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Article contributed by Cindy Tripp, Design Thinking Specialist, Leonora Polonsky & Associates LLC

I love Tire Discounters.  How can that be? 

It’s simple — Tire Discounters has empathy for me:

• They greet me with respect and have a comfortable waiting room. Often they provide immediate service, even without an appointment.
• They know that I only want the best tires and don’t try to sell me off-brands; they do help me time my purchase to get best deals.
• There is very little turnover so they know me despite the long purchase cycle.
• They go above and beyond, like staying late to fix my tire on a cold, rainy evening.
• Even the weekly humor on their signs makes me smile.

Like other Brands that show consumer empathy, Tire Discounters is rapidly growing.

Building empathy requires leaving a business executives’ comfort zone and stepping into
the lives of the people they serve. Simple tips for building empathy:

Path to Empathy	Your Stance
Reframe your view from research mode (“target”) to human mode (person)	Watch your language.  If you focus on targets, you will spend energy aiming arrows at them.
Focus on a few people & really get to know them; be open to listening to “extremes” of your potential user base	Enter into her life versus expecting her to enter your brand’s world
Understand her hopes and dreams in the broader context of her life	Be curious, without judging
Imagine her story and what looks like help to her	For now, don’t consider feasibility issues

Each time we move out of research mode into human mode, we build empathy for our consumers and something magical happens. It’s not easy, but it is a great way to achieve business goals and personal fulfillment by making a difference in consumers lives. Hey, if a tire store can do it, so can you.

“Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions”. — Wikipedia

My experience this weekend with Kimpton’s “pet friendly” policy was a lesson on brand integrity. I was at a Kimpton in DC, sans pet. Their purported pet friendliness didn’t phase me until I returned to my room late, to be greeted by a loud and persistent bark next door. I got on line to check their “pet policy”, hoping to find a provision (e.g. – if pet causes disturbance, pet will be xyz”). Instead I read the following.

Disappointed but desperate, I called front desk and… complained. Surprisingly, they said they would “take care of it ASAP” — within minutes there was silence. After joking about the cocktail they gave the dog, we slept well. The next morning, we asked the front desk how they worked this magic. They told us that if owner can control noise, that’s step one. If not, they remove dog from room and “play with him” till owner returns. No kennels, no cocktails. Just play + love. We then noticed water bowls and biscuits at the entry, and staff members who were all pet lovers.

Kimpton walks the talk on pet friendly. AND their point-of-difference with pets doesn’t jeopardize their delivery of human guest delight. As Brand Strategists, we make choices about what equities we want consumers to associate with our Brands. But that is only the very beginning. As former P&G CEO AG Lafley said, “execution is the only strategy consumers see”. Are you delivering on your chosen equities with unwavering integrity that wows consumers?

PS — Note next day from hotel manager with bottle of wine and chocolate. Happy pets, happy humans!

Stretching a Brand into adjacent Categories can be one of the best ways to build shareholder value — and one of the most perilous. Arm & Hammer®, Dove®, Marriott®, Dole®, Disney®, and Crayola® got it right. But Brand graveyards are full of adjacencies gone bad: Harley Davidson Perfume®, Virgin Cola®, Olay Cosmetics®, and Ben Gay Aspirin®. Who wants to ingest a cream that burns?

You’re thinking “obviously, those wouldn’t fly”; hindsight is 20/20. No doubt great cases were made for each of these flops and countless others.

Here are some simple tips for Crossing Boundaries right:

1. Start strong: (i.e. – Brand is growing share in current Categories). Why share vs. sales? A Brand that’s losing sales, but gaining share in a declining Category, might be stretchable (e.g. –  landscape changes require re-defining “where to play” such as document deliver to overnight e-commerce package delivery).
2. Know the Basket: Cross-Category shopping basket understanding is the key. If a premium Ice Cream Brand with a loyal following wants to expand, a smart first step is identifying which Categories over-index among its ice cream buyers.
3. Leverage a transferable Point-of-Difference (POD): What’s important in real estate? Location, Location, Location. What’s important in Brand adjacencies? Transferable POD. Transferable POD. Transferable POD. Think Disney® taking fun, family, magical entertainment across myriad Categories (theme parks, hotels/resorts, cruises, movies, shows, apparel, toys/games, theater…).
4. Transferable POD trumps Category Proximity: Consumers view Arm & Hammer® as pure, gentle, versatile, effective, environmentally safe, and economical. Recognizing this Transferable POD, Arm & Hammer® has established successful businesses in Personal, Oral, Fabric, and Pet Care. 
5. Scout for insights in analogously connected Categories: If your Brand is going to enter an established Category, you’ll need a new angle or way in. Rick Seibold (Initiator) is pioneering “analogously connected category” immersions as a way to uncover truly new insights with links to Transferable POD.  Categories which at the surface appear to have nothing in common can be rich sources of new insights (e.g. – CPG and industrial mining).
6. Consumer permission, not ideation: Brands with compelling transferable PODs can generally stretch farther than marketers think they can. Consumer Psychologist Dr. Carol Berning notes that “companies are generally surprised by where consumers will allow a Brand to go”. What’s more useful is to first do ideation and strategy work, and then expose consumers to simple stimuli that capture the differentiated benefit the Brand would offer in a new Category.

How well positioned are you to Cross (perilous) Boundaries?

Article contributed by Matt Carcieri
Strategic Marketer and Branding Expert, Leonora Polonsky & Associates LLC

Brand-building is an exercise in self-discipline.

What consumers value in a brand is its familiarity and clarity of meaning.  As brand-builders, the way we create business value is by deepening that familiarity and intensifying that meaning over time.  That requires a steadfast commitment to a time-honored course.

Take Coke^® for example. Who wouldn’t want its brand-building and business-building results?  Coke has achieved them by remaining committed (for the most part) to a firm set of identity guidelines: happiness, refreshment, the color red, its iconic bottle shape, its signature white script.  Even in its current holiday execution, a Coke can looks a lot like its 1970s predecessor.  Over that same time period, Pepsi^® has wandered the branding wilderness.

Staying faithful isn’t easy for marketers.  The temptations are everywhere.  You want to be sexy for a younger audience.  An enticing, new segment beckons.  A hot, new initiative seeks to be noticed on shelf.

In the end, however, the best way to find and keep love is to remain true to yourself.  It starts with a set of identity guidelines that capture your brand standards as simply and clearly as possible.  There can be no ambiguity, and the best way to do that is with the fewest possible words and visuals.  Volvo^® is boxy and “safe.”  Coors Light^® is silver, mountains and “cold.”

If this was “smashed,” even a dog could still tell it was Target

Then you need to execute your marketing with “creative rigidity.”  That is, use your fixed assets in delightfully imaginative ways.

How do you know if you’re faithfully executing your brand identity?  Use Martin Lindstrom’s “smashability” test.  If you tore up your print ad or shattered your new package, would consumers still recognize your brand in the pieces?  If not, you’re not being faithful.

The Bible says that faithfulness yields fruitfulness.  So what do you hold sacred in your brand?  Do you have firm identity guidelines?  And are they sufficient to yield smashably excellent work?

This warning, often spoken by parents to their kids, is one Brand Builders can benefit from as well. As Brand Builders, we make choices about words — sometimes without sufficient attention to the power of words — to frame propositions to our advantage… or not. 

One of the beauties of taking your language up a notch – to make it more consumer-resonant and distinctive – is that it’s essentially FREE. Good language isn’t more expensive than bad language. Also, what about the power of language to impact pricing potential and value perceptions?  Would you pay more for a “face cleansing wipe/towelette” or an Olay® Daily Facial? Consider the different opportunities you have to put words to work for your Brands:

Product Descriptors

	Orville Redenbacher’s® Gourmet Popping Corn
	or Olay® Daily Facials.

Scent • Form • Variant Descriptions

“Relax with Dawn® Mediterranean Lavender Scent”… or enjoy the power of Dawn® while improving the look and feel of your hands with Dawn’s Olay® Hand Renewal offering

Process

Louis Vuitton®: “Hand made by Craftsmen with exquisite materials”. Free Range eggs, Mountain Grown Folgers®…

Source

Evian®: “Naturally pure spring water from the French Alps”

Service • Support

How much does Apple® benefit from the words “Genuis Bar” vs. “Help Desk”, “Service Desk”, or “Customer Service”? Pretty genius I would say!

Features

Chevrolet Malibu®: “French-stitched, leather appointed seats and noise-dampening acoustic-laminated glass”.

Might a simple “inventory” of your language – and some brainstorming – point to some really low hanging fruit to build more consumer-resonant, distinctive Brands with little or no incremental investment?

All Brand Builders invest to build external consumer resonance. Exceptional Brand Builders invest in what Lisa Hillenbrand at P&G dubbed Inside Out Brand Building — activities that result in employees understanding, embracing, and activating the Brand. Often, issues with external communications are manifestations of internal problems.

Top 10 ways to ensure your employees build your Brand:

1. Discover and Communicate compelling Brand Ideal. One that is rooted in fundamental human values and ignites employee passion (Red Bull: Energize the World). 
2. Recruit Employees who share Brand Values/Ideal. Nike seeks out employees who are passionate about sports and fitness. IBM hires people who want to create a Smarter Planet (“I am an IBMer” has gone viral). Red Bull screens sampling team applicants for high personal energy level.
3. Build Culture around the Ideal. Zappos immerses new employees in its customer-obsessed culture for weeks and then offers a $1000 quitting bonus. Why? Because employees who bite don’t have the commitment required. Nike embeds its culture throughout its work environments, with jogging trails, fitness clubs and even a sports pub at its world headquarters.
4. Immersive Employee Experiences. Employees who live with a family in rural Venezuela and hand wash clothes with them will build empathy and commitment that are unattainable through reading reports, charts, and statistics.
5. Academies. Many strong Brands use interactive “classroom” training sessions for employees to explore, practice, and internalize what the Brand is and isn’t.
6. Brand “Bibles”: Compilations of Strategic/Executional choices that establish that Brand is bigger than any one person/opinion and  “do” and “don’t” guidelines. Hershey Guidelines state that flavors “must be” cocoa based, “can be” a specified range of flavors, and “can never be” alcohol filled.   
7. Induction. When I joined Crisco Shortening in 1985 (as a native New Yorker!), I was immediately sent to meet consumers in Birmingham, Alabama (aka “Crisco Country”) as one part of my induction.
8. Leadership Behavior/Communication: Everything Leaders say/do matters and should be fully consistent with the Brand Ideal. CEO of a green focused company shouldn’t drive a Hummer.
9. Rewards: Make heroes out of employees who demonstrate exemplary Brand Building behavior (e.g. – hotel housekeeper who went “dumpster diving” to find a guest’s mouth guard).
10. Brand Health Checks: Annual “audits” to see if Marketing executions are fully consistent with Brand; Action plan to address internal and external barriers.

Are you doing enough Inside Out Brand Building?

Most of us believe in “annual check-ups”. We visit our Docs for annual check–ups. We have our cars serviced every 10,000 miles. We’re on tilt, but we pause for these check-ups. After all, early detection can be life-saving.

What about our Brands? Do we step back from daily fires to systematically assess their Health? In “The Brand Report Card” (HBR), Tuck Professor Keller suggests tools/approaches to ensure a good long-term prognosis:

• Brand Report Card: Grade across 10 indicators (e.g. – Consistency, Sensible Hierarchy, Relevance).
• Brand Inventory: “A look in the mirror… [at] the stuff you send out into the world” – C. Grams, Former Red Hat Exec (see photo); Consider full spectrum of what consumer’s see/experience.
• Brand Exploratory: Wide net immersion in consumers’ Brand associations

Regardless of what you call them (Check Ups, Health Checks, Audits), these “step backs” can be lifesaving for your Brand. A few suggestions for great outcomes:

1. Focus on long-term Brand Health using agreed criteria and metrics. Having an actionable segmentation and clear target is critical. But how do we know if our segmentation and target are good enough?
2. Focus on discovery and dialogue, not scores.
3. Have a meeting to create a date with destiny that elevates focus on this “important, not urgent” work. Meeting ≠ Dog + Pony Show.
4. Leverage diversity of perspectives to drive objectivity and alignment. Include Top Execs, Functional Leaders, Agency and Regional leaders, internal/external objective experts.
5. Timing Matters. Schedule to maximize actionability.

Little to lose. Much to gain. Why not do Brand Check Ups?

Interested in ideas about Brand Purpose/Ideals and Promise that can sharpen your Brand positioning and improve your profitability by 400%? I hope this will clarify how Brand Purpose/Ideals and Brand Promise are different and similar, and inspire you to pursue a Purpose Driven path for greater growth.

Brand Purpose/Ideal

Why a Brand exists besides earning money. The difference a Brand aspires to make in the world. Speaks broadly to Brand stakeholders including company employees (NASA Janitor:  “My job is to enable a man to go to the moon”).  Examples:

• Redbull exists to Energize the World
• Southwest exists to Give People Freedom to Fly
• Disney exists to Use Imagination to Bring Magic to Millions

Merits of Purpose Driven Brands have been highlighted by Sisodia (“Firms of Endearment”), Sinek (“Start With Why”), Spence (“It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What you Stand For”) and Kantar (“SuperCorp”). In his new book, “GROW – How Ideals Power Growth at the World’s Greatest Companies”, former P&G CMO Stengel shows that Ideals Driven Brands deliver 400% more profit than S&P 500.

Brand Promise

Tells consumers how Brand will make their life better. Typically a central element in Brand positioning (aka: Key Benefit, Point-of-Difference).

• Ritz promises to Treat Guests Like Royalty
• Disney promises Fun, Family, Magical Entertainment
• Google promises Easy Access To Information Everywhere

With the Brand Purpose/Ideal movement gaining steam, should Brands articulate a Purpose, a Promise, or both? For sure, Brand Leaders should be able to answer both the Purpose/Ideal and Promise questions (We exist to… We promise to…).  In some cases, they are same. Is Pampers “Helping Mother’s Care for their Baby’s/Toddler’s Healthy, Happy Development” a Purpose or a Promise?

In other cases, it is helpful to have two statements (see Disney above). Ralph Lauren might find the following distinction helpful: We exist to help people experience an aspirational lifestyle of timeless luxury and elegance; We promise a feeling of Power and Success.

Is your Brand driven by a higher Ideal, in line with the +400%Stengel Brands? How does your Brand Ideal relate to your Promise? 

A story is a narrative designed to interest, create a connection, amuse, or instruct. People are wired for story. Stories fire people up, inspire, strike a chord, capture imagination, and build affinity. Stories create memories. They transmit information efficiently.

Brand Stories are a powerful tool for building Brands. In addition to evoking emotional connections with consumers, Brand Stories can inspire employees and Agency Creatives. There are many different types of Brand Stories including:

• Historical stories (Tom’s Shoes One For One Movement)
• Consumer experience stories (J&J’s Our Stories)
• Brand Legends (Nordstrom’s Tire Return)

The apocryphal Nordstrom’s Tire return story has all the right stuff. A guy walks into a Fairbanks, Alaska, Nordstrom’s to return snow tires. Never mind that Nordstrom’s doesn’t sell tires. The clerk sees the price on the tires and hands the man $145. This legend has bolstered Nordstrom’s image by conveying that the customer is always right, even when he’s provably wrong. And it illustrates the qualities of an enduring Brand Story including:

• Linked to Brand Purpose and/or Promise
• Conflict/Tension with Brand as protagonist 
• Short, Simple, Sticky, Spreadable 
• Mildly incongruent

Brand Builders can also use Stories to share consumer insights and build consumer empathy (e.g. – Story sharing after ethnographic research). 

It’s equally easy to create negative Brand Stories. On a recent trip to Asia, my luggage was lost. Rushed upon arrival, I asked the concierge if he could get me deodorant. He said “yes, but we’ll have to charge you 2x the price”. I paid extra bit, but won’t patronize that hotel and will post my story on-line. How are you leveraging the power of Story to build your Brand?

Many Brands are missing an opportunity to define the non-functional aspects of a Brand’s positioning more deliberately and precisely.  Capturing the following basic positioning elements is standard fare:  Promise, Points-of-Difference, Points-of-Parity, Personality.  Brands are also increasingly articulating a Purpose and underlying Values. 

Some go the extra step of distinguishing between Functional and Emotional Benefits.  The term “Emotional Benefits” is often used synonymously with “Non-Functional Benefits”.  This distinction between “Functional” and “Emotional” (meaning non-functional) is helpful, but insufficient.  With mounting evidence that the Brand Building game is won or lost on non-functional considerations, shouldn’t more attention be paid to different types of non-functional benefits? 

• Emotional: When I buy or use this Brand I feel _________ .
• Self-Expressive: When I buy or use this brand, I am _________
• When I buy or use this brand, the type of people I relate to are __________ .

I may feel secure in a Volvo, but a Lexus tells the world that I am successful.  When I play golf with a Titleist Pro V 1 ball, I can relate to some really good golfers.

Consider some of your favorite Brands.  What role do these different types of non-functional benefits play in your affinity for the Brand?  And how about the Brand(s) you steward?  What functional, emotional, self-expressive, and social benefits do you — or might you — deliver and communicate?  How would your consumers fill in the blanks on the above questions?  How would you like your consumers to fill in these blanks?  Are you sufficiently deliberate and precise in articulating the emotional, self-expressive, and/or social benefit associations you aspire to establish and then creating experiences that deliver?