Brand organisations ignore angry consumers at their peril

In years gone by brand organisations could ignore unhappy consumers.

When they delivered a bad brand experience, e.g. poor product performance, rude customer service, etc, it didn’t matter too much because consumers could do little about it, other than tell a few of their friends and stop buying.

If they got lucky their story might have got media exposure through newspapers or a TV consumer programme.

Fast toward to today and the things are completely different.

The digital age has put the consumer firmly in control.

The web is littered with examples of brands that have suffered because they have delivered bad brand experiences that have so incensed consumers they have found ways to use social media to get the attention of a wider audience.

Here are some infamous ones:

Dell ignored Jeff Jarvis’s complaints until he posted a ‘Dell Sucks’ blog. A large anti-fan club was born. [I’ve written about this before.]

United Airlines ignored complaints from an upset passenger who had watched his guitar being badly handled by baggage handlers. He posted a video and on YouTube got over 5 millions of hits. [see YouTube video]

Apple took no notice of early consumer complaints about broken glass covers on their newly launched Nano, until his consumer blog post generated massive backlash that they could not ignore.

A Comcast engineer was recorded fast asleep on a couch while on hold waiting for engineer support which has also had huge volumes of views and comments. [see YouTube video]

Last week there was a news story about how a disappointed holiday maker was ignored by Thompson Holidays until his ‘rant blog’ beat them on Google searches.

These ‘head in the sand’ stories always follow the same pattern:

Step 1: The brand delivers a bad brand experience (e.g. poor product delivery).

Step 2: The organisation compounds the problem by delivering further bad brand experiences (e.g.poor customer service, ignoring the problem, etc)

Step 3: The bad brand experience story spreads quickly across the world (via social media) turning millions of consumers off the brand.

Twitter has turbo-charged the speed and scale at which this type of story spreads. (See previous posting.)

Any brand organisation that permits these types of problem is likely to incur significant unwelcome extra costs to the business trying to put things right.

It is therefore vital to have people and processes in place that knows how to prevent this type of problem.

Better still, have people and process in place that know how to WOW consumers so they talk positively about your brand.

Brands with more advocates than competitors will win.

Homebase home delivery service get top marks

This is a great story about a positive brand experience.

My wife recently ordered a sofa on-line from Homebase.

During the buying process she booked a delivery date and time, at a cost of £10.

The day before Homebase telephoned and an automated voice said that the delivery window had been narrowed from four hours to two.

On the morning of the delivery the driver telephoned and said he would arrive in half an hour.

As promised, the sofa arrived and was unloaded and positioned by two very friendly and helpful delivery men.

We have thirty days to decide whether we like the sofa. If we don’t then it will be collected free of charge.

Homebase have realised that if they delight consumers they are likely to buy again and may be even tell their friends about their positive experience.

Homebase's approach is impressive.

Social media accelerates need for greater collaboration

I found this useful presentation that was posted on Slide Share one month ago (which I guess in social media years makes it is a little out of date).

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

It has loads of good stuff.

One quote by Josh Bernoff particularly resonated with me (check page 49):

“The people in charge of talking are in the marketing department.

The people in charge of listening are in the research, or service of sales department.

They hardly ever talk to each other….”

I’ve talked about this before. It is vital that teams collaborate.

It is time to break down department silos, particularly between marketing and research, service and sales; and work together to deliver consistent and joined-up brand experiences that delight the consumer and make them advocates.

Now more than ever before this is vital because ‘social media is like advocacy on steroids’ (check out the great visual on page 12).

It will be the brand organisations that understand the importance of collaboration and delighting consumers, and the power of social media and advocacy that will win.

Great customer service is critical to successful brand experience planning

Here is a useful no nonsense list of things customer service teams should be doing to keep consumers happy [See full details at Customer Service Tips and Perspectives]

1. Answer the phone
2. Listen to your customers
3. Focus on the positive
4. Handle customer complaints effectively
5. Keep your promises
6. Train your staff
7. Be helpful and kind, even when there is not an immediate profit in it
8. Let customers know you appreciate them
9. Go the extra mile
10. Ask if there is anything else you can do

The first 6 points are the basics if you want to get consumers to buy again.

But for me points 7 -10 are key if you want to delight consumers so that they not only buy again abut maybe even talk about your brand. (The power of that kind of advocacy is well recognised.)

I talk about this alot. Brand teams should be working with the whole organsiation delivering brand experiences that:

• Make relevant brand promises to the consumer (generally via marketing).
• Deliver theses promises both in-store and then every time the brand is used/consumed.
• Delight the consumers. This magical bit that great customer service adds.

Try it. Seat down with the right people in your organistion and think about how the brand experiences you are delivering and how they can be improved. It might be helpful to use this approach to help.

It should be your first step to a very successful future.

What is Brand Experience?

I came across this excellent definition of Brand Experience in Digital Web magazine.

"Brand Experience is the strategic approach to compelling people to take productive action through the integrated, coordinated planning and execution of every possible interaction that they have with your company or products. That means assessing business strategy through the lens of providing people with carefully designed experiences that meet their needs and desires, with the explicit intention of compelling them to take productive action on your behalf.

Brand Experience—in its totality—is a rather new discipline, and one that is incredibly complex to execute successfully. Not only does it require a sophisticated understanding of business strategy and a deep, scientific and cultural understanding of people and markets, it also demands a broad—and neutral—understanding of communications and media. It is, at once, the synthesis of business, marketing, design and technology."

So, in summary:

• It's new
• It's complex to execute
• It requires smart people to work it out.

I am not sure that I can add anything to this except a strong recommendation to spend time and effort mastering it. The business rewards for brands that get it right can be very high.

Here's a presentation that suggests how you can start......

Brand Experience Management

View more presentations from andrewweir.

Brand Experiences to get a brand Chosen

Choose is the second stage of the Path to Advocacy and is about the process that the consumer goes through when choosing which brand(s) they are likely to buy.

This stage is about getting your brand onto the consumers’ short-list.

This used to be all about traditional media - using high impact, coverage, frequency, recency, etc. However, the internet now means i) consumers are very interconnected with each other, and ii) the way they behave and use media has changed. They don’t trust traditional media in the same way, they research differently (usually on-line) and actively seek relevant opinion/advice of others (e.g. friends & family and/or independent experts).

To succeed today brand owners must deeply understand their target consumers’ behaviours, particularly:

a) How and where consumers are getting information about brands

b) The consumers’ motivations for choosing. (These can be driven by functional needs e.g. specification, colour, price, etc and their emotional needs.)

The start point for marketers is making sure their brand is providing the right (usually functional) information, at the right time, in the right place. Effective ways to do this is include sampling or a good internet strategy (e.g. search, brand website, etc).

The other critical requirement is about making the brand relevant to the target consumers’ lives. It is where PR (Virgin, Marks & Spencer, Agent Provocateur), experiential (Electrolux), social media (Dell, Wispa, T-Mobile) and advocacy can play a big part.

Holiday time

Back in a week...

Pepsi video ad in a magazine will be deliver a super-charged brand experience

This sounds incredibly smart.

In September CBS magazine Entertainment Weekly will insert a mini screen that plays 40 minutes of TV show clips and an ad for Pepsi.

Wow. Top marks to Pepsi.

This is will deliver a very powerful brand experience that undoubtedly will get noticed and talked about.

I hope I can get to see a copy.

Augmented reality delivers a powerful brand experience

This film does a good job showcasing augmented reality.

It’s pretty cool and relatively new. [I am just starting to get my head round it.]

One thing that is clear to me is that any brand organisation that works out how to incorporate augmented reality effectively into an overall brand experience strategy will get a head start over competitors.

Here are some other films - from BMW, Magic Symbol and University of Tokyo - that help explain it.

Please let me know if you see any good examples.

Consumers want better food labelling

I read at Customer Experience about a new survey from Guiding Stars Licensing Co., which suggests that food grocery shoppers in US are getting fed up with arcane, hard-to-read and misleading nutritional information on the foods they buy.

Surely this information is not new news to brand organisations.

Here is some more (worrying) data:

• 24% think labels are "difficult to understand."
• 28% think labels are "exhausting to read"
• 67% are only somewhat confident, at best, they can select healthy foods from the Nutrition Facts Panel alone.
• 74% hold negative views of the Nutrition Facts Panel on their food products

So, if you are involved in package design in any category (not just food), please consider the brand experience you are delivering to the consumer when the information on your brand’s packaging is not clear.

Get it right and you should gain a strong competitive advantage.

Has the power of TV eroded?

This engaging film has been created by ThinkBox to promote the power of TV.

It cleverly highlights some of the famous TV tag-lines from the UK in the 80s and 90s. It ends with the line: ‘Funny how thirty seconds can last a lifetime.’

It works for me because I can very easily conjure-up all these old ads in my mind when I hear their tag-lines.

However, the world has changed so much and how people, particularly the young, consume media has changed dramatically. I therefore wonder whether my kids will remember any of the campaigns they are currently exposed to when they have grown-up. I doubt it.

When I first started in the media and communications business at Saatchi & Saatchi, the model was simple. A brand built sales by delivering sufficient levels of consumer awareness. In those days TV was king.

These days it is a lot more complicated. To compete brands have to deliver relevant and engaging consumer brand experiences across an array of touchpoints. Digital (in its broadest sense) is now king.

My advice to brand organisations is to look at their consumers’ journey [maybe using the PDD and Path to Advocacy frameworks] and identify the types of brand experiences that need to be delivered to delight consumers.

It is worth the investment in time and resource because getting it right will drive loyalty and maybe even get your brand talked about.

So, back to the original question: “has the power of TV eroded?”

Yes and no.

No.... TV ads viewed in the traditional way is not as effective as it used to be [see research by Forrester for the Association of National Advertisers].

Yes....TV films consumed via screens (TV, computer, mobile, etc) can be extremely effective when part of an integrated brand experience strategy.

While I’m on the subject of old TV ads, here are some of my favourites: British Airways 'Global'; BASF 'Dear John'; Heineken ‘Majorca’ :

Self service machines undermine the shopping experience

My local Boots and Tesco’s have just installed self service machines.

I am not a fan.

I think it is a mistake for retailers to install them as it merely ‘commoditises’ the whole shopping experience.

The best way to win in-store is to deliver a WOW brand experience that shoppers will love. That way they will reward you with further visits; and maybe even tell their friends about you.

I was therefore very interested to get an invitation from Retail Customer Experience to participate in a webinar: ‘Implementing self service to gain competitive advantage’.

They promise to show, among other things, how to reduce costs and deliver a differentiated experience with self service that will create new consumer loyalty.

Okay…. I get that these machines reduce costs (surely the main reason).

But come on….how can they increase loyalty?

I have registered to join this webinar so I will keep you posted.

[BTW, my thanks to Timothy Belmont for his excellent picture.]

Winning brands understand the power of emotion

It is well understood that delivering winning brand experiences that forge strong relationships with consumers is an effective way to build consumer loyalty and advocacy.

What may not be so well recognised is that emotion is a key ingredient of a winning brand experience.

Marketing & Strategy Innovation blog have just posted hard data that shows that emotional ads work better than rationale ads. However, ads are just one type of brand experience, and only part of the story

To be successful it is vital for brands to deliver: a) the promise [made in the carefully crafted ads] and b) experiences that delight consumers.

Without doubt the best way to deliver brand experiences with meaningful emotion is through the use of human contact.

Brand organisations should think carefully about how their people are dealing with consumers, and look for ways to build elegant brand experiences at every stage of the path to advocacy – particularly in-store and customer service.

There are plenty of brands that do this really well (Zappos, Hyundai, Virgin and Nordstrom). They are a smart place to start if you are looking for compelling examples about how to do it.

Come on Amazon, you can tweet better than that

I got this randon Tweet from Amazon.

I was both surprised and disappointed.

The item they offered is completely irrelevant to me, and the cost was in dollars (I'm UK based).

It adds up to a really poor digital strategy....poor targeting...poor offer

What a poor brand experience.

What a shame.

Amazon buys Zappos, the brand experience grand master

This probably shouldn't be a surprise...Amazon buys Zappos.

Or rather, as Tony Heist (CEO Zappos) would rather say (see email to employees): "Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree..."

Like many, I have posted before about Zappos' core values - that focus on WOWing consumers with winning brand experiences - and how these have helped them grow from strength to strength.

The challenge for Zappos will be to maintain their strong culture and build on the massive success achieved to date with this new business relationship.

I wonder what happens next. A global roll-out would seem like a real possiblity.

I will watch with interest.

[Read this good article Retail Customer Experience]

Brand experiences from Phillips and Toyota that will get noticed

I've recently seen some 'making of' blockbuster films that I think are better than the final ads.

Here are two of my personal favourites.

I love this film. It shows that Phillips really understand the passion their target consumers have for cinema.

There is something about this Toyota Prius that makes me smile.



The number of viewings are pretty small but the depth of viewing and number of comments means they are Brand Experiences that are getting noticed and being talked about.

I think that makes them effective.

Brand experience is a strategy, not a slogan

I’ve borrowed (and slightly changed) this quote from an article in a new Peppers and Rodgers on-line journal

It is a great article; take a look [Customer Strategist]

It supports a number of points I've made before...

Delivering great brand experience will grow the bottom-line:

“.. several recent studies confirm the link between customer experience and bottom-line performance”

Emotion contact is more effective than rational communication. It’s about what you do and how you treat consumers, not what you say, that is more influential:

“Customers feel first and think second—and interactions with a company strongly influence their heart and produce a longer lasting impact than communications directed toward their heads.”

Training and culture are key:

“Many companies lack the employee training and automated processes necessary to create the insight, interaction, improvement, and orientation necessary for a successful customer experience program.”

“Simply revising structure and technology doesn't suffice; company culture has to be changed for improvement."

If you want to build a competitive advantage consider seriously how you can work with others in your organisation, maybe using the PDD framework, to find ways to deliver compelling and relevant brand experiences that will genuinely WOW consumers.

Electrolux create a fantastic brand experience for diners in Paris

Wow, how about this for a unique and really cool eating experience.

A restaurant built of glass on top of the Palais de Tokyo that has spectacular views overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

Check out the story [New Media Age]:

"... created a 12-person ‘food experience’ in Paris, which allows diners to host their own dinner parties or food workshops encased in a glass room on top of the Palais de Tokyo museum."

Brands in the laundry and cooking category are generally regarded as pretty dull by consumers, so they tend not to get talked about.

This Brand Experience however will get talked about.

They are apparently going to do something similar in London.

Smart move Electrolux.

How they try to get employees to delight train passengers in Japan

Thanks to Guardian.co.uk I recently heard about the Japanese train company that is scanning its employees to make sure they smile properly.

What an extraordinary story.

Okay, I am a great believer that customer facing employees in any organisation should be delivering experiences that delight shoppers/users/passengers.

However, I don’t think that a smile scanner is the answer.

I think this Japanese company should provide training that guides and inspires their employees to deliver positive experiences every day, in a way that will genuinely WOW its passengers

A start point is look at what other organisations are doing [check out my Brand Experience Culture posting]

Hyundai go from strength to strength

I think Hyundai are doing things right.

They are rapidly progressing up the reliability rankings and have developed some smart promotion strategies designed to get noticed by price sensitive consumers who are anxious about the recession.

This is helping them grow market share, which is clearly great news for them.

However, in my view, this is just the start.

Each new buyer gives Hyundai 3-5 years to deliver two of the most positive brand experiences:

1. Driving the car (one of the most powerful).
2. Visiting the dealer (to enjoy 5 year warranty)

These brand experiences should give Hyundai loads of opportunities to provide great customer service and build strong relationships.

Assuming Hyundai continues to get it right they should be able to convince owners to buy again, and possibly even make them advocates.

This is great as these advocates will promote Hyundai to their friends and family, who in turn may consider and possibly buy a Hyundai.

And so it should go on....more owners; deeper brand experiences; more advocates; more sales.

I shall watch their progress with interest.

[By the way, I just bought a new Hyundai .]

Flyers don't always care about the brand experience

I spend most of my time blogging about the importance of delivering great brand experiences that drive advocacy.

I focus mainly on approaches and brands that get this right.

I also occasionally talk about brands that get it spectacularly wrong.

Ryan Air, however, falls into a completely different category.

I read in Brand Republic that Michael O'Leary, chief executive, is currently talking to Boeing about designing airplanes with standing room.

Unbelievable.

Ryan Air are already planning to charge 'cattle' (fka passengers) for going to the toilet, as well as abolishing check-in facilities and instead demanding that all check-in on-line at a cost of £5.

Oh well... there will be proportion of flyers for whom price is the only factor and Ryan Air are doing an extremely efficient job finding new ways to cater for this group.