By: Terry Behan


But brands have long since evolved out of that one dimensional space that concerns itself with the purely visual and physical elements. Taking the masterbrand view, a successful brand does not separate its brand positioning from its business objectives; they become synonymous.

Brand owners themselves must look beyond their often understaffed and malnourished marketing teams to create a sustainable and winning brand that goes deeper into the heart of the organisation and takes cognisance of the fact that the vast majority of customer perceptions nowadays are not formed by interaction with physical mediums but rather with the non-physical.

Not positive

The Gallup Organisation recently polled 6 000 passengers and discovered that, by a ratio of between three and four to one, employees of airlines are more important than advertising messages in building brand loyalty. It's the emotional side of the brand that stands out in people's minds and all too often those emotions are not positive.

I recently shared a simple statistic with a client, indicating that for every three people that have a good experience with their brand they were likely to tell three additional people - but for every negative experience, they were likely to tell 10 people. My client vicariously refuted this fact saying that he had informed at least 100 of his friends and associates concerning a terrible experience he had recently had with a luxury European car brand and on principle had convinced at least three of them to purchase a different car!

Non-negotiables

The accountability for brand success does indeed go way deeper than what many local companies are used to. Next to the telephone list should sit a list of non-negotiables that relate to the application of the brand in core business functions such as operation, finance and systems development.

The window of opportunity for businesses to continue to promise the world to an increasingly cynical customer and not hardwire the customer experience across all the touch points of their brand is disappearing quicker than the polar ice caps.

Fed up

Quite simply put: the customer is tired, fed up, and not interested in dealing with businesses that over promise and under deliver any more. According to CRM guru David Burrows, 40% of marketing investment is wasted, as ill-informed or demotivated behavior by staff unwittingly undermines the brand promise. The result is that 68% of those who do buy go away because of how they were treated".

If a brand truly wishes to attain master-brand status then it must ensure that the essence of the brand and the objectives of the business are synonymous and are integrated across even the most banal of structures.

How are businesses supposed to create the right impression on their target audiences when the physical design of their store is akin to that of a labyrinth juxtaposed against a brand promise of ease and effortlessness! Or my personal favorite, how are international visitors supposed to feel when the national brand is welcoming them with open arms and the first sign they read when exiting our airport says “enter at your own risk”.

Creating true brand integration means marrying good employee engagement with good design across all the key contact points. Ensuring the customer experience is consistent. Driving the ethos and philosophy of the brand into the heart of every aspect of the business no matter how daunting the task.

In the words of Ian McAllister the former chairman of Ford Motor Company, “In the 1980s quality was a differentiator, in the 1990s brand was a differentiator, in the 2000s the customer experience will be the key differentiator”.

Visit our PRESS OFFICE: The Fearless Executive; specialists in internal branding and designing the customer experience.- more....

[17 Sep 2007 10:59]

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