways and a 365-day return policy. It’s also why their website features a 1-800 number at the top of every page on the site. Tony says “we want our customers to talk to us, so we can build a relationship with them and better serve their needs”.

At Zappos, the telephone is their number one branding device.
A big part of the Zappos experience involves interaction with customers on the telephone. To make each call a special experience, there are no rules, no pre-set scripts, and no attempts to make calls more efficient by limiting the amount of time a call center employee spends on the line with the customer.

Zappos wants their customers to say “wow” when they get off the phone”. Tony offered several anecdotes on call center efforts to deliver that special experience to their customers, including a very funny story involving a 3:00 AM desire for pizza and the Zappos call center employee who took it upon themselves to find open pizza restaurants that would deliver at that hour. How many of your employees would go out of their way to satisfy a customer to that extent?

If we get our culture right, the WOW customer experience will follow.
Tony stressed more than once that company culture is the number one priority at Zappos. Their attention to maintaining a consistent culture begins with the employee interview process, which involves two separate interviews – one to determine skill set and a second interview to determine the cultural fit. They also offer five weeks of training before anyone is allowed to interact with a customer, so that everyone is on board with the core values of the company and how to express those core values to customers.

Tony related an interesting twist to their employee hiring process. Midway through the training period, employees are offered a $4,000 bonus to quit. That’s right. They will pay you to quit on the belief that if you are only working for the money, it’s unlikely you will be a good fit with the company culture.

Other culture builders include an annual “culture book” where employees are allowed to provide unedited comments on how they are “delivering happiness” in their own departments. And they also use Twitter to provide an opportunity for employees to get to know each other better and to share their experiences.


As he concluded his talk, Tony re-emphasized his belief that a strong, high touch customer service experience was a successful business strategy. But he also stressed that his message was not to adopt the same core values as Zappos in order to be successful. But rather, it was to say that it doesn’t matter what your core values are as long as you commit to them. That’s the real secret for business success.

So what does customer service and delivering happiness have to do with new business prospecting? Everything if you believe that the future of the agency business is a partnership with clients to help them build a relationship between their customers and their brands. Clients aren't looking for someone to do a new ad for them. They are looking for help. Smart agencies should know that help comes in many forms.

At Zappos, their secret to long term success is to deliver happiness through the best possible customer experience. What’s your agency's secret? Or is it a secret?