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.

Importance of a Brand Experience Culture

A recent article in MediaPost (‘Branding meets customer service’) explains how some companies are guiding employee behaviour so that during every ‘interaction’ with consumers they are aiming to deliver and delight.

There are a couple of quotes that are important:

“How your employees speak with your customers is, quite literally, your brand brought to life.”

“.. each brand has its own unique brand personality characteristics that should colour the language employees use to help differentiate the company from its competition.”

Ensuring these interactions are right is clearly vital.

Brand organisations should train employees to ensure they deliver brand experiences that delight consumers.

The article highlights how companies set-out to get this right.

Nordstrom's corporate culture is humbly taught to their employees from their first day on the job with only one rule for customer service:

Welcome to Nordstrom.
We're glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them. Nordstrom Rule #1: Use good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

One of Abbott Vascular’s (five operating) Principles is: We keep customers first. Our ability to significantly impact our patients' lives requires that we always keep their needs in mind. We have a responsibility to be responsive, and a commitment to care about our customer."

Key for me is: a) the need to define clearly the customer brand experience culture and b) to ensure that everyone in the brand organisation commits to delivering it from day one.

Delighted customer hotline

I love this idea from John Caddel (Marketing & Innovation Blog).

A telephone in your hotel room that you can call when you are happy (or not).

What a great way to get actionable consumer feedback.

All brands want to delight consumers.

Why not set-up a way to find the brand experiences that do delight, so you can work out how to deliver them to others.

Okay, the hotline might invite critism...but that is okay, finding out what customers don't like is equally valuable.

I'm sure this idea is tranferrable.

Brand organisations should think about how they can apply this approach to gain competitive advantage vs competitors

How to plan role of social media on the Path to Advocacy

I love this film (made by by twentytwosquared).

It is a fun and simple way to explain the powerful role social media plays in building advocacy.

I blog about Brand Experience and the Promise ~ Deliver ~ Delight framework.

The framework is designed to help stakeholder silos (marketing, sales, customer service, etc), within a brand organisation, to think more deeply about the brand experiences they need to build to help move consumers through each part of the Path to Advocacy.

This framework is particularly useful when developing a social media strategy as it highlights the different role each channel can play (Search, Twitter, PR, DM, etc), and the importance of having a joined-up approach.

Any brand team that is developing a social media strategy should use this framework and reflect on whether the brand experiences they plan to deliver will really ‘delight’ people and get them to talk about the brand

After all, it is worth getting it right given that positive advocacy will drive long term sales success.

Deliver customer service brand experiences that build sales

There is a great post at ICC│Decisions.

It basically says that brand organisations should flip there thinking about customer service and regard it as an investment not a cost.

When brands get customer service right it can have dramatic effect on sales.

It is not a new idea.

I’ve posted about it before. I think it’s simple.

A consumer that contacts customer service usually has a problem. This is terrific opportunity to deliver a brand experience that delights.

The more magical the better.

As Jeff Jarvis says in his recent book ‘What Would Google Do?’: “Your customers are your ad agency.”

A delighted consumer will buy again; and maybe even talk about the brand.

This film (for Dream Job Brazil) should get noticed

This is a good way to get noticed.

It's a simple formula. 

Make a film that viewers will:

• enjoy watching (in this case I guess it will be mainly men)
  
• laugh at 
• pass on to their mates
  

That's how social marketing works. It can be a very effective way to deliver a brand experience. 

[Read previous post about how other brands have done this well]. 

Best Buy & Wells Fargo use digital to help deliver winning brand experiences

To win brand organisations have to deliver the brand experience promised (usually via advertising).

Moreover, the brand experience has to be aligned with the expectation, every time the consumer touches the brand.

Smart organisation work with employees using the type of approaches made possible by digital technology (social networking, tweeting, texting, etc), to design guidelines that ensure delivery to the consumer is consistent at every level of an organisation.

Forbes.com had a useful post about two brand organisations that do this well.

The first is Best Buy, where Michele Azar say:

"The Web is a platform for customer delight. Tapping into this delight requires leaders to be open to new ways of listening and learning through social technology and open approaches....”

Another company is Wells Fargo. In a speech at a recent Association of National Advertisers conference, Kate Frohling told participants:

 "We all know that customers can form their impressions of a company from a phone call, a web site, a retail counter, a reservation agent, or any number of other encounters. To make employees not just advocates for their corporate culture, but allow them to operate with the same voice, 'our voice,' it's essential to make customer conversations part of our training. The customer's experience is our No. 1 priority. We give our employees the digital tools they need to ensure the customer's experience is consistent wherever they touch the Wells Fargo brand."

These brands get it.

Any brand organisation that truly aspires to deliver and consumers should work-out how to use digital approaches that enables them to listen to consumers, and develop guidelines that will ensure they exceed consumer expectations at every touchpoint.

That’s how you can build loyalty and advocacy.

These are two consumer actions that will ‘turbo-charge’ brand success in today’s inter-connected world.

On-line (retailer site) brand experiences are a turn-off

There is an excellent post [read at Retail Customer Experience] about how most on-line retail sites are uninspired, technically driven and over analysed.

 ...”a tempting brand experience they are not”

 This article provides a number of clear reasons why they disappoint. To me one comment really resonated:

 “The most important of the day’s experiences are human interactions.”

I could not agree more. It is virtually impossible to beat a human interaction (provided it is a positive one), but these days more and more interactions are becoming automated (telephone, on-line, vending, etc).

The problem is that when brand organisations reduce head-count and increase reliance on automated solution - to ‘increase efficiency’ - it inevitably means that they lose the opportunity to create powerful interactions that can truly delight consumers on an emotional level.

Brands that know what brand experiences will delight consumers and how to deliver them will gain competitive advantage, as they are likely to be brands that consumers are loyal to and will talk about. 

How do you delight on-line? - it isn't easy.

There are clearly times when an on-line solution is vital. If you are in this situation, as suggested in the above post, look closely at how iTunes works and think about how you can replicate the inspired interface they have created.

Fun with South West Airlines

This is fun.

During a shareholder meeting this is a great way to cover-off the dull matter of: ‘Generally Accepted Accounting Principles’ (GAAP). [watch video]

I think it's targeted more at YouTube than the shareholders.

It's a clever way to get noticed.

I don’t travel much in America but if I did I would consider South West Airlines.

Brand Experiences that gets brands noticed

The first stage of the Path to Advocacy is to get your brand noticed. Noticed by both potential consumers (to try to persuade them to consider buying) and existing consumers (to help make them feel positive about their decision to buy).

I define notice as the moment a brand gets on the radar of a consumer; when they see/hear about the brand and consider whether it might be something they need.

In years gone by this was about shouting at consumers. It was all about intrusion, cut-through and impact....the more a brand spent the better chance it had to get noticed.

As we all know, the world has changed. Consumers are in control so a big budget no longer guarantees success.

Brands therefore have to behave differently.

To get noticed they need to deliver brand experiences that talk to consumers in a way that will resonate and persuade them to pay some attention to what you want to say.

It’s about being engaging, appealing and relevant.

Here are some approaches that I think help get noticed:

• Make people smile/laugh [Vegas, Meerkats]
  
• Provide stuff that people muck around with/re-edit [Cadburys]
  
• Capture memories [Porsche, Hovis]
  
• Show stunning visuals [Sony, Honda]
  
• Generate conversations [Wispa]
  

If you can add to this list let me know.

What is Brand Experience?

A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of a consumer that has been shaped by the accumulation of every encounter that consumer has ever had with the brand.

I call each of these encounters a Brand Experience.

Brand Experiences are therefore delivered by all touchpoints, e.g. traditional advertising, packaging, shop staff, memories of previous usage, customer service, word of mouth, etc.

The aim of all brands is to gain competitive advantage. To sell more stuff, to achieve greater loyalty, to get talked about and build sustainable profitability.

Brands should be aiming to gain a competitive advantage by delivering brand experiences that are better than their competitors.

Not only that, brands should ensure that their operation delivers brand experiences that embody what the brand stands for (brand personality, character, values, etc) each and every time a consumer encounters it.

The Path to Advocacy (and PDD Framework) is a useful way to look at how consumers’ are encountering/interacting with a brand and to help brand organsiations work-out how to deliver better Brand Experiences.

T-Mobile - Trafalgar Square event - Part 2

I went to the T-Mobile's Trafalgar Square event and watched 13,500 doing karaoke.

It achieved great PR and the TV ad [see film] has enjoyed a lot of positive editorial [Read: my friend Faris – 'Bring people together and see what they do' and Futurelab– ‘T-Mobile gets it’].

I like the ad and think it nicely captures the ‘Life’s for Sharing’ idea in a warm and engaging way.

Good work T-Mobile.

The challenge for them now is to build on the positive goodwill and buzz created through the current activity by ensuring they deliver brand experiences to existing users that live-up to the Life’s For Sharing promise.

My advice to T-Mobile is to:

  a)  Ensure they deliver customer service excellence.

  b)  Find ways to delight customers by adding some magic to the relationship.

I believe to win brands need to ensure they deliver positive brand experience at every touchpoint - from the brand promise (advertising) to brand delivery (usage experience) to delighting consumers. If they can do that it is very likely they will move consumers down the Path to Advocacy – a proven success strategy.

This is something O2 seems to do very well. [see case study]