I read a great blog from Maz Iqbal today about customer-centricity vs. product-centricity and want to expand on his thoughts a bit in the context of brand.

‘Product-centricity’ is when the company’s primary focus is on the product—making it better, producing it more efficiently and selling more of it. ‘Customer-centricity,’ on the other hand, is when the company’s primary focus is on the customer’s experience—creating the best experience at whatever cost, with the goal of creating a customer relationship that lasts.

While you may say these aren’t mutually exclusive, it turns out…they may be. What I mean is, they each require a different leadership mindset (and, frankly, it’s rare to possess both). Customer-centric leaders consistently use the brand promise as a guide to ensure that it is kept at every customer touch point, making compromises in profits where necessary to uphold that promise. These are leaders that choose to:

a) Invest in customer service over
b) Outsourcing it

a) Invest in customer experience design over
b) Product design

a) Invest in building up and supporting their employees over
b) Status quo management

Unfortunately, there are relatively few brands out there doing this today. But, the movement is afoot. Because, in this digital age where customers define how products are used and what brands mean for them, the experience is king. So why not make it a brand-defining experience? Brand-defining experiences are experiences that demonstrates your brand promise in a way that emphasizes your distinct value, or values, as the case may be…

–Jen Travis

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Photo of Gary Vaynerchuk via NPR

By doing exactly what they were doing before: giving that personal attention mom-and-pop shops are known for—except online.

When storeowner Gary Vaynerchuk created winelibrary.com and Wine Library TV, and began using Facebook and Twitter, he understood that he would have to do more than just have a social media presence.  He decided to provide real value to customers by building truly meaningful connections which he says, “is hard to do if you’re pushing too hard.” Especially because (as he puts it) his customers’ BS radars are good and getting better.

So how did he find the balance?

Check out his interview with NPR to find out.

-Bianca Abate

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Customers don’t wake up in the morning interested in your company and products, no matter how much you push out messaging to them.  Instead, they wake up in their world, trying to solve their problems and fill their lives with experiences that are relevant to them.

What if instead, you started with a customer focus?  If you turned the telescope around and saw the world from their point of view?  Would your products and services look the same?  Would you reframe your value and messaging?  Would you meet their needs and provide relevant experiences?  That’s what’s needed today, in a world where people can go anywhere on the Internet to find what they are looking for, where consumers no longer respond to advertising or corporate messaging, but instead are looking for experiences that make sense to them.  “Push” marketing no longer works because customers are only interested in things they have “pulled.”

So move from ME ME ME to YOU YOU YOU. Turn the telescope around and get into the customer’s frame of reference.

- Lynn Parker

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Time for a personal anecdote:

I live in Upper Queen Anne. There are 3 choices to grocery shop: I can go to Safeway, Metropolitan Market, or Trader Joe’s.  No matter what’s on my grocery list or the distance, I always go to Trader Joe’s, which in marketing speak makes me a “loyalist.”

If you ask me why I love TJ’s so much, I could list a hundred things… the food, the artwork, the vibe. The fact that the employees know my name and ask me how my last snowboarding trip went. They actually want to be my friend and I look forward to seeing them and chit chatting about their day, as well as mine. I feel like I belong there.

Brand is the sum of all of these things. It’s the overall experience from the first impression the website makes to the final invoice in the mail. We absorb all of these interactions to form an impression in our minds. To be successful, a company’s goal should be to establish connections that truly resonate or real relationships with people that build collective momentum.

Brands can have good or bad reputations just like people do and reputations travel by word of mouth, just like we gossip about real people. But as overwhelming as it may seem to please the masses, if you’re an organization you just need to take a step back and remember the individual.

Just ask, what is that one connection, that one thing you can do to connect with one person? What is the one experience that defines your brand?

- Bianca Abate

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For those of you as behind in your movie watching as I am, here’s the synopsis: Nelson Mandela, during South Africa’s tough transition to democracy, leverages the nation’s love of rugby to cross racial lines and bring people together (a bit more). He does this by supporting, even promoting, the Springbok team and its name even though it’s associated with white rule. In exchange for his support, the team engages in outreach efforts all over the country, bringing rugby matches and lessons to poor black children. By supporting rather than alienating the team and its white followers he builds trust. And by modeling forgiveness he captures the hearts of blacks. By inspiring the team to their victory at the Rugby World Cup in 1995, he demonstrates to his fellow countrymen that they do have something in common after all.

What does this have to do with brand leadership? Any company working to define and strengthen its brand is embarking on a substantial change process. You’re asking people to change the way they work, what they say, who they work with, maybe even what they do. This is the kind of change that requires people to either get on board, or not.

I have seen many companies try to embark on this process by reasoning with employees, by explaining why this is important to the company’s future and to their jobs. In some cases that works, and in others it does not. When it doesn’t, the brand initiative lies dead in the water—an expensive experiment in what the company could be.

The problem is that people’s loyalty to a brand isn’t 100% logical. It might not even be 50% logical. So why should your internal effort to align people around the brand be any different? Effective brand leadership taps into people’s emotions. It inspires. It’s fun. It’s a little audacious. That’s often what gets people motivated to change.

This movie was a nice reminder that inspiration can often outweigh perspiration.

What will you do to inspire staff in your effort to build your brand?

–Briana Marrah

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Most likely, you’ve got something to say and most likely, you want people to listen. But what do you do if you’ve got a dull topic on your hands à la accounting systems or actuarial statistics—topics known to induce instant eye-glaze stupor?

There’s hope! Because how you craft your message is just as important as the message itself.

However unsexy the idea or product may be, careful information and presentation design can grab people’s attention and transform it into something interesting.

How to turn boring into impactful?

1. Make it novel by saying it in a new way. Is there a new analogy you can use?  A funny anecdote that brings it to life?
2. Simplify and make it brief. Our brains are little, we can only take in so much.
3. Give context and relevance. Make it very clear why we should care.

Skeptical? Check out this video about global health statistics. In the very first minute, Hans Rosling wisely says, “Having the data is not enough. I have to show it in ways people both enjoy and understand.”

Watch it. Does it pull you in? Did you ever think statistics could be so interesting?

- Bianca Abate

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What’s the secret to getting through to your target audience?

It’s simple: just listen.

They’re not “consumers,” they’re real people with real emotions, triumphs, problems and goals. Listening helps you see the world through their eyes to truly understand where they’re coming from.

And when you truly “get” them, you see not just what matters to them, but how to connect.

I loved NPR’s coverage on Makeba Riddick, a songwriter for Rhianna, Beyonce, Toni Braxton and more. Whenever she’s writing a song, she keeps the teenage girl from Iowa (and mom) in her head the entire time. And her songs continue to top the charts.

Check it out here: How To Write A Hit- Think Like A Teenager (But Keep Parents In Mind)

- Bianca Abate

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Most people have some sense of what it means “to be green” or “to go green.” You know what I’m talking about – the environmentally friendly, socially responsible movement.  But within the ‘green’ lies some ‘gray’ – the uncertainty and confusion in how one reacts to the word ‘green.’ Consumers, shareholders, employees, friends, neighbors –we all seem to have a different reaction to this simple word.  When a company is branding itself as “green,” do you have an initial positive or negative feeling?

For example, when I mention my own ‘green’ endeavors to friends or family I receive comments ranging from, “good for you” and “congratulations!” to “that’s for the rich folk” or “green is just trendy!”

In my opinion, these mixed reviews stem from confusion around the benefits of ‘going green,’ or access and barriers to a ‘green lifestyle’ – and possibly the word’s overuse.  On the other hand, ‘green’ is now an acceptable and common school of thought – a short and simple way of defining this movement. ‘Green’ is easier to roll off the tongue than environmentally friendly, sustainable, responsible,  etc.

The arrival of green business, green marketing, green products and the painting of an effort as green, even when it isn’t– green washing – occurred at such a rapid rate that there seems to be polarizing sentiment with the word ‘green.’  What is your gut reaction to ‘green?

When you hear the word ‘green,’ do you?

a) Feel positive feelings
b) Do more investigative work to be sure the ‘green’ claims uphold to your own ‘green values’
c) Roll your eyes and say, “yeah, yeah, whatever…”
d) Grab a bucket because if you hear the word ‘green’ one more time you may get ill
e) Other?

- Evelyn Jones

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I’m getting a cavity just thinking about how the Corn Refiners Association is trying to switch the name high fructose corn syrup to “corn sugar.”

How un-sweet of them. But to be fair, I’ll pose the question: can a name change influence consumer behavior?

Of course. I’d rather buy Spanx over a Girdle Panty, but that principle only applies if I actually want to buy control top underwear in the first place. Rebranding via renaming is a common practice (see Altria, Qwest and the whole “timeshare” to “vacation ownership” transition), but in this case, it’s trying to put mineral-based lipstick on a pig. The Corn Refiners Association is banking a lot on consumer ignorance. It’s like calling cigarettes “flavor sticks” and expecting our mouths to water.

This might work in the short term, but a company can’t save a crappy product with this sort of shallow fix because today’s consumer has access to a lot of information. The internet and our social interconnectedness means a company can’t control the conversation like it used to.  So friends will tell friends that corn sugar (nee high fructose corn syrup) has all the problems it had before.

Markets are now driven by the people. And what do we the people demand? Alignment of values, transparency and to be spoken to as peers. We want companies to provide real value all the way down the chain.

This is wonderful. It means there’s a new imperative on companies to put out healthier products and work together toward improving our community as a whole. And it means that corn sugar won’t become the next Nike (originally Blue Ribbon Sports).

- Bianca Abate

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There’s exciting stuff going on with my Vitamin Water.

Allow me to set the scene: Seattle’s annual Capitol Hill Block Party showcases over 60 indie bands. It’s a summer weekend that turns a downtown neighborhood into a huge party with 3 stages of music, big crowds, and lots of sun.

Vitamin Water went to the CHBP, but they didn’t pass out free samples from the back of a van as expected.  Instead they rented a hip loft space and set up fans, bean bag chairs and a dance floor. A DJ spun tunes as cute bartenders served Vitamin Water cocktails. And of course…refrigerators were filled with as much free Vitamin Water as one could handle.

My friends and I had such a good time, we spent over 2 hours dancing, meeting people and taking glam shots in their photo booth—that’s us above cocktails in hand.  I appreciate that they created a distinct experience for us music fans by making sure everyone had a good time as a good party host should.

This is social branding at its best.  This company went to where their customers hang out and contributed what’s important to them. And this kind of understanding is the magic that creates a special camaraderie and drives more meaningful relationships with people.

Needless to say, we all went home with purses full of Vitamin Water excited for their next dance party.

- Bianca Abate

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