Above and beyond

If you live in Dallas and need computer repair or data retrieval, call Jeremy at TopGeeks. He's smart, competent, friendly and goes above and beyond the call of duty to make sure you're satisfied.  He rescued some client data from my damaged hard disk, for which I am eternally grateful! On-site service was a big plus.

How important is the brand?

I'm going to interrupt my series on Maslow & Branding to chime in on a debate between Tom Asacker and Laura Ries.

Laura says, "Building strong brands is the key to success, in our opinion, not better products or better people." (go read the entire post for background).

Tom says, "Wow! I couldn't agree with her . . . less." The comments were even less kind:

"Are you kidding me Laura??? What planet are you from??? How can you brand a bad/mediocre product or service anyway?  I guess she also believes advertising is the other key to success."

Laura responds by saying,

"Is Google a 'better' search engine? Is Red Bull a 'better' energy drink? Is Microsoft a 'better' operating system? Or did these companies build better brands? Building a brand means standing for something in the mind of the consumer. What gets you into the mind? Usually it is by being first in a new category..."

You really need to read all the comments on these few posts to get the gist of the passion on the two sides of this debate. I'll bite and add my two cents.

Branding is so complex and often misunderstood. The traditional view is that branding is something done by the marketing department or ad agency to position the brand in consumers' minds, usually through advertising. Laura's father Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote a famous book called "Positioning" that outlines this theory. It was the bible for ad agencies (and probably still is.) He wrote it back in the days when products were generally well-made, customer service hadn't yet been outsourced, there were half the number of products on the shelves, and the pattern of releasing software too early hadn't yet become commonplace.

Then life started speeding up; competition got faster and fiercer; outsourcing was discovered; quality started declining... but the perception was that "we can still win if we do positioning and advertising." The dot-boom exemplified this phase: companies with no real product or business plan were spending millions on Superbowl advertising. Sure, they were first in their categories and followed all the right steps as outlined by traditional marketers. But they thought they could buy their reputations instead of earning them.

Al and Laura aren't wrong; we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and just focus on products and people. Marketing shouldn't be forgotten. We need to find a balance. But their emphasis on marketing and being first unfortunately doesn't address the core need we have today of getting back to the basics and creating something worth talking about.

That said, I think their emphasis on building a strong brand is right on... and that's because I believe that brands are not the domain of marketing departments but of executive teams. A brand strategy is, in essence, a focused strategic platform that guides every aspect of the business. If a brand is a house, then the various departments are the rooms, and the brand platform (the brand mantra) is the foundation. Ideally the foundation sums up the purpose of the company in 5 words or less. In other words, why should people care about you?

The full brand strategy fills in the details; it's the blueprint for the house and guidelines for interior design. The blueprint outlines the type of customers who will visit the house, how it will be used, and how the experience should differ from the other houses on the street. If the blueprint and execution are done right, marketing is simply an open-house sign in the front yard. Starbucks created a powerful brand with no advertising. Ditto with Google. They both created a new and/or better experience for people to talk about.

I think (and hope) that this is what Laura has in mind when she talks about the importance of brands. I don't necessarily agree on the importance of being first, especially in the technology arena. Someone can come up with a great idea (Newton) but another company can quickly figure out how to do it better (Palm). And I think that marketing is partly the job of everyone in the company, not just the people who call themselves marketers. But I do agree that building strong brands is the key to success... and it involves aligning great products and great people with a great purpose to meet customers' unmet needs.

 

Maslow & Branding: Control

OK... after 2 computer crashes, a new computer and a trip to San Fran, I'm back in business. I've been reviewing the 8 basic human needs in Maslow's Hierarchy and discussing the implications for branding. First came Security and Connection, then Esteem. Now we're on to a need that's currently not in the hierarchy but I think it's crucial: Control.

It's quite possible that Control didn't show up on Maslow's radar back in the 30's; I think our need for control is directly proportional to the rate of change in our society. As stability breaks down, our need to control whatever we can becomes greater.

Control is tightly linked to the notion of freedom; without freedom we have no ability to control our environment. Control and Freedom are two sides of the same coin, a linkage that has surfaced in primary research for several different technology and B2B clients. Features like flexibility and customization relate back to Control, but so do social technologies like blogs, forums, user ratings, etc.

The emerging grassroots economy is pushing both Freedom and Control into the hands of employees and customers... forming a vast, distributed human network where each node (individual) can connect, communicate, make choices, learn from each other, grow. In essence this new economy is enabling and empowering us to live and work the way we want, not how someone else tells us we must.

On a related note, the do-it-yourself (DIY) movement is spurred on by several core needs including Control, Cognitive and Self-expression. As it relates to control, DIY goes far beyond building your own deck or painting your house. Instead of paying professionals for our divorces,  wills, travel arrangements, stock trading or tax filing, we're embracing technology and information sources that enable us to learn and do it ourselves. In other words, we are taking control of the areas of life that are important to us (and we'll outsource those activities that aren't so essential.) Home Depot's tag line, "You Can Do It. We Can Help." beautifully sums up how brands can think about putting power and control in the hands of their customers.

The challenge for marketers is that we're accustomed to maintaining control (over our messages, over the product), but we're being pushed to share it. We're being relegated into the 'helper' role while customers are willingly doing the work. Customers are not only taking control over ad viewership (a la Tivo) but are appropriating many aspects of marketing and business including

• marketing (word of mouth, consumer-created ads)
• product development (open source, legofactory.com)
• media and journalism (blogs)
• distribution (eBay, Amazon affiliates, peer-to-peer)
• content & information (wikipedia)

At some point, perhaps we'll be evolved enough to realize that the pie is not finite -- giving or sharing control does not leave us powerless. On the contrary, companies that ride the grassroots-economy wave and enable customers to have more control over the brand experience will find themselves in a much stronger place than those companies who refuse to open up. When you give customers control over the brand experience, they feel a sense of ownership... which of course leads to greater loyalty. And let's not forget all the unpaid labor you're getting with your volunteer army.

In what ways can you help your customers gain greater control... over their lives, their jobs, or your carefully crafted brand experience?

if you emailed me yesterday...

could you resend? My computer crashed hard and I lost all my emails including 15 unread ones. Thanks...

In San Fran next week...

I'm thinking about relocating to San Francisco and will be there the 14th through the 22nd to check it out. Anyone want to meet for coffee, lunch or at your office  to chat business, brands, or future of the world as we know it?

Obviously if you email me from a home email address and I don't know who you are, I'll probably say, 'no thanks...'   

Maslow and Branding: Esteem

Yesterday we looked at Security and Connection, the two most foundational needs (above basic survival) on Maslow's Hierarchy. I was planning to focus on another two today, but this next need -- Esteem -- is rather juicy. I'll save the other ones for tomorrow.

Esteem
Or, "make me feel special and important."  There are numerous ways that brands can deliver on customers' need for Esteem; customer service comes to mind first. A great example is Conference Calls Unlimited, which stopped all advertising and redirected marketing dollars into overqualified customer care members, employee incentives and a ton of customer perks including free passes to events and conferences (I received flowers after my first conference call!). The CEO, Zane Safrit, informed me that the strategy produced measurable results.

Some newer ways of delivering Esteem include:

• "New Economy" forums like LegoFactory. Not only is this a place to show off your new Lego designs to other community members, but you also get a chance to be publicly recognized for a great design by the Lego Product Designers themselves. Another example is Slashdot, where you earn karma for smart participation in the forums. You can see in the FAQs that people's karma scores serve as  'reputation badges,' and it appears that some folks were a bit peeved when the karma indicator was changed from a potentially unlimited number to a label ( Terrible, Bad, Neutral, Positive, Good, and Excellent.) You can see the importance of Esteem in this (pretty funny) response:

• "Q: It seems unfair that I can't get any more karma than that even if I earn it.

A. The text label is one way we've decided to emphasize the point that karma doesn't matter.... Karma is used to remove risky users from the moderator pool, and to assign a bonus point to users who have contributed positively to Slashdot in the past. It is not your IQ, d**k length/cup size, value as a human being, or a score in a video game. It does not determine your worth as a Slashdot reader. It does not cure cancer or grant you a seat on the secret spaceship that will be traveling to Mars when the Krulls return to destroy the planet in 2012. Karma fluctuates dramatically as users post, moderate, and meta-moderate. Don't let it bother you. It's just a number in the database."

Interesting; they're trying to emphasize that karma doesn't matter. Clearly it does... it's a foundational human need. Despite their huge success, they may do even better if they reinstate numbers instead of labels. It's all about earning recognition.

• Amazon's plogs (personalized weblogs) and recommendations are good examples of how to deliver Esteem using technology instead of people. They're so good it's almost creepy. I visited Amazon yesterday and was greeted with "Jennifer's Plog" that included a long post written by Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian (good book, BTW.)  Amazon is the only brand from which I actually enjoy receiving emails; they're always kindly informing me about a new book that I should be interested in (and they're always right.) It's as if I had a personal book assistant thinking about what Jennifer might want to read.

So yes, this really is all about ego. We don't like to admit that we need our ego stroked, that we want to be recognized and feel important. But hey, it's a fact AND it's a huge motivator for purchase (like L'Oreal's tag line: "It's more expensive, but I'm worth it.") Obviously all fashion, cosmetics, car companies, etc. are playing on Esteem, but as you can see from the above examples, any company can meet this need.

How could your brand boost your customers' egos and make them feel special?

Maslow and Branding

Remember back in your Psych 101 class when you learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? Bet you never expected to see it again in the business world, but... ta da! Here it is. Personally I think a few are missing like freedom and control. But in general, we can easily see how strong brands relate back to the hierarchy. In the next couple posts, I'll walk through the expanded hierarchy (8 needs instead of 5) and discuss their relation to brand strategy.

Security
Right above survival (food, water, shelter) we find security and risk aversion. This is the "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" syndrome. There are people  everywhere who will only purchase products and services from companies that have proven themselves over time. They stuck with SBC when their more adventurous counterparts were fleeing to try one of the new competitive phone companies. They don't want to be held responsible for making a bad decision if the new company on the block doesn't pull through. Security and trust are tightly aligned; since this is such a fundamental human need, all brands need to earn trust. But incumbents have (usually) earned the right to differentiate themselves on risk aversion, especially in rapidly changing markets like high-tech.

Connection
Above risk aversion we find connection and belonging. Combine this fundamental need with the fact that our society has become extremely fragmented, and you've got (IMO) the primary fueling factor for the explosion of social technologies like blogs, wikis and forums. We no longer stay in the same job for 50 years; we participate in fewer local activities; we do less and less as families and more as individuals (for more on this subject, check out Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam). We're seeing this era of fragmentation come to a close, and the locus of connection is reforming on two very different levels: the physical world where brands like Starbuck's are providing modern tribal gathering spots, and the virtual world where like-minded people can connect based on affinity instead of geography (like Slashdot.)

As with trust, all brands can work on facilitating a sense of connection through blogs and forums. But newer brands that are plugged into the grassroots economy are making 'connection' a foundational differentiator for their brands. I'll end up revisiting social technologies and grassroots economy after going though the entire hierarchy, because the virtual locus of connection is actually the point at which 4 different needs intersect.

I'll tackle the next two, Esteem and Cognitive, in the next post. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on security and connection? Do you have examples/counterexamples?