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The Rebranding Of America

The Presidential campaign is over, but the campaign to restore America has just begun. People are the fabric of any democracy and the frayed narrative of our Union must be rewoven to include everyone.

From the perspective of looking at brands as belief systems, there are several things that we need to consider.

Our origin myth needs to emphasize the essential fact that we are a nation of immigrants. Whether our descendants wandered here thousands of years ago or were forced here against their will due to slavery, religious intolerance, economic upheaval or war. We are all immigrants. Therefore, it is humane and necessary to greet newcomers with empathy and compassion, rather than fear and hatred.

We must rewrite our foundational myths to be inclusive. And factual. Even a crew of mythic Western cowboys, for example, was a hybrid stew of Scotch-Irish, Hispanics, Blacks and the occasional female or Native American.

One more thing. We forget that three of our largest corporations—Amazon, Apple and Google— were founded by the children of immigrants. These multinational corporations provide opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people and are a large part of our national psyche and value.

It is worth a moment to wonder which parents and children of the future we may have turned away? What future opportunities have been lost?

What we believe in as a nation, the very idea of a democracy, is being challenged. Although this democracy called the United States of America has been handed down by our forebears, it is not a given. At best, it is a working experiment. We must celebrate our uniqueness—we are an independent state with independent people of many creeds and colors. But we are also interdependent. We may not always feel this accord, but we need one another.

We believe in freedom and justice for all. This belief is not felt equally by all of our citizens, which is our challenge. If there is an American Dream, it is to feel free and equal in a boundless nation.

New Meaning And New Substance Is Required

We must put new substance and meaning behind the words “democracy,” “freedom for all,” “equality” and “social justice.” These have become clichés, and they do not have to be. We must expunge words intended to inspire hate and division. Those words include “fake news,” “far left,” “far right,” “radicals,” and more.

If we create words that divide us, we can also create words that bring us together. The 2000 U.S. Census declared that by 2025, Caucasians would become the minority and that other ethnicities (the so-called minorities) would become the majority. Those days are upon us and we must starve out the political rhetoric and stereotypes intended to feed racism or hate on both sides.

We must remember (paraphrasing Dr. Martin Luther King) that we should not judge anyone by the color of their skin, but by the quality of their words and actions.

What are we against? We are against systemic racism and injustice, whether social or economic. We are tolerant of other religions and frown on religions that are intolerant of others. As a friend reminds me, devotion, nurturing and will are foundational keys to creating new unity.

The purpose of leaders is to make their populations feel safe. The former President worked tirelessly and needlessly to divide us into camps of good and evil, strong and weak, privileged and working class, successes and failures. Never before have we been reminded of our differences, while disregarding what makes us strong, unique and united.

The Role Of Corporations And Brands

This is where corporations and brands can actively make a difference. It is not underheard of for corporations to take up the slack for social purpose. The multi-corporate [RED] campaign partnership to fight AIDS, TimeWarner Cable’s $100 million initiative to support Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s many efforts in science and education.

Let’s remind ourselves that everyone belongs. Everyone counts. Everyone has a choice and everyone has a chance. These are the elements of the new narrative for these United States—some we have heard before, which makes them no less important. They bear repeating.

The rebranding of these United States starts now. Forward.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Patrick Hanlon, Author of Primal Branding

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4 Ways To Build Brand Loyalty In Uncertain Times

For brands, facing uncertainty makes planning difficult. However, there is one action that all of these brand-business companies must undertake now. In addition to winnowing product lines and focusing resources on agility, these organizations must devote serious time, effort and money to building brand loyalty. To continue their profitable growth post-pandemic, companies such as Kraft Heinz have to move their new and regular customers up the Loyalty Ladder. This will extend the current profit bump into enduring profitable growth.

Failure to translate transactions into brand loyal behavior is death-wish marketing. It is not enough to put more dollars into marketing. Loyalty growth needs more than great messaging. Deal loyalty is not real loyalty.

Right now, packaged goods brands are building sales volume. Of course, this is important. But, for enduring profitable growth, all brands must not only build their quantity of sales but the quality of their sales. This means building sales based on an increasing base of brand loyal customers. In other words, customers must not only buy brands but also buy because they favor the brands. Brand loyalty builds high quality revenue growth.

Consumer packaged goods organizations must recognize that there is no enduring business value without brand value. Brand loyalty is one of the most critical elements powering brand value. So, sure, agility and flexibility on the corporate side are good, but without brand loyalty, all the enterprise dexterity in the world will not save your brand-businesses. The chief customer officer at Reckitt Benckiser told Financial Times there will be “… a before and after” impact on continued sales. Without brand loyalty, there will be no after.

Brand Loyalty is like a ladder. There are degrees of brand commitment from minimal to true devotion. Brand-businesses must understand and audit the entire pool of their users to determine how these customers array themselves on the Brand Loyalty Ladder.

The Brand Loyalty Ladder

The Brand Loyalty Ladder leads from non-usage to true brand loyalty. It is a construct reflecting the customer’s strength of commitment relative to competitive brands. Moving customers up the Brand Loyalty Ladder is essential.

In the universe of potential customers, in general, there are four types of brand commitment. There are Commodity Considerers, Short-List Customers, Preference Customers, and Enthusiasts.

Commodity Considerers are customers who view a set of brands as being basically the same. This customer is indifferent to brand name. This customer is willing to consider any brand as long as it is convenient and affordable.

Short-List Customers have a short list of brands from which to choose. Being on a customer’s short-list is good. But, it is better to be the preferred brand among the short-list.

Preference Customers are those with a brand preference. In other words, the preferred brand is the favorite brand.

Enthusiasts are customers with true brand loyalty. True brand loyalty is the highest level of brand commitment. Enthusiasts will buy their preferred brand even if there is a price premium relative to their second choice brand. Enthusiasts not only stick with their brand if there is a price premium but also will recommend the brand to a friend.

Moving customers up the Loyalty Ladder is critical. The ultimate goal is to move a customer from Preference to Enthusiast.

Kraft Heinz’ CEO, Miguel Patricio, tells analysts and the business press that he understands how Kraft Heinz’s previous management put its storied brands in jeopardy. Mr. Patricio has consistently stated to the press that “… underinvesting in brands and focusing excessively on near-term profits” sabotaged the Kraft Heinz brand portfolio. In fact, prior to coronavirus, Kraft Heinz took a series of major write-downs due to the faded, shrunken and devalued forecasts for some of its most celebrated brands such as Oscar Mayer.

Growing brand loyalty is an ongoing job. It is easier said than done. If Kraft Heinz and other enterprises want to maintain the attraction of their current sets of customers post-pandemic, there are some important brand loyalty building actions they should take. Investing more money into messaging is good, but moving customers up the Brand Loyalty Ladder requires more.

A brand cannot cost manage its way to enduring profitable growth. Here are four actions for growing brand loyalty that packaged goods enterprises must be doing now.

1. Focus the entire organization around building brand loyalty.

This is a cross-functional cultural issue. This mission of building creating loyal customers is not just the responsibility of marketing. The entire enterprise from the C-Suite down must believe in creating and building brand loyalty.

2. Focus on aligning around critical metrics.

Create metrics to understand where your customers are on the Loyalty Ladder. This means measuring more than sales, share growth and profit growth. It means metrics for assessing quantity and quality of sales. Use metrics not to just evaluate progress but to manage progress as well. Loyal customers are more profitable customers. Knowing the lifetime value of your loyalists will grab the attention of C-suite executives.

3. Focus on customer problems.

Know why people have problems with your brands. Know why some see your brand as a commodity purchase. Know why you are unable to move customers up a rung on the Loyalty Ladder. These problems may be bigger issues than previously thought. Innovating solutions to customer problems is essential. Become part of the solution for your customers’ biggest problems.

4. Focus on being a trusted source information.

Become a credible source of information for your customers. Research shows that trust is in trouble. Trust in corporations is in steady decline. Without trust nothing else matters. For a message to be trusted, it must come from a trusted source. In an uncertain world, brands can be touchstones of trust. Customers will look to brands for solid, credible and usable information.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Larry Light, CEO of Arcature

The Blake Project Can Help You Create A Path To Brand Loyalty In: The Brand Positioning Workshop

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Purpose At Work: How Hint Water Leverages Purpose and Gains Market Share

Companies built on solving problems foster consumer goodwill and carve out a competitive advantage. An excellent example of a brand that differentiates itself by providing purposeful solutions is Hint. Founder and CEO, Kara Goldin, started the unsweetened flavored water business collecting customer feedback from moms in the school drop off line to selling in America’s […]

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Turnaround Strategy Begins At The Core

When a brand is in trouble, focus first on the core customer base. Love the customer you have before you focus on the customer you don’t have. When a brand is in trouble, re-energize, protect, and strengthen the core customer. It is the core customer that will profitably finance a turnaround and provide the platform for the future.

According to reporting in The Wall Street Journal, Harley-Davidson is in serious need of revitalization. Harley’s CEO, Jochen Zeitz is making a radical strategic shift to put Harley-Davidson back on the road to enduring profitable growth. Zeitz is ditching the plan he inherited. The previous strategy was to attract new, younger customers with smaller, less-powerful, inexpensive models. It did not work. Harley-Davidson turned off its core customer base. And, failed to attract new customers. To move the heavy, expensive Harley’s out of the dealerships, the big bikes were discounted, further hurting the image of the brand.

From now on, instead of cheap, smaller-displacement motorcycles, Harley-Davidson will concentrate on the big, expensive motorcycles that gave Harley its biker cred. His first order of business is to focus on Harley’s core customer base and what they love about owning a Harley.

Revitalization Begins At The Core

Focusing on core customers is the smart move for a brand that is in trouble. The immediate goal must be to restore and repair the brand relationship to the most valuable customers. This means reinforcing what they like about the brand. This is precisely what Mr. Zeitz is doing: he is not taking his core customers for granted. This is important because core customers – those with long-lasting brand loyalty – are especially valuable for profitability.

Taking core customers for granted is death-wish marketing. Unless you have customers who are captive audiences (airlines with specific routes), you run the risk of alienating people who are your valuable base. Love your loyalists. Adore your core.

Important research conducted in the 1990s by Frederick Reichheld (Bain consulting) demonstrated that as brand loyalty increases, the likelihood of defection due to competitive price promotions decreases. He concluded that reducing defections by 5% could increase profits by 25% and more.

Other research showed that the cost of attracting a new customer was 3-4 times as much as the cost of keeping a customer loyal. However, recent research from Kleiner Perkins, the venture capital firm (2018) indicated that customer acquisition costs are climbing. It costs more to acquire a new customer than to satisfy an existing customer.

Losing just a small percentage of core customers will account for a disproportionate amount of lost income for a brand. Harley-Davidson’s focus on attracting new customers at the expense of core customers was misguided. The result? Harley-Davidson suffered through a five-year streak of bad earnings.

Coronavirus has thrown many markets into disarray. However, a relatively small group of brand loyal customers can carry your brand to outlast the pandemic. Brand-businesses doing well during coronavirus, such as Campbell’s, Kraft Heinz, and Clorox can still maintain their increased sales.

Our research indicates that, on average, 10% of customers account for 50% or more of profits. A study reported in Harvard Business Review (2014) – that used Nielsen scanner data across 124 consumer packaged goods, showed that 10% of a category’s customers accounted for 30%-70% of sales and an even higher share of profits. For example, Kraft Velveeta data indicated that the brand’s major enthusiasts (10%) accounted for 50% of profits.

The Wall Street Journal stated the following in its analysis of Harley-Davidson, “The company’s introductions of new models over the years also failed to attract customers and the current line-up is loaded with slow-selling motorcycles. Eleven models combined accounted for about 6% of retail-sales volume last year, while ten popular models generated more than two-thirds of the sales.”

A large Harley-Davidson dealer commented on Mr. Zeitz’s focus on its core customers and their preferred motorcycles, “The brand is getting back to what we have always been.” Mr. Zeitz told analysts, “I’ve heard now so often that our consumer is aging out. Well, I’m aging, as they say, and I feel like riding right now.”

Turnaround Strategy Versus Growth Strategy

Of course, to grow and endure brands must attract new customers. However, a turnaround is different. When a brand is losing customers, the priority is to stop the hemorrhaging. After successfully shoring up the loyal base, the brand can focus on growth. Growth strategies are different. Successful brands recruit new customers, while at the same time, continue to focus on brand loyalty. Expand the appeal of the brand. Bring new customers into the franchise. But, don’t lose customer loyalty at the same time. Continuous churning of the brand’s customers is not the path to enduring profitable growth.

As reported in The Wall Street Journal, Harley-Davidson “delivered on its strategy.” Mr. Zeitz’s strategy of shoring up the core customer base led Harley-Davidson to a profit surge for its latest quarter ending September 27, 2020. Focusing on the core customer pays.

A turnaround strategy is different from a growth strategy. When a brand is in trouble, the priority is to stop the hemorrhaging of the customer base. Love your core customers if you expect them to love you. When a brand is losing sales and share, the first focus must be to shore up the core customer base. In other words, adore the core or your brand is done for. Ultimately, the healthy brand goal is more customers, more often, more brand loyal, more revenues, and more profit.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Larry Light, CEO of Arcature

The Blake Project Can Help You Redefine And Articulate Your Value In: The Brand Positioning Workshop

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How 80% of the Swiss population will download the COVID-App

The post How 80% of the Swiss population will download the COVID-App appeared first on Enigma.

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It’s Time to Get Really Good at Virtual Selling

The transition from in-person to virtual selling isn’t always natural. It requires a different toolbox for salespeople, and more effective marketing for companies. Here’s how.

You’re reading It’s Time to Get Really Good at Virtual Selling by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy’s articles at Sticky Branding.

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Successful Brand Management Requires Context

Very often marketers are called upon by clients or fellow business stakeholders to solve complex issues or chart new paths with new products or markets. In these cases there is a natural tendency to immediately immerse oneself into the numbers and assorted details pertaining to the objective, as if the answer is hiding in plain sight on column G, row four of the spreadsheet in front of you. The numbers and analysis when determining a new strategy are important, but that’s only part of the picture. They don’t mean anything without the context that the Big Picture brings. The stats, percentages and graphs will quantify trends, performance, and share, but they can never reveal the soul, essence and passion of a brand or for a brand.

Am I running the risk of overstating the obvious? Yes. But, someone needs to in this overly analyzed marketing culture.

How do you see the Big Picture? When we embark on meeting client needs, we begin the process of Discovery. For many agencies and consultants, this will involve a look at historical data, sales figures, past marketing efforts, competitive assessments, current plans, social media performance, and so on. This is all worthwhile, of course, because often a fresh set of eyes from an outside perspective can easily spot where a problem or an opportunity may manifest itself. Uninfluenced by previous perspectives is key to seeing the unseen.

Every brand has a story. Brands have a creator—a human being. And brands are “owned” by their customers—also human beings. So without knowing what motivated the creation of the brand or the loyalty to it, you simply cannot see, experience and appreciate the true story behind it. Discovery must probe and challenge clients for the “why” a brand exists and what, if anything, would happen if it never existed at all. You’ll never get this from a S.W.O.T. analysis. As my friend and partner Derrick Daye has often quipped, brands and their perceived value must be “put on trial for their lives” in order to fully understand them. Without that understanding, how can you possibly market them effectively?

Brand stories are built on decision, upon decision. By asking the right questions, you’ll learn why and how brands are the way they are.

What was the reason the brand was created in the first place?

What problem was intended to be solved?

What challenges were overcome along the way?

Where did the inspiration come from?

Who was instrumental in its creation or innovation and what were they like?

Why did the brand go down THAT road?

You get the idea.

Don’t be judgmental. Brands find themselves where they are for any number of reasons. If they’re being challenged, it most often is due to:

Under-funding growth and competitiveness

Lack of marketing investment

No or weak innovation

Cultural irrelevancy or tone-deafness

Ill-advised extensions

Sales vs. Management Wars

Brand identity tinkering or inconsistency

Disregarding the customer

Bad press due to a self-inflicted mistake

And so on. Remember, you are being called upon to overcome these parts of the brand’s story, not exacerbate it.

The story is the foundation. It is vitally important to explore the brand story to ascertain the course of corrective action or exploitation of opportunity. “Getting to the roots” of a brand may yield its most valuable asset—the story itself: the protagonist and antagonist, the struggle and the victory. And always the articulation of the differentiating Big Idea along with the Big Picture.

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Named by Igor: Whoop valued at $1.2 billion

Oct 31, 2020: “Patrick Mahomes’ latest investment, sports tech startup Whoop, now valued at $1.2 billion. The MVP quarterback joined a handful of other athletes – including Kevin Durant, Eli Manning and Rory McIlroy – in investing in a tech unicorn called Whoop, Forbes reports.” [Full article]

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How Brands Thrive On Being The Opposite

It doesn’t take an election year to focus on the fact that you have to stand for something. In the U.S. nothing stiffens the resolve of a Democrat than a Republican telling them they are wrong. And vice versa. The hypothetical line is drawn and you must choose one side or the other.

But trolls and haters show up everywhere and appear in many forms — from the celebrated dust-ups between Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds to more conceptual notions like essential versus non-essential, environmentalists versus polluters, woke versus social injustice, agile versus waterfall.

As human beings, we enjoy rivals. The concepts of “pagans,” “nonbelievers,” and the archetypal Stranger appear to be elemental parts of our psyche. Our brains are complex creatures and perhaps we need the contrapuntal rhythms of oppositional thoughts.

Many of these antagonists are so ingrained, you only have to mention the one and your mind automatically leaps to its opposite.

Angel : Devil

Yankees : Red Sox

#BlackLivesMatter : Racists

Sports rivalries are modern examples of the mythic “other”.

Learn From The Other Side

In the era of social media, the existence of trolls and haters is axiomatic. If you are attracting attention, someone else is going to push back. It’s best to have some strategies handy.

“Don’t fear your haters, embrace them,” suggests social media strategist Martina Skangalova. “Every troll or hater gives you a helpful insight of how you or your product/service can be perceived. If you can reach out, be thankful and ask them for more feedback. If the comment is irrational and rather helps the troll to release stress, you can either a) joke around or b) simply not focus on it. Every comment is helping you to reach and help more people.”

There are other ways to play it.

As President Trump proves with every tweet, shared belief builds audiences. When Trump pokes at Twitter, his discharge of adolescent “Mean Girls” banter, Fake News and hyperbolic lies are designed to stroke his audience and keep everyone else shaking their heads.

New Yorkers know that Trump learned how to stir up news-bites in the 1980s as he and real estate entrepreneur Leona Helmsley grappled each day to be mentioned on The New York Post’s Page 6. In those days, Trump relied on publicity agents. Today, his go-to is the Twitter “reply” button.

Our culture is rich in opposites and anyone who has spent a life outside of the cave wall has been marinated in the polarized epithets of Fox News, Twitter and the streaming forums.

The battles have produced some clever gambits.

The term “Proud boys,” originally a faction of gay men, recently was seized by ultranationalist-right radicals. In response, gay men hijacked the ultraright Proud Boys’ Twitter hashtag with messages of love and gay pride.

Vote for Breonna Taylor signs are posted on lawns, urging voters to vote for victims of police brutality.

Patagonia recently reproduced one of founder Yvon Chouinard’s favorite expressions and placed it on a clothing label. (Vote The A$$holes Out)

Spelling Bee, one of The New York Times’ popular word games let players unscramble the word “dictator” this week, subtly reminding people to vote.

Rivalries can backfire. In the 1980s, American consumers were subjected to a number of imaginary marketing wars. There were the so-called “cola wars” (Coke versus Pepsi), the burger wars (McDonald’s versus Burger King), and a street war that pitted domestic U.S. automakers against imports (General Motors and Ford versus Toyota, VW, Honda).

The battles ended when war-weary consumers started switching from burgers to tacos and pizza.

Colas gave up their turf as consumer tastes migrated to Red Bull, Frappuccinos and water in all its variants.

Toyota became the best-selling automaker in the world.

Define Your Opposite

Recognizing what you’re not creates new markets, new behaviors, new thinking.

Allison McGuire, who was once outed for developing an app that alerted young women about walking in sketchy areas within Washington D.C. and Manhattan, today flips the script. Using her experience to help others, McGuire considers ways to turn negativity into positivism. Haters are gonna hate, she acknowledges, but what if criticism could become confidence? Flip hater-speak into a rhetorical opportunity to speak your strength.

Here’s something interesting. If you are trapped in your own marketing maze, a way to find your way out is to ask what you are not and never want to become. Understanding where your company will never go, may lead in directions where you can go.

Final thing. Sometimes the nonbeliever can be you. Stakeholders at a tech company were asked at a marketing hoedown, Who didn’t believe in what they were doing?, and several coworkers raised their hands. They self-identified as nonbelievers — a couple of mergers and new product misfires had polluted their culture and they couldn’t rationalize why they came to work in the morning. (They finally got back on track by identifying their point zero, then regrouped from there.)

A little self-loathing can sometimes become a positive. Sometimes it helps to be your own troll.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Patrick Hanlon, Author of Primal Branding

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Will Trump be re-elected? What data says

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7 Ways Brands Can Create A Social Movement

The strongest brands stand for something bigger than the products that they sell, as we have seen in various examples of social movements. They stand in unity with the public sector, the populations united against a common enemy which is a social issue (such as child mortality, women’s equality, trachoma elimination). Saul Alinsky in his book Rules for Radicals: A pragmatic primer for realistic radicals outlines a successful social movement and makes the common enemy identification the key to any successful social movement.

Based on her experience of supporting brand advocacy work, Marianne Blamire, Global Chief Strategy Officer at MullenLowe Salt, offers a list of what brands can do to help create a movement:

1. Go beyond the brand: focus on the social purpose itself and on a measurable outcome, ideally aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals. Not only will this inspire consumers, but it will also draw in rival brands and partners from the public and private sector.

2. Identify a specific issue and set a rallying cry: Picture a desired outcome in, say, ten years, such as “We have reduced child mortality from x to y in 5 years and mobilized z million people rallying behind that issue.” Combine education with inspiration so people know what they can do, tangibly, as soon as you’ve made them aware of the issue.

3. Make the issue human and simple: strip out jargon, make the complex simple and the simple compelling. Make it relevant to ordinary lives. Inspire people to care about the issue as much as you do.

4. Identify participants and a plan for engagement: you need both broad grassroots support and high-profile supporters. To whom does your issue matter to, and how? Can you align with their values (if a celebrity), policies (if government) and existing programs (if an NGO)? How will your brand educate and captivate each audience?

5. Provide multiple ways to participate: movements are emotional and communal, but people interact in different ways. For this reason, always provide a choice, such as watching and posting on social media, pledging donations, event attendance, volunteering and user- generated content. The act of jolting the public awake to a hidden issue, such as mental health, can break down social stigma and be of huge educative value if executed sensitively, so do not underestimate the power of online content views and TV. People can move up the steps as they deepen their interest and commitment.

6. Devolve power to partners and consumers, so they share ownership. In the public health context, it’s critical the movement goes beyond your brand as the issues are far too complex and systemic to be tackled in isolation. Not recognizing this complexity can dent a brand’s credibility and make worthy efforts unsustainable because of the budget and resources required to maintain it alone. Partners, such as NGOs, provide subject- matter expertise and behavioral change methodologies to add a depth that’s harder for brands to deliver on.

7. Be transparent about the journey: people want to know if progress is happening and what the brand is doing to increase the pace. There’s authenticity in explaining how hard the journey will be – that’s why it’s a mission. Be open to learning from consumer interaction as you go, and adjust the appeals accordingly.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Myriam Sidibe with the permission of Routledge. Excerpted and adapted from Brands on a Mission, How to Achieve Social Impact and Business Growth Through Purpose.

The Blake Project can help you define and develop your brand purpose and create a social movement.

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Today’s Brands Need Heroic Credibility

Consumers have grown to distrust curated media and traditional marketing. They want to make their own decisions based on raw footage, real-time updates, and unfiltered livestreams. They don’t want the polished media release, the staged press conference and the practiced responses.

How, then, do brands gain consumer trust?

The answer: Heroic credibility. Consumers are willing to follow brands that have true values. Heroic credibility speaks to the willingness of brands and leaders to make bold statements that clearly, unmistakably, lay out their philosophy and values, and then, in the face of criticism from the inevitable social-media-fueled wolfpack, refuse to back down.

Heroic credibility is about values-driven leadership. It is the belief that companies need to do more than just meet the financial goals of their owners or shareholders. In line with the 2019 Business Roundtable statement of corporate purpose, companies have a responsibility to invest in their employees, deal ethically and fairly with their vendors, and support the communities where they do business. Heroic credibility takes the concept of stakeholder responsibility one step further. Heroic credibility is the belief that companies need to be driven by a set of values.

Core Values Lead The Way

On Black Friday, November 25, 2018, outdoor apparel maker Patagonia did something it had never done before. It donated ALL of its sales for that day, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, to environmental causes. The sales for that one day came in at over $10 million, five times more than their normal trading day. Yet Rose Marcario, then President of Patagonia, was neither surprised nor concerned. Rather, she was excited because she believed that many of the customers that day were new to Patagonia and had decided to shop the brand because they had heard that Patagonia had sued the Trump administration over its intention to reduce the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah.

Why did Patagonia decide to sue the federal government – a decidedly odd move for an apparel company? Because one of its core values is “Use business to promote nature.”

Patagonia is a firm believer in something beyond financial growth, as founder Yvon Chouinard has often said. “We’re in business to save our home planet.” Patagonia’s vision is to educate consumers on what quality looks like, how responsible garments are made, and how consumers can be stewards of both the earth and their belongings. All the brand’s actions and products are rooted in a set of values that transcend the narrow confines of their product category. Patagonia is a perennial mainstay on lists of most respected companies and most innovative brands because it has always lived its mission statement. Patagonia is heroic credibility.

Patagonia decided to publicize its suit against the federal government over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by putting up billboards and doing print ads that read: “The President Stole Your Land.” That was no PR stunt. It was an expression of the brand’s core values and while it stirred up political controversy and caused a social media frenzy, Patagonia never flinched. And it’s customers were delighted because the brand was demonstrating its values – and the values of its customers.

When your brand actions are in alignment with your brand purpose and values, consumers will trust you and be committed to your brand. They will wear your logo proudly and be brand ambassadors.

Stances Must Transmit Your Brand DNA

However, if you take social or political stances that are not deeply rooted in the DNA of your brand, look out. Case in point: In February 2018, DICK’s Sporting Goods decided to remove all AR platform rifles from its stores because the CEO wanted to show his compassion for victims of the tragic Parkland school shootings in Florida (the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history). Though it was a compassionate act, it was not connected to the values of the brand (in fact, some argued, the sporting goods store had no defined values) and consumers punished the brand. In the months that followed, DICK’s lost $150 million, and even a year later, it was still feeling the impact (sales down $154 million and revenue down $51 million).

Brands that align with the values of their customers will find committed and trusting customers. However, do not cross the very thick line that separates authentic values from moralizing on issues on which you have no authority. If you overstep your bounds and start telling customers what to think about issues that are not ownable by you, customers will turn on you – as they did on DICK’s Sporting Goods.

Besides attracting and retaining committed customers, a strong values-driven business also attracts the best talent. In 2018, Mercer, the world’s largest human resources consulting firm, identified three factors that both job candidates and employees want from a company. The third most important factor (after job flexibility and a commitment to health and well-being) was “the desire to work with a purpose.” The Mercer study discovered that “working with a sense of purpose boosts employee motivation, productivity, morale and overall job satisfaction.” In fact, “thriving employees are three times more likely to work for a company with a strong sense of purpose.”

Values-based work is also near the top of the Millennials’ wish list of what they want from their employer or prospective employer. According to the 2018 Deloitte Millennial survey, employers who are “proactive about making a positive impact on society” ranked second only to “better financial rewards and benefits.”

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By: Paul Leinberger and Stephen Denny, authors of the new book, Unfiltered Marketing: 5 Rules to Win Back Trust, Credibility, and Customers in a Digitally Distracted World

At The Blake Project we are helping clients from around the world, in all stages of development, redefine and articulate what makes them competitive at critical moments of change. Please email us for more.

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Any Business of Any Size Can Grow a Sticky Brand

Any business of any size can grow a Sticky Brand! It’s achievable for anyone willing to put in the time, energy, resources, and creativity to break away from the industry norms and find innovative ways to serve their customers.

You’re reading Any Business of Any Size Can Grow a Sticky Brand by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy’s articles at Sticky Branding.

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The Impact Of Discounting On Brand Equity

Branding Strategy Insider helps marketing oriented leaders and professionals like you define and grow brand value. BSI readers know, we regularly answer questions from marketing oriented leaders and professionals everywhere. Today we hear from Stefanie, a VP of Marketing in Frankfurt, Germany who asks this question about about the impact of discounts on brand equity.

“There is a strong pull to reduce the price of our brand. What impact could that have on brand equity?”

Thanks for your question Stefanie. The answer is not nearly as simple as the question implies. “It depends” is the most accurate two-word answer. It depends on the following:

Is the brand a premium segment brand, a mid-segment brand or a value brand?

What price premium does the brand currently command over competitive alternatives?

Was the brand perceived to deliver a poor, adequate, average, good or excellent value prior to the price reduction?

Is the price reduction a one-time event, a periodic event or a permanent reduction?

What is the pre-reduction price of the brand?

What is the proposed price reduction amount and percentage of the overall price?

Is the brand in trouble or is it hugely popular?

Is it a new brand that is attempting to penetrate an established market? Is it one of many brands in a highly fragmented market? Is it a legacy brand that has long since lost its cache?

What is the brand’s mind share and its market share?

In what channels is the brand distributed? Are they mostly discount channels, premium outlets, luxury boutiques, department stores, grocery stores, mass channels, convenience stores or some other type of channel?

Has the brand recently crossed any price thresholds that have significantly increased its price sensitivity?

What are the patterns of price increases and reductions in the product category in question?

Is the brand trying to manage demand through its pricing?

Is the price reduction a strategic long-term adjustment or a tactical short-term action to lift sales over a limited period of time?

Is the price reduction offered to all customers or just some customers?

Is the price reduction part of a price segmentation strategy?

As you might surmise from these questions, a price reduction can have any of the following impacts on brand equity:

It can INCREASE perceived brand value and brand equity (some brands)

It can INCREASE perceived brand value but DECREASE brand equity (some premium brands)

It can DECREASE perceived brand value and brand equity (many brands including many premium brands)

It can DECREASE perceived brand value but INCREASE brand equity (some super premium brands)

It can have NO IMPACT on perceived brand value and brand equity (some brands – if the reduction is small or imperceptible or no price threshold is being crossed or the price is already extremely low compared to competitive alternatives)

As you can see, pricing can be complicated and there is no simple approach to link all price increases or reductions to definitive changes in brand equity. Having said that, The Blake Project’s BrandInsistence brand equity measurement system recognizes “brand value” as one of the five drivers of customer brand insistence. For most brands, increased value leads to increased brand equity. But remember that “value” is a holistic perception that is based on the often subconscious ratio of costs to benefits. The costs can be in terms of time, money or some other scarce resource. The benefits can be functional, emotional, experiential or self-expressive. And perceived values can also be influenced by reference prices, which is yet another separate pricing topic.

If a customer is largely convenience-driven, price reductions might have no impact on that person. Alternatively, if the customer is largely price-driven, a price reduction could have a significant impact on that person’s purchase behavior. Low prices could drive some category enthusiasts to try a new product or brand, while price reductions may have little to no impact on brand-loyal customers. Again, the relationships between price, perceived value, brand equity and sales are not always linear and cannot be solved by just one simple equation.

I hope this has helped you to think more deeply about the relationships between pricing, perceived value and brand equity.

Do you have a question related to branding? Just Ask The Blake Project

The Blake Project Can Help: Discover Your Competitive Advantage With Brand Equity Measurement

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Pre-launch code names of disruptive startups.

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Please Don’t “We We” On Your Customers

Nothing will accelerate your marketing more than clear brand messaging. Learn how to describe your brand and what makes it unique in 10 words or less.

You’re reading Please Don’t “We We” On Your Customers by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy’s articles at Sticky Branding.

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How Brands Can Carry Out A Social Mission

To carry out a social mission at scale, brands must operate on a level higher than simply focusing on consumer behavior change linked to their products. They will advocate for broad-based efforts to support systemic change benefiting society at large. Here we are talking about the role of brands raising awareness for a social issue that brings greater value to society beyond increasing buy-in to the brand and the products manufactured. It entails talking to governments and cultural influencers, and bringing along citizens in the hope of sparking a groundswell of support and collaboration that lasts for years, not weeks, and beyond individual campaigns.

While brands can of course communicate with policymakers on a case-by-case basis, they often gain more traction when bringing to the table their creative expertise in advertising and engagement towards a higher purpose. Shifting public perception towards healthier outcomes can have a win-win-win for governments, brands and the public. But doing it well means approaching it with a different mindset than conventional brand communication.

Taking A Stand In Today’s Popular Culture

Enlightened brands have realized that broadening out to shift public perceptions and general cultural narratives is key to educating consumers, not just focusing on policy. They have done this partly because of wider social trends in authority, as the public is less likely to trust the recommendations of governments and other major institutions. They are more likely to trust their peers or someone like them, which makes democratizing channels such as social media increasingly powerful. As Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Danone, has pointed out, “Today we are able to connect, learn and share at a speed and scale never before possible.”

With traditional authority figures losing their influence, companies and brands have a greater opportunity, and indeed responsibility, to shape narratives and communities for the better. Social power is moving to looser arrangements, more networked, open source, collaborative, transparent, short- term and conditional. Popular brands, whether national or global, can help fill the gap with their unrivaled reach and trust built over years with consumers, including a ready- made presence on media with television and digital advertising. They can tap into “tribal” communities of people who share a certain interest or commitment. And brands can and are starting to take a position on moral issues which they have previously not done (such as Walmart on gun control and the sale of certain types of ammunition).

In a study of global brands (“The Truth About Global Brands”), across 29 countries, 81 per cent of 30,000 consumers surveyed agreed that brands play a meaningful role in people’s lives. They tend to trust companies and brands to drive change quicker than politicians and multilateral organizations. But be careful: once trust is broken, it’s hard to repair. As the author Seth Godin has said, “If you earn trust then you can do everything else, but if not, then you won’t create any progress let alone a movement.”

A key principle for creating a movement is attracting other partners to your cause. The word “advocacy” in fact comes from the Latin “advocare”, – to call out for support. Purposeful brands do that by enlisting help from a wide range of partners and ordinary people to achieve their stated goal. They open up discussions with governments, community leaders, NGOs, and consumers, building trust and support around a mutual objective and prompting policymaking and funding to hasten transformational change.

Advocacy is primarily for the benefit of society in general, and nowhere is this truer than with public health, so benefits to the brand must be secondary or long-term. This is why we are calling this brand advocacy, where brands will achieve far more by thinking and engaging broadly, using their iconic status and creative skills of their people to keep the key issue on the public agenda. Ambitious advocacy efforts often require rival brands to come together, as with Global Handwashing Day when Unilever’s Lifebuoy worked with Procter & Gamble’s Safeguard and Colgate Palmolive.

Setting Roles With Partners

Businesses have a role to play in influencing policy. If you get the right group of businesses together, then you have a higher chance of showing what the right policies could be, working with the governments. Paul Polman says this on the role of businesses in setting policies: Businesses are not policy setters; you need to set policies in partnership with governments and others. The Modern Day Slavery Act in the UK, introduced when Kevin Hyland was the UK’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, is a fine piece of legislation. Likewise the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the US. Of course some companies don’t like these Acts, but today you have to ask these companies why don’t they like it?

The 2015 UK Slavery Act introduces new requirements for organizations in regard to their business and supply chains. It’s important to work in tandem with government, not just lobbying for market advantage but for wider policies. But here we are talking about creating social movements. While there is no universal consensus definition of a social movement, academic definitions generally share three criteria: a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity. For our purposes, we will define social movement as the following: “a group of people working together to advance their shared ideal”.

This group creates change together; they DO something. Brands make that happen by tapping into universal emotions: Nike does not just sell running shoes, it promotes courage: “Just do it”. Domestos is not just a toilet cleaner, it combats poor sanitation. Apple does not sell hardware and software, it sells creativity and innovation.

Many public health issues already have national or global networks to support collaborative advocacy, from the World Toilet Board to the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. The Global Handwashing Partnership (previously the Public–Private Partnership for Handwashing), for example, helped the Lifebuoy brand to promote hygiene, getting handwashing higher on the agenda of international policy groups such as Sanitation and Water for All. The coalition is seen as a neutral convener, so its proposals get more respect than brands acting alone. When the pharmaceutical company Bayer proposed the World Contraception Day, it drew on a coalition of 17 NGOs, government organizations, multilateral bodies and medical societies.

Social Missions Need Emotion, Reason And Vision

Still, brands do best when they focus on mass awareness and engagement to drive social change, as that’s the unique expertise they bring. After all, a brand works by evoking a series of connected feelings in people. Those feelings are not just about using or consuming a product; they can also mean working with the brand to accomplish broad goals.

Similarly, social movements depend on emotional appeals as much as reasoned arguments. And even with those arguments, consumers – especially youth – are more likely to accept advice and education from a trusted brand that “gets” them (their behaviors online, media consumption, values etc.) than a traditional authority trying to communicate a broad-brush generic nationwide health message to millions. For example, the Edelman survey says 49 percent of consumers believe brands can do more to address social ills than government.

A successful movement has a few key characteristics. It has a positive vision for the future, not just a fear of the present. It speaks to each individual’s personal sense of justice through their connected identity. It uses symbols, language and culture that resonates. It calls for tangible, repeatable and sustainable ways to act, both material and ritual. It gives people agency and makes them actors, not just beneficiaries. Finally, it brings people and communities together on shared platforms and through partnerships.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Myriam Sidibe with the permission of Routledge. Excerpted and adapted from Brands on a Mission, How to Achieve Social Impact and Business Growth Through Purpose.

The Blake Project can help you define and develop your brand purpose and create a social mission.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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