THE HUB MAGAZINE
WHI T E PAPER
Shared Experiences By DaviD Kessler
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ou don’t have a brand; you have a brand experience. Consumers today define a brand by the sum total of their interactions across all channels — not only advertising, but product, packaging, in-store, service interactions, online — and the list grows longer every day. Right now, dozens of start-ups are dreaming up new ways for your customers to interact with your brand. Even if you are a brand-experience expert, the most important question is: Who is responsible for shaping the brand experience and ensuring that it is properly delivered? Customers experience brands in a multitude of ways, across channels and types of interactions that extend far beyond a company’s external marketing programs. While advertising once had the power to define a brand and its intended experience, today’s media proliferation means that truly integrated marketing communications are the cost-of-entry. But the brand experience brings another dimension that requires other aspects of a company’s behavior — culture, sales, operations, and products and services — to be synchronized along with its marketing communications. A simple model illustrates how all five of these
operational disciplines must be informed, and driven, by a singular brand positioning or brand idea (see chart one). In this way, all of a brand’s constituents (including customers, prospects, partners, sellers, etc.) will experience the brand in an intuitive and consistent manner. It is the sum total of all of this activity that makes up the brand experience today. In short, the brand experience is the brand.
It takes a corporate culture to deliver a consistent brand experience. This model reflects the new reality of our world. Consumers are more educated, savvy and have more access to information than ever before. Companies that work hard to deliver a consistent and meaningful brand experience have proven successful even during a time of macro-economic slowdown. For a closer look at the different parts of a brand experience, consider a brand we all know: Apple. • Brand Idea: Creativity and simplicity • Culture: Flat, simple, organizational structure
Chart Two: Customer Journey Mapping Reflects Brand Interactions
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Awareness
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Chart One: The Brand Experience is the Sum Total of a Customer’s Interactions With Your Brand
Most organizations are one of two fundamental types today: traditional organizations that work in siloes, and more visionary organizations that have begun to consider this newly expanded definition of the brand experience. Either way, the chief marketing officer typically
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fosters creativity and a desire to create highly intuitive products • Products and services: Elegantly designed hardware and software that are simple to use • Operations: Retail stores promote simplicity (store design, employee dress code) and creativity (genius bar and theater seating for user education and training, in-store signage and merchandising) • Marketing Communications: Simplicity and creativity in all aspects, from concept to media placement • Sales: Whether on-line, in-store or via resellers, the product information is delivered in a simple and highly useful manner However, aligning these touch-points is no small task. It requires identifying — and ideally mapping — all possible interactions. It means learning how each constituency reacts to these current brand touch-points, and then removing, fixing, adding or creating entirely new ones. The single-biggest reason more companies don’t adopt a brand-experience model is that it’s so damn hard. The customer journey must be mapped along a continuum that realistically reflects the dynamics of today’s consumer interactions with brands (see chart two). Customer journey mapping is a tool that helps us understand and assign specific team initiatives.
p ro d u c t s a n d s v ic e s er
Source: Starfish
c u s t o me r owns the brand in terms of internal and external marketing communications. However, today’s marketing chiefs need the support of their peers to create and implement a holistic brand experience. The chief marketing officer no longer “owns” the brand, but rather is an ambassador who needs to gain buy-in and alignment across the entire C-Suite. For this new, broader, definition of the brand experience to be operationalized, it must be championed by the CEO and stewarded by the
Passive Loyalty
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CMO. While many CEOs will pay lip service to the importance of “living the brand,” the key performance metrics they assign are generally linked to the core functional areas of their direct reports. Perhaps this misunderstanding is part of the reason that the average tenure of a CMO today is so brief. Whether it is the organization at-large or an individual who believes that the chief marketer’s function is limited to marketing communications, when the business softens, — or even worse declines — it’s the CMO who is held accountable. So, how can a marketing chief hold the organization accountable for the brand experience? One thing’s for sure, it can’t be dictated or forced, and he or she will need some real help to get it done. It is the CMO’s role to gain buy-in that the brand experience is a shared responsibility, as well as define and steward the processes to successful implementation throughout the organization. While the value proposition and the brand idea are typically developed and managed by the marketing or marketing communications department, it should not be owned by this group alone. Because the brand idea becomes the organizing principle for all internal functions and brand interactions, its ongoing development and management should be delegated to a cross-functional team with a democratic structure that includes mandatory participation from all of the key organizational disciplines (e.g., marketing, sales, human resources, operations and products/services). If this kind of cooperation is not solicited or provided, it will be nearly impossible to implement a cohesive brand experience. This process, and the brand idea itself, must be born from, and woven into, the culture of the organization. A good brand will contain a healthy dose of the organization’s DNA, which makes aligning the culture and behaviors easier than trying to force a foreign brand through a company. Implementation of the brand idea also requires cooperation and public support from the senior-most management in the organization. The implementation process must be top-down or inside-out: It starts inside, at the top, and flows down through the organization before it goes out into the marketplace. Th e P ro C e s s sTa rT s i n s i de One of the areas that many companies tend to neglect is that of its own people. These folks are the lifeblood of the organization, who touch customers every single day, either directly or indirectly. When they understand the brand and how it
applies to their area of responsibility, and when they are given the freedom to bring it to life in their own way, magical things start to happen. They connect with customers in more meaningful ways, create products or services that are more aligned with the brand’s purpose, and deliver the service in a less mechanical manner. The only way for the chief marketer to hold the organization accountable is to get senior-level buyin and agreement that this is a process that requires consistent and persistent pressure. This cannot be done by email. We have seen too many proud chief executives hold their brands high above their heads and send out a long and inspiring email. Unfortunately, most people don’t read all of their emails ... even those from the CEO. Aligning a culture around a brand is a process, as cultural change has several stages, including the change of attitudes, the embrace of new beliefs and, ultimately, the adoption of new behaviors. Remember, humans generally resist change. We like our routines. So, this process is not one that should be taken lightly. Campbell Soup is having great success with this new approach. Darren Serrao, the vice-president and general manager of innovation and business development, has completely restructured the company’s innovation process by creating crossfunctional teams, all aligned around a particular brand experience. Campbell’s deliberately does not assign a leader to the team, as they want everyone to take equal ownership in the process. Serrao says that Campbell’s, “with a strong marketing culture and inherent expectation for marketing to own brand and the brand process, placed the brand experience at the center of the model and consciously gave marketing an equal seat at the table.” According to Serrao, Campbell’s has had such great success with this process that it has expanded the process and group exponentially. Your culture and its manifestation into the brand experience is the one thing your competitors can’t steal. Yes, they can create a better ad campaign, spend more money, or launch a new website. But they can’t steal your soul. n
DAVID KESSLER is CEO of Starfish, a strategic marketing and creative services provider that helps companies create more powerful and valuable brands through the discipline of Brand Experience. He can be reached at david@starfishco.com.
WHI T E PAPER
Singular Sensations By DaviD Kessler
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Vi rt ua l i s No t Ye t r e a l i t Y Marketers have embraced the online experience, yet it remains largely detached from the offline experience. For example, in an attempt to approximate
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magine the scene: Someone with whom you are connected uses a smart device to capture a moment in time and, via an online forum, instantly share a photo of a blouse she saw in a shop window, a new scarf she just got as a gift, or even a new baby. Next, someone else (through her device) sees the photo, tweet, or Facebook post and shows it to a third person. The third person calls the original “poster” to find out where she got the scarf and suddenly a group is engaged in a conversation both online and offline about the original post. Situations like this happen to all of us every day. It’s not new news that the world in which we live is complex and fast-paced — one where humans and digital devices are interconnected as never before. When the internet exploded, all sorts of content became readily available to the masses, with associated increases in speed, access, personalization, engagement, and interactivity afforded by the online medium. We are constantly involved with websites, apps, and social media, engaging with brands both online and offline. According to Time magazine, Millennials compulsively check their smartphones and “are interacting all day, but almost entirely though a screen.” This doesn’t mean they shop less, or visit stores less. It just means that their perspective is different. Their influences are different. Digital and non-digital marketing need to be wedded to create a cohesive experience for today’s consumers. Because websites, mobile apps, and other technological media have been adopted by different brands at different times — partially out of sheer availability — the result may sometimes leave consumers confused about the overall brand message and the associated emotional and functional benefits.
So, brands and marketers must focus on the ways in which consumers interact with brands across all of the media they consume. Every brand must be in a constantly evolving relationship with its consumers if it does not want to be left behind. Companies must create a clear, unified, and singular brand message for their consumers that supersede the media in which it lives. In other words, there should not be an online experience and an offline experience. There can be only one brand experience that lives both online and offline.
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Source: Starfish
Every touchpoint must provide a cohesive brand experience. the in-store shopping experience, various tech startups have competed over the past decade to create a virtual fitting-room space. These companies have implemented body-scanner technology and cyber mannequins, aiming for an experience comparable to that of physically trying on clothing. These tools take a user’s measurements and create a virtual model of that person in 3D — companies like My Virtual Model, Fits.Me, Metail, and VTryOn by Envision have all aimed at cornering this part of the market. In 2009, Fashionista, a program for online shoppers with webcams, allowed shoppers to photograph themselves moving around a room until they hit the perfect angle to “try on” an article of clothing. Virtual fitting room technology has not yet been successful due to prohibitive costs and issues with the technology itself, as well as “stocking” the fitting rooms with clothes, among other factors. LL Bean, Zegna, Tesco, and others have experimented with limited success. However, who is to say that virtual fitting rooms will not be successful in the future? History tells us that if someone can envision it, chances are that at some point it will become reality. Let’s assume the obstacles will be overcome. While online certainly mirrors a part of the offline shopping experience, it doesn’t completely replace it. Does the online store “look” like the brick-and-mortar? Is it organized in the same way (by style, by color, or size, for example)? Are online tools (or people) helping you find matching garments? “Consumer ratings” is another online phenomenon calling out for in-store integration. Currently held within the confines of the internet, wouldn’t these reviews be helpful to a shopper in the store, as well? Would it not be useful to know how other consumers feel about a product when they’re looking at it on a shelf? How can we make this happen? Imagine a display at the front of the store that highlights the top-10 highest-rated garments from online users! Data could be fed to the store each night and the display arranged each morning. If you went to the store two days in a row, the display might change. Call it just-in-time display. Add mobile to
the mix, and allow customers to provide ratings from their phones, wherever they may be. Include kiosks and shoppers could share their opinions while in-store. Here, in one simple tool — customer ratings — we’ve converted an online-only experience into a singular one for the brand. iNtegratioN
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Retailers including Sears, Best Buy, Macy’s, and the Container Store allow customers to shop online and pick up in the store. In fact, more than half of the sales from Walmart.com are now picked up at Walmart stores. While operationally focused, this trend exemplifies that consumers don’t distinguish between Walmart the store and Walmart.com. Whether shopping online suits their timeline (it’s possible to shop at 3:00 a.m.), enhances their selection (there’s often more to choose from online than in stores), or they simply prefer to stay away from the aisles, retailers are wisely making a major move toward these shopper preferences. The simple fact is that “digital” should not be developed in isolation. Rather, a singular strategy and brand experience should be designed and the appropriate media assigned afterwards. All these digital technologies and connected devices — computers, smartphones, e-readers, and other devices — must be looked at as ways to promote connectivity with traditional in-store experiences. Content must be created for the digital realm that resonates with the physical retail space, and vice-versa. This content can even come from the consumers themselves, if the proper framework is set up. Connected devices like smartphones and touch-screen tablets have certainly raised customer expectations, increasing the frequency of interactions between customers and businesses. However, most companies have adopted digital technology and socialmedia platforms into the realm of brand experience in a piecemeal fashion. A unified digital plan must be at the forefront of marketing strategy. Consumers don’t know anything about marketing strategy, but they do know a disjointed experience when they have it. This translates to an expectation
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A Br ief Histor y of the Brand Ex per ience The apparel industry demonstrates how the brand experience has changed and will continue to evolve. ■ Banana Republic: an experience pioneer. Once upon a time, apparel brands built stores in which they could promote their products in an experiential way. When it first opened its doors in 1978, Banana Republic sold a concept as well as clothing. The stores and the catalogs pitched unique, safariwear alongside travelogue-type copy, seaplanes, safari gear, and other travel adventure props. Walking into a store in Manhattan was like walking into a shop outside a campsite in Africa. The shopping experience at Banana Republic has totally changed since then, but at the time, it went beyond the products themselves. The customer was transported to another place. ■ Anthropologie: rating products from your sofa. Through social media platforms, consumers are now active participants, publishers, and content creators. They engage with brands and have a part in shaping brand identities as well as disseminating information about these brands to other consumers. On anthropologie.com, the website for Anthropologie (a woman’s clothing, accessories, and furniture retailer), customers can rate and recommend products based on different metrics via a five-star rating scale. They can write reviews as well as rate the helpfulness of other reviews — all on point scales. However, this tool is exclusive to the online space. In other words, this rating and meta-rating system does not exist in the physical stores. This begs fundamental questions about the ratings’ usefulness. If the ratings aren’t useful (i.e., move the
that all touchpoints are integrated in visual design, emotional appeal, and content. There must be one cohesive brand experience — not two (or three, or four). Our interactions with the world and with each other are increasingly intertwined with the online experience and our connected devices. Our marketing plans must evolve to suit this changing environment. No matter what tomorrow’s new marketing toy is, we should not build an experience around it. Rather, it must be integrated into the larger brand experience we want. Because every organization is structured a bit differently, it will be incumbent on the chief
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consumer through the funnel and toward purchase), then why bother at all? If they are productive, then why not find a way to make them available offline, in stores? ■ NikeiD: the popular online-only product is now available in-store. nikeid was first launched in 1999 as an online-only service that provided one of the first retail, consumer-defined, mass-customization tools. Users could select a product and customize colors for various parts of the shoe, even including the laces and soles. Over the years, nike has successfully built the nikeid brand to its current success with many of its celebrity-endorsed products included as canvases and with more than 15 million others in its database. But along the way, integration into the nike experience had its challenges. There were nikeid studios, where you had to make an appointment to build your shoes (and there were only a handful in the country). There were in-store kiosks that didn’t deliver results, and apps allowing only limited customization that didn’t enable purchase options. Today, however, things are much improved and nikeId’s online and offline experiences have been brought closer together. The customization process is equally unmediated online and off. You now can add performance components as well as design elements. communities have been built that allow you to explore others’ designs. The technology is integrated seamlessly into websites, mobile devices, social networks, and offline stores via touch-screen panels. nike truly blurs the line between the virtual and the physical.
marketing, technology and information officers, working in tandem, to ensure that the singular brand experience is brought to life. ■
DAVID KESSLER is cEO of Starfish, a strategic marketing and creative services provider that helps companies create more powerful and valuable brands through the discipline of brand experience. He can be reached at david@starfishco.com.