Brand organisation must ensure they deliver a joined-up brand experience

I have said before that brand organisations often operate in silos.

This issue is very real, as evidenced by ANA research last year that revealed that 59% of respondents think the existence of silos in a brand organisation is a most serious challenge in planning and executing integrated marketing.

 I read a useful one page excerpt of a book (written by David Aaker) aimed at CMOs that looks at how to solve the silo problem.

It has some very sound advice. [see article]

One point made is the need for: ‘clarity and linkage in silo-spanning brand strategy’

I want to build on that. 

If you are involved in planning and delivering brand strategy I suggest that you gather all other key stakeholders– marketing, sales, customer service, etc – and review whether your operation is delivering great brand experiences across every part of the business.  

In order to build a competitive advantage in these challenging time the objective of everyone in a business must be to ensure that a clear, consistent and joined-up brand experience is delivered throughout the path to advocacy. 

Is Jeff Jarvis right to say ‘your customers are your ad agency?'

I have just started reading an excellent book called ‘‘What Would Google Do?’ by Jeff Jarvis.

In chapter 3 there is a section called ‘Your customers are your ad agency.’ In it Jarvis says: “Customer service is the new marketing,” citing Dell and Google as evidence of the vital role customer services plays in building a successful brand.

I think he is half right.

There is no doubt that customer service is a critical stage of the consumer path to advocacy. Delighting consumers must be the goal. However, it is not the whole story, particularly for a lot of low involvement brands (Fast moving package goods, financial, white goods, etc).

The brand promise (to get noticed and encourage trial) is a start-point for these brands.

Then there is brand delivery (at 1^st and 2^nd moment of truth) which also has to be brilliant [read previous posting about Apple stores and service is marketing].

If you are working in a brand organisation look for others involved in delivering brand experience and find ways to work with them to break-down silos. It is a business imperative in this new connected world to ensure all parts of the Brand Promise, Delivery and Delight (PDD framework) are joined-up.

Burger King's facebook promotion was not joined-up

This is an example of a great idea potentially being let down by ineffective brand experience management.

I refer to the recent Burger King "Whopper Sacrifice" Facebook promotion (Facebook users got a free Whopper coupon in exchange for dropping 10 friends from their account).

Chris Ondrula, chief operating officer of a Chicago-area Burger King franchise, is quoted as saying: “Franchisees were concerned about being deluged with Whopper coupons and had been caught flat-footed…..they would like to be kept in the loop when things like that happen, as it puts people behind the register in a difficult position not to know what [customers] are talking about."

I appreciate that Burger King is a massive and complex business, but to not inform the people serving customers what was happening is a classic example of an organisation that is not delivering joined-up brand experiences.

The lesson from this is simple.

When planning any kind of brand experience that involves front line teams best practise is to get all stakeholders to work together to plan how the activity can most delight the consumer.

Brand organisations that deliver joined-up brand experiences will win.

Key to delivering great brand experiences at all stages of the PDD framework is an organisation that is totally joined-up.

Brand Marketing, Sales and Customer Service departments need to have a strong relationship and an integrated process that ensures they work together.

Why is it that they often do not?

I have lost count of the number of times that I have worked with brand marketing people that do not involve sales in their brand experience planning. I have also worked with successful brand organisations that do.

It is hard to provide hard ROI evidence to show that one is better than the other, but the quality and innovation of the planing work produced is always much better when sales are involved.