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Don’t believe everything you read in the Harvard Business Review

I recently return from a wonderful road trip with my wife and 4 children (they hate me saying that as their ages range from 19- 26!) driving the Pacific Coastal Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles. On the plane home I was reading an incredibly relevant paper in the latest and, as ever excellent Harvard Business Review on the subject of Customer Journeys. http://hbr.org/2013/09/the-truth-about-customer-experience/ar/1 In the article there was a short note about a car rental firm that has innovated using mobile book in and especially remote video terminals at the check-in to provide customers a way of reducing queuing time but talking to a remote operator via a phone and video link. The article indicates this has helped improve customer satisfaction and reduced the overall time of check-in. The company was not named in the article but it is Hertz. How do I know this, because I had just been through the process on our arrival at San Francisco airport some 10 days before I read the article! Much to the amusement of my family, at the time, I had chosen to use this new video link queue busting and satisfaction generation check in process as I have always been a sucker for the new experiences brands seek to bring us. I should have been suspicious as none of the “locals” seemed keen to use it! Taking it at face value it looked like a great solution to the usual queuing system and its inherent delays but it soon became apparent that there are some significant flaws in the process, as the locals obviously knew. As the process processed me it began to feel as if, from a customer perspective, it had been designed not for customer convenience but to allow the organisation to reduce manpower costs at the check-in desk. It operated as if driven by inward looking thinking mascaraing as customer centricity we see in so many customer experiences today. Anyway this is how my customer journey went. I had pre-booked and pre-paid for a 6 seat mini-van and had all my paper work ready to go, there was a small queue at the airport but we were encouraged to use the new terminal with the video link, which I was one of the few in the queue to choose. I picked up a large phone handset to see a very nice lady at the other end of my video link - in Denver I think. She did a very friendly job of checking my details and all was well, until her body language changed indicating all was not well with the process, I was asked to hold as she talked to one of her team, then back to me saying they couldn’t find me the car I had booked and she needed to talk to someone at the check-in facility! After about 5-10 minutes of mild panic she couldn’t get hold of any of the Hertz team at the airport, so she asked me if I could find one of the desk staff at my end (slight process failure here I was thinking) and I had to ask the duty manager to drop everything and look after me, which he did after he had sorted out another customer. The family at this stage are highly entertained by my antics and have gone into that mode that only a family can do – somewhere between frustration and ridicule of the bread winner, it bet they don’t track that impact on the customer satisfaction survey as this is not one frustrated customer but 6!! Then a miracle happened, they have found us the ideal car for 6 and all was apparently well with the world, we should all celebrate a victory for the new process! So our customer journey took us down to the car park with all the anticipation and excitement that at last we were off to see America. Imagine our collective disappointment when we saw the “solution” to Hertz’s problem (not ours) - The car they had so magically found us was more bus than mini-van, a massive machine more suited to carrying football or cricket teams on tour than a family of 6 on a long journey. We felt that they had just moved us on and found any old automotive device to get us out of the process and off to another poor member of the team and away from their touch point KPI. So it was over to the customer to manage their own customer journey and try to find a human being to get us back on track. We did find someone right down in the bowls of the organisation, right up at the coal face where the real action happens and real satisfaction is either lost, restored or built. He sorted us out, with an upgraded mini-van – just like the one we had booked, which far from leaving us satisfied/ very satisfied/ ecstatic left us ambivalent/bored/relieved/late, it was, in our opinion, the very least the brand should have done. There are two learnings for me from this innovatory change in process

If we are going to try to improve our customer journeys then view it from a genuinely human and occasion based perspective enabling the team to really deliver with joined up processes that boost the brand and don't degrade it
Get the strategists to work with the people who execute to walk through the whole journey with a number of negative scenarios impacting on them and see how they feel and how they can improve things. Don't leave your beta testing to your customers – it is irresponsible.

I know how difficult it is to deliver truly aligned, on-brand customer journeys, because this is what I do for a living. If we are to achieve this “customer centric” experience then we must get out of our silos, collaborate across functions and processes, engage and inspire the team that will execute the plan and ensure the marketers and senior managers walk the talk and not just wash their hands of it, because without their total commitment why should the front of house believe in the brand.

One brand needs One Voice in many channels

It never ceases to amaze me how much life has a habit of creating recurring themes across time and the generations that serve to remind us that many of the principles we learnt years ago can still hold true today. Things may look a little different from the first time round or the “in my day” attitudes of some but the fundamentals remain the same. Never has it been truer than the struggle we all have to communicate a consistent brand promise and deliver the experience in todays interconnected world and empowered consumers. A few decades ago my marketing team and I were struggling with a different era of change. We had the growth of a few new channels on the TV, the rise of the multiple grocers, the new sport of trade marketing, advances in sales promotional techniques and direct mail to name but a few. On top of that we had the big global brands really gathering traction and putting pressure on the indigenous brands in the battle for shelf space. So a massive attack of change but it feels to me that finding our way through was, however, infinitely easier then, than it is now. It doesn’t need me to point out to you that, in the multi-channel on and off line world we live in, delivering a consistent and on brand experience is brand critical wherever our brands touch base with our customers. But it is no longer just a communication issues we also have to consider, for example, internal cultures and attitudes between the team members who help us deliver them. Our people’s behaviours internally and externally as an important communication medium as our advertising messages. And this includes our external suppliers needing to live our brand and not theirs. Recent experiences in a number of retail fields has given us real and practical insights that I thought I would share with you. You probably know all this stuff….but just in case I think they are observations that we should all be thinking about and can often miss in the pressured environments we all work?

The cultures, structure and even management style can vary between the on and off line channels creating barriers to consistent delivery.
On line is typically the domain of younger, IT, based people, used to fast paced, project managed disciplines, flat structures and are technology rather than people driven. They can be more distant from the real customer by nature of the channel, they see numbers and algorithms and not always emotions.
In contrast the physical nature of retail delivery has many more people to inspire, more traditional structures (often siloed) and longer lines of reporting. Staff are less qualified and often part time. However, they have to face up to the customer on a daily basis often in trying circumstances having to deliver the brand we need them to –they are the "Directors of First Impressions" in many cases!!
Customers only see one brand, with all the challenges that brings
On line we can get their messages to staff relatively quickly, in retail have long chains of command and messages can get lost and diluted.
There are often two marketing groups, one for each channel often with their own 'pet' creative suppliers wanting to "do their own thing".

So working on the principle that if we can see the issues then we can do something about them, then a properly researched, co-created approach to defining the brand strategy helps to bring the two channels together whilst allowing each channel to focus its activity on maximising revenue. It is now, as it always has been, about getting the right people inspired and driven to do the right things and behave in the right way in order to deliver a clear and consistently applied vision wherever the brand bumps into its customers. In my book it doesn’t matter whether they are employed directly by the brand or indirectly as suppliers the only focus must be on the brand, its vision and its customers.

Curiosity improves the breed

My wife recently asked me to accompany her on a gardening trip to Chatsworth with a group of avid horticulturalist for a behind the scenes tour of the greenhouses and gardens guided by the young head undergardener, a passionate and engaging young lady not long out of college. I am not a natural gardener but I am always up for learning something new from people who are at the top of their game. As we toured the greenhouses she talked about many of the famous collections that Duke and Duchess and their ancestors had gathered together and protected over many generations and how she had the responsibility to not only keep them alive but also to nurture their collections for future generations. Like many of us running brands and businesses they have their fair share of problems and challenges both short and long term, many threats and opportunities within the vast collection of plants. What really struck me, however, was not the obvious technical brilliance in one so young, but her natural curiosity and experimentation in order to understand the medium she was working with but also the practical application of her curiosity. It was evident that she, and her team, would be continuously trying new things to ensure the future of her charges, never ignoring the past but seeking to combine the best historic thinking with the available modern alternatives. Her curiosity to see what would happen if they tried x,y or z in order to preserve and promote future generations of rare plants was captivating and a real example of always having to move on and change. A real sense that the natural world is always evolving and in order to keep up, experimentation and curiosity as an important role to play We could all learn a lot from this approach, knowing that some of our curiosity may go up blind alleys, not give us the results we expected or take a long time to show us benefit in our word of instant gratification. Whilst we are all driven by bigger and bigger data and the apparent empirical evidence that confronts us every day, the really great brand managers must maintain their curiosity and not be afraid to experiment or even fail because if they are looking in the right place the upside value will far outweigh the downside risks. We have so many great products doing amazing things that are the result of curiosity and not just spreadsheet thinking. The main challenge for us all is to take the occasional step back and allow ourselves time to be curious, to ask those vital questions of why, how, whether and even “I wonder what would happen if….”. We are all so busy that we can lose sight of the power of just thinking about why things are happening or experimenting with concepts that we all too often go straight into solution mode. A little time to think and be curious is a luxury that we should all seek to enjoy. Keep turning over the stones and cross pollinating those ideas and grafting them onto new and robust stock because without curiosity the world and its brands will become a very dull and less profitable place.

You can feel great alignment when it delivers

How the best laid plans of mice and men can go so horribly wrong! I had a great plan for an early meeting in London and I needed to travel from the North, so not wanting to risk delays in the morning I decided to set off the night before, with a heavily discounted advanced ticket which carried all the usual restriction clauses. And so my problems began. The train was booked and would not be appearing tonight as it was unable to leave its station of origin for some signalling problem or other. 1st contact with a member of the Virgin Train’s team was excellent, very empathetic and he explained exactly what the problem was and what the options were. So I boarded said next train with a little more hope than expectation and off I went We arrived at the recommended station to change to a London bound train with my cheap advanced 1st class ticket (which was, for some reason as cheap as standard class) that allowed me to travel on one train and one train only. The cynic in me was expecting to have to spend a while explaining what had happened to a disbelieving conductor who is driven by revenue targets and trained to treat everyone as dishonest, or a politician. Then came another pleasant experience. The conductor on my new train was more concerned that I had been delayed than what ticket I was holding, they had been informed of the issue and knew exactly what the problem was and was deeply empathetic with my situation. What a nice change from the usual lack of information that leaves the front of house in the dark trying to appease angry customers. So I am now delayed and happy – what a great trick!! This was a great moment of truth for the brand delivering the feel of the brand and not just the processes of the business. Well done Virgin and thank you for demonstrating such great alignment – people, process and communication aligned to the benefit of customers and creating that advocacy that gets us talking and recommending. Not a sign of Jobsworth in the place and an evidently empowered individual who actually enjoys looking after customers.

The digital customer journey is just the beginning of the story

It was really interesting to read about the changes at Carnival Corp, the renowned cruise brands owner with P&O and Cunard in their portfolio they should be the definitive band stable in the sector. But like so many other globalised offers getting and most importantly keeping that positively differentiated position through both the digital and physical experiences is very difficult. However, it would appear that they are getting even more serious about the brands and their customers with the appointment of new marketing directors and an insight chief. What a brilliant job to have as these brands are right in the evolving space of the next generation of leisure consumers - everything we are seeking in the changing behaviours of the leisure consumer across all age, attitude and cultural boundaries indicates that if they get this bit right they can really deliver something special. This often seems to be a sector that hides it light under a bushel for some important audience groups for some reason, so anything that really gets under their skin and gains insights that can really inform actions and delivery across the whole operation has got to be great for them. This will be the critical driver of success – getting insight from the customers right back to things happening at the interfaces between the customer and the business, be those digital or physical. So the idea that they are seeking to understand what an end to end digital journey look like is really positive stuff, and I am sure they don’t need telling that once their customers move from the digital journey to the physical experiential it seamless blends with and delivers what has been promised. Just to illustrate this point I have dropped my mother off in Southampton a couple of time for one of their long range cruises – Southampton - Hong Kong once via Panama and the other via Suez. The booking and pre-show was terrific and worked really well, but first big brand experience was something of a disappointment and rather let the brand down. We had expected something a little special as Mum had paid something of a premium, but it was more cattle market than Carnival. It was such an opportunity to deliver some real wow for everybody getting on the boat, but it just lost out in the brand boosting experience. More process efficiency than brand boosting. A real shame as we arrived with much anticipation and excitement. Anyway I wish the new team lots of luck and if they can get will that insight right through the business using the brands to boost their processes and get once voice communication throughout the whole customer journey (not just the digital one) then they will be able to take on any competitor!

Don’t you just love it when plans come together?

My last couple of weeks have had me up and down this fair land of ours combining business and pleasure from Newcastle to Chichester and all points in-between In doing so one, obviously needs a place to rest one’s head and so I have had a great first-hand view of two brands, delivering their promises in the same sector, in different ways. What a brilliant opportunity to compare and contrast the levels of Alignment in both and learn something interesting. I stayed in the Intercontinental Staybridge Suites in Newcastle and The Goodwood Hotel near Chichester – different ends of the market, different ends of the country, different socio-economic areas but both delivering their promises in a simple and effective way. Both did the basics well, managed expectations superbly well, stimulated the semiotic system on arrival and made the few days I spent with them a pleasure. The both fronts of house we welcoming and charming, indicating that my stay was going to be a pleasant experience, both communicated value (but at different ends of the price range) and both delivered on what they promised. The outcome is that I am telling people about them, will go back and will certainly seek out the Intercontinental product wherever I go – I even downloaded their App for a trip the States coming up – so a perfect result for them. I have tried to analyse the real difference that both these brands delivered to me, and my wife, and what made that difference. I doubt they have an over intellectualised brand “onion” or hugely conceptual brand wheel. But they both totally understand the brand they seek to deliver and so do their people. In the final analysis the thing they both did beautifully well is understand two key aspects of providing service – politeness and good manners delivered by people who obviously like each other and know what they are there to do. They are obviously supported by operations teams that understand this and a Talent department that really understand who they need to recruit and how to do that. For once in my life as a consumer I actually enjoyed paying a bill as I know I have value for my brand experience – now that is Alignment.

Less stuff more experience?

There is a very stimulating feature in the FT weekend mag in which a psychologist and philosopher debate a different subject each weekend. It is excellent and usually entertaining piece that often triggers a bit of “brand” thinking over the weekend as they often cover issues that relate to our consuming lifestyles and the like. One such piece recently focused the debate on materialism and owning stuff. This was made even more interesting given my own decision some 14 years ago to stop trying to make people own things through just making endless brand promises through advertising and the like. What was really getting me excited was a developing new world entirely focused on delivering those promises to customers through brand and customer orientated experiences. That Jung thing I have mentioned before about “being defined by what we do not what we say we are going to do”. The way we were thinking just before the turn of the century was all about the declining effectiveness of the old school shouting brands and logo merchants. How lucky we have been to be proved right, especially for the markets that will prove to be the most productive over the coming years as we all age and skew the population stats!! The inexorable momentum of the 3rd Agers and Baby Boomers are moving from materialism to the more experience based fulfilment, enrichment and deeper meaning of life, and all that goes with that. In some recent insight work we have been running amongst said group of consumers (although we may need to find a new work for them) I was talking to punk rockers who looked really like mums and housewives. So brands beware (and I speak as a 3rd Ager myself) we don’t move into some early form of brand senility and forget that we were punk rockers or Deadheads many years ago, we live with this cultural hedonism for the rest of our lives. And yet I meet many young brand managers and their Agency folk who seem to think we have all fallen into a cultural abyss and got “old”. Don’t forget we are the people with the disposable income of the future and we want brands that work for us and not the narrow focus of their contemporaries. There seem to me to be a few brands that are doing it well such as Apple with the iPad, which makes sense to the very young and old alike. Why, because it is intuitive and an experience not just a product. The same is true for Dove, Easyjet and all those who understand that the trading commodity is ease and convenience – delivered brilliantly, consistently and in a way we recognise as a true expression of the brand not just a vague promise. As with many brands the new managers are the operational team and HR bunch as much a s the marketers – long may this last.

When the going gets tough the clear thinkers have the upper hand

With Austerity the most over used word in the dictionary at the moment it is surprising that brand can make any progress at all. The whole concept of adding value and generating premiums seems to be a brand pipe dream, and yet many are thriving in this environment. The recent results from the discount grocery sector are great illustrations that brands can thrive if they really meet the needs of customers, and it’s not all about cheap baked beans. Through understanding the needs of the more affluent and canny shoppers they remain true to their brand and meet the needs (and unmet needs) of this audience. Check out their car parks at any time and the array of cars will surprise you, and listen to some of the canny shoppers in casual conversation and they will be talking wine and Parma ham from Lidl or Aldi. True, the economic climate has played into their hands but I would take a small wager that even when the economy picks up (whenever that might be) many of us will have formed a habit that other offers will find it hard to break. Discounting has always been a very honest sector with no bull just efficient operations that deliver great value. Compare this to the on-going trauma at M&S, a brand that lost its way back in the 90’s and has never re-found its Mojo. Having forgotten what made it famous it released many of its loyal customers into a marketplace where suddenly choice and access opened up. Now one reads of more key people leaving, and the £1bn+ being spent on its recovery programme and that’s after goodness knows how many £bn have been spent already trying to get the wheels back on. The truth of the matter is that they let us down a long time ago and it appears that we still haven’t forgiven them. My 85 year old mother summed it up for me only last week when she said “They have lost their way and have no vision when it comes to clothing. I may be old but I don’t want to be frumpy. Still their food is good, if a little expensive” If my Mum is thinking like this at her age, then what are the 3rd Age and Baby Boomers thinking. I think my money sits with the Aldi and Lidls of this world rather than the once great M&S.

'If you don’t know where you are going then any road will lead you there' – Lewis Carroll

I love this quote as I think that it provides a good little nudge when considering one’s brand, its vision and sense of direction and most importantly how you are going to deliver it. The complexity of the world in which we are all trying to manage our brands means that we are being continuously challenged by a multitude of influences and we need a way of maintaining our direction of travel. These challenges are range from communication channel fragmentation to austerity and from generational attitudinal shifts to the engagement and influence of our own people. Because of this we must have clearly defined ways of managing our brands in a way that can continuously respond to these changes whilst ensuring they maintain their strategic direction. This is one of the critical roles of the brand vision, It is impossible to remove the complexity but we can ensure that some of the basic building blocks are not eroded by the latest fad, language or gizmo; after all we are not in the Wild West or Klondike where miracle cures are the answer to all known conditions. I should know as my ancestors used to sell “Cure all head, lung and stomach pills” in the days before the NHS was brought into being! How on earth, then, are brand owners meant to manage these vital assets in such disturbed and disruptive times? There is no simple answer but a few guiding principles seem to be standing the great brands in good stead at these times. There are lessons that have been learnt and too often forgotten as brand managers change and corporate focus changes, some brands forget what made them famous. Remembering where you have come from is one of the 1st principles that can also help you to understand the depth of your customers’ loyalty to your brand. It is often very easy to forget this one, as we live in a time where customers control the relationship with their brands and no not the other way round and we all think that we have lost control. Our heritage is critical to our brand and must be treated with respect, but never let it hold you back, after all we are creating the brand heritage of the future, now. Eliminating inconsistent brand behaviour is another. Our brand’s behaviours are so easily exposed that inconsistencies in these can bite the brand on the nether regions. We have always given brands human attributes such as values and personality so it helps to think of your brand in these terms. Basic good manners are always attractive and people who only behave in a friendly way when they want something rarely develop long lasting relationships. Beware all those hopeful promotional offers. However clever we may be in our relationship marketing it is always as well to remember that. It would do us all good if we made sure that our brand visions help us deliver brands that are defined by what they do rather than what they say they are going to do, as Carl Jung so brilliantly put it.

Getting the numbers into the brand process

One of the great dilemmas we all face is how to use the great wealth of data we are all gathering around our relationships with our customers. Which bits matter more than others and how can we use it to help us set investment and effort priorities. This is even more complex as we have often got better on-line data than off line and yet our customers rightly expect a wonderfully symbiotic journey when moving from one experience to another, with the brand promise being delivered with equal efficiency and excitement in both. With the growth of data resources around the customer relationship the ability to deliver tailored individual service is more accessible but not necessarily easier. Many brands still struggle to blend these two environments to deliver a seamless brand experience and yet this is one of the great opportunities to deliver differentiation and competitive advantage. Too often a seamless and engaging on-line experience hits the buffers when it collides with the real world, and the people of the business. The brand can all too easily move from customer service facilitation to customer service avoidance in one easy step, enter the disengaged, uninspired and unconnected brand “Directors of first impressions” better known as your front of house team. For me the most exciting thing is that our experiences are teaching us that brands don’t have to be “on it” at every touch point and moment of truth, just the ones that are really important to customers, and it doesn’t matter if you are in a B2B or B2C environment, the same is true of both. Data can really help us see what is brand critical and therefore should have real attention and what is a must have hygiene factor that people can standardise and make work beautifully through great brand boosting process. This use of data also will enable the brand teams to show not only the value of what they are doing but also they will be able to build business cases and best practice that can travel from test to roll out with the control and return that the business seeks. Using the data to plug the leaky bucket of consumer relationships can help set priority of investment and effort and if used as a part of the management information process can engage and inform teams from across the business about the impact of their “collision” with customers. After all we are all brand managers now.

When good people hit the wall of process and policy

As a consumer I always get frustrated by brands that do everything well until something happens that takes them outside their comfort zone and into the customer conflict zone. How they allow their people to react is always a real eye opener and tends to gives us clues about what the brand really thinks about its customers. At the most basic level how many of us judge establishments by how they look after to loos – it tends to express how they feel about us pretty directly!! From these gestures we all read what the board are thinking and how they plan their business. It therefore came as something of a shock when one of my favourite travel brands Easyjet and I came to blows the other day. Ages ago I booked myself, my wife and the my business partner of 15 years and his wife 4 very reasonably priced and easy to access seats on said airline to Geneva to celebrate his 50th birthday. All was going well until sadly, at the last minute his Dad needed to go into hospital for significant surgery meaning they couldn’t travel with us. So we had a couple of pre-paid seats available that needed filling, no problem I thought as the website indicates that to change a name is £35 each way – so a grand additional cost of £140. Pretty easy until you need to actually change. What actual happened was an extraordinary increase in the cost of up to nearly £600, as they wanted to charge the price difference between what I had paid when I brought and the price now…..which struck me as not only greedy but also not “Easy” at all. . Once I had got to talk to someone the only reason for this I was given was that it was policy, based on the fact that travel agents (remember those) used to over book flights and this justified the policy. Funny I seem to remember Stellios setting up Easyjet so we didn’t need to use travel agencies. I also had a “lovely” series of conversations with the on-line support team but they were equally as sterile in their response, it felt very much that these good people were just sticking to a process that was based on customer service avoidance. Anyway the outcome was that the two seats remained unfilled – so they lost the £140 as well as the additional cost, my wife and I had a holiday on our own and I have started to act as a negative brand advocate. I am not an econometric modeller, just a customer who doesn’t understand why a business like Easyjet uses a distribution channel it has never used as an excuse for trying to extort unjustifiable costs from customers. It’s either poor process or bull – and we all know the problem with beef in the food chain at the moment.

An old fashioned story - the truth is always in the numbers

We all know deep down that the real place that our promises must be delivered is at the point where brand and customer collide. However understanding what is going on at each of these interactions and “conversations” is almost as difficult as finding out where they are in the first place! The standard of management information in this “customer centric” world we all try to live in is generally pretty poor. It is little wonder then, that marketing teams have a problem justifying their value to the business, and especially how they can improve their worth. The problem is that there are often too many variables beyond their control that are influencing customer behaviour. Time for a rethink! In order to really get a grip of the delivery process, we need to actively and consistently engage with ‘front of house’ teams. We need to inspire them to deliver the brand promise created higher up the organisation. We also need to listen to them so we can remove the barriers that stop them delivering the brand promise and make it easy for them to deliver the 1000’s of small gestures that will make a difference. We need to add layers of information that can show us where issues are developing, the priorities for fixing the brand alignment issues . We also need the ability to track the impact on the brand both inside the business and outside. We need to clearly understand if we are starting to ‘own’ a position, if our actions are being recognised and ultimately if our brand alignment process is impacting on consumer behaviour. It seems to me that with this sort of analysis we can objectively observe where the truth lies and the benefits can be clearly shown to the bean counters and investors. This stuff feels brand critical to me and we have all got to find ways of gathering such data that is timely and cost effective. It will need to combine standard MI with new ways of looking at brand measurement. We need brand tracking that covers these issues and does not leave clients scratching their head after a 100 slide presentation wondering if they have done well or badly. We also need to use social media tracking at each collision point to show how we are doing. Most of all we need to apply a healthy dose of common sense. Measurement systems don’t just tell us how well we are doing, they should help us pin point where to apply resources that keep us moving forward. In short we need to measure the things that make a difference, things we can do something about and then see what the outcome of that action delivers in the P&L – call me old fashioned if you will.

Trust is an outcome not a value

I think I have lost count of the number of times I have debated with clients whether trust can be a brand value or is an outcome of consistent and rigorous delivery. As we watch the unfolding of the horse meat in beef issue with ever more incredulity the matter of trust comes right back to the front of the stage. With it is the absolute need to align the supply chain to the values of the brand. The one commodity that has taken a real battering is the trust consumers put in their brands, not through some random actions of extreme anti-brand campaigners or mass social media witch hunting, but through the action, and inaction, of their trusted suppliers. A recent article in Marketing Week gave us some very interesting stats that are worth watching to see how this depressing scenario pans out. It will also be interesting to see how the whole issue impacts generally on the Public’s trust in business and its brands. It is no surprise that we are an inherently less trusting bunch of consumers than in many parts of the world, especially as we appear to trust our businesses more than our political leaders. Then again, we do get to vote for businesses every time we buy their products and services and so eventually they have to deliver their promises. Politicians, of course, work on a 4 year cycle. It feels like a case of watch this space as we wait to see how the food chain issues impact on consumer’s views of business generally. Globally connected consumers give businesses and brands instant exposure and this means those businesses are not in control of the media they are getting. Here are some highlights from the research. Enjoy and keep delivering those promises – you know it makes sense.

Trust in business increased to 51 per cent in January 2013, up from 38 per cent in 2012 and 43 per cent in 2011.
Trust in Government increased to 44 per cent in January 2013, up from 38 per cent in 2012 and 44 per cent in 2011.
Media, however saw trust fall to 33 per cent in January 2013 form 37 per cent in 2012, but is an improvement of its low point of 22 per cent in 2011.
The UK has the starkest difference between trust in leaders (7 per cent) to tell the truth and trust in business (49 per cent) with a 42 point difference.
The gap between trust in UK Government (37 per cent) and its leaders (9 per cent) is less marked at 28 points difference.
Business is more trusted than Government in the UK, according to the report. Half of the general public think UK Government is incompetent, but only 18 per cent believe the same is true of business.
The UK also has a lower trust level (7 per cent) in business leaders than China, India, the US, France or Germany and the global average.
Globally, 50 per cent of people trust in business and 18 per cent trust leaders to tell the truth.

Never forget what made you famous

I have been having a number of very inspiring discussions over the past week about the role that authenticity and heritage play in the future of a brand. The two things that are very apparent to me is that too often brands forget what made them famous and try to “re-launch” themselves as something new and different, at other times they are so burdened by “heritage” they appear paralysed when trying to move forward. We concluded our discussions with the view that if you dig deep enough the clues are all there as to how history informs the future, if you take the care and time to look. I would recommend every brand manager young and old to seek to learn the lessons from the past rather than just look to the future, it will help prevent many misguided decisions. It can help build the reassurance and guidance managers need in order to understand how the brand needs to behave as the authentic that heritage can bring is so deeply rooted in the true values of a brand and the organisation that they are the perfect platform from which to drive the brand even when things get a little rough. Thinking about this my mind turned to the issues of obesity and diet that faces societies around the globe and the food brands that serve us all. Just as obesity is one of the biggest challenges to world health authorities so it is to the global food and drink manufacturers. We saw how McDonalds responded a few years ago to pressures for healthy eating by launching “healthy meals”, unfortunately this strategy manifested itself with us responding to Caesars Salad loaded with enough calories to power a small village and fruit in a bag very negative because they concentrated on the stimulus more than the response – they totally failed to win a space in our minds for healthiness and we made them go back to what made them famous – burgers. Now Coca Cola find themselves in the midst of a battle, of their own making (there’s that stimulus obsession again) as they try to position themselves as a warrior in the health eating/obesity war, one hopes they are not about to do a New Coke on their shareholders. But not only do they face the consumer incredulity but also the power of the legislators, not least Mr Bloomberg and his robust attack on all things unhealthy for the people of New York. He has spent $600m of his own money combatting smoking (so he says) now sugar based soft drinks are in his sights. The position they are adopting seems to me to be at odds with the brand we know and consume, yes they need to do something about their contribution to the debate as they, and all the other soft drinks makers, are loading us with fructose sugars and we are getting bigger. But this is about what they do – they have faced battles before but don’t appear to have learnt many lessons. It appears to me that they are in danger of missing one of the very best lessons from the past any brand manager or owner can learn and endorse. The irony is that, for me, one of the very best lessons comes from the world of advertising that built these hugely powerful brands in the past but has rather lost its pivotal role in how we all consume and relate. I learnt it from the great Jeremy Bullmore – who was one of my heroes at JWT when it was the University of Advertising. His greatest lesson, for me, was that brand should always concentrate on the response they seek from consumers and not the stimulus the brand provides. It is all about what audiences take out of what we do not what we seek to transmit at them. More than ever today we might hear brands but we are not listening to them. If they start transmitting messages, or worse still shouting at us then we know there is something wrong with them, usually shareholder pressure to do something, and as consumers we don’t give a monkeys about shareholders we care that our brands are consistent and deliver the promises they make to us. It’s a difficult one for Coke, and they will have done masses of research and insight work, but they seem to be lacking the practical common sense gene that says they were made famous by carbonated sugar, they have innovated around zero sugar etc but the opinion leaders attitudes have changed and they are in everyone’s sights. What they do next…and the response that creates will be very enlightening to see, it will tells us more about the brand that at any time in the past. It has some very big promises to keep, and a rich heritage to inform the people who currently look after this great icon of the world. So please can we remember what made us famous and use the rich heritages of our brands to guide and enrich their futures., and then have the confidence not to just try and bully our messages into people’s minds but to work with them to get the right response from them.

Innovation must always have a big vision

3 separate articles, 3 different lessons about visionary innovation. The first was about the decline in the share price of Apple as it had been discovered that they had reduced component orders for the iPhone 5 as demand in China and the Emerging markets had declined Then there was a nice little piece on my favourite paper – FT Weekend – about Donghoon Chang, the design director at Samsung and his views on making design meaningful and the scope of working with the customer needs and unmet needs rather than prescribing to customers what they are going to have, as Mr Jobs so often did. Finally there was yet more news about the issues at Sony, that once iconic innovator, illustrating that it is still struggling to re discover its mojo at the forefront of innovation. It is so held as a result of impenetrable internal silos that have evolved to such a state that they fail to communicate to such a degree that they have been known to launch competitive products against each other. In these articles are lessons for us all as we seek to keep our brands fresh and alive in the light of ever changing customers' needs and unmet needs. How we use innovation is brand critical and must always be focused by the vision the team have of the brand in the future. For me these lessons are

Innovation needs the whole business to understand the vision in the knowledge that standing still is not an option and in the words of Harry Truman "There is no limit to what a man can achieve as long as he doesn't mind who takes the credit". In my opinion, Sony will be well advised to listen to these words and I know they are spending a lot of time trying for the second time to bust the silos that hold them back. Hopefully Kazuo Hari, the CEO, will succeed where Sir Howard Stinger did not
Too much internal thinking is good for the competition - I know many people really love Apple's amazing 6th sense as they appear to bring us stuff we didn't even know that we wanted but this would appear not to be rubbing off in emerging market. They also seem to be in a state of becalmed thinking where they just give us updated versions of old thoughts, more continuous improvement than legendary innovation. I hear the mantra of the marketing men of the 80's and 90-'s ringing load in my ear "Segment, segment and segment again" Hope I'm wrong
Innovating is a visionary process driven by dedicated people working across the whole organisation towards a clear well-articulated vision they all are engaged in and share, Samsung's mantras of making design meaningful and the efforts to humanise technology fit so well with the mega consumer trends of customisation and individualism. The way they work also nicely fits in the collaborative and co-creational ways that our colleagues and team members like to work and see the value they add to an organisations.

It is business critical that we all keep innovating, all the time. The lessons are clear for all of us to see; keep your eyes on the horizon, bust those innovation sapping silos, aligning innovation to your vision as well as the needs and unmet needs of customers , being stimulated and inspired by what's happening in your customer's lives, all these things are the fuel of innovation. Without it brands corrode, weaken and even die. Blockbusters, Woolworths, HMV have realised this to their cost.

We all judge brands by what they do not what they say

The demise of Jessops holds many lessons for us all as we seek to deliver our brand promises in the totally connected world we live in, from continuous innovation to deep insights into customers and their needs and unmet needs. If one digs around the brand there are a couple of clear lessons that we should all take on board. A lack of visionary innovation is a corrosive force that eats away at customers’ interest and engagement with the brand. This recent article in Retail Week seems to have it about right http://tinyurl.com/aypvnts without visionary innovation to keep the brand fresh and alive then it will become duller and less interesting. None of us like just doing the same old thing over and over again when we are being asked to part with our hard earned money. We want news and we want new. Too many brands keep missing the point that without consistent innovation the general direction of travel is backward, for everyone in the business. In the UK two thirds of households have three televisions, which my old economics lecturer would describe as a saturated market. Its not of course but if the TV manufacturers didn’t drive this brand critical innovation process finding the next flat screen, 3D, smellavison where would they be? The same is true for us all. The other leak in the brand can be seen by looking at some of the customer comments on such forums as Trustpilot http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/www.jessops.com more brand leaks driven, one assumes, by leadership’s inward facing decision making. How often do we see the detrimental insides of brands leaking out right at the point it collides with the customer, right where the service is delivered and the brand is being built. It seems clear that there were rules and processes in place that worked against the staff being able to deliver the brand promise. At the same time the staff do not appear to have been inspired by or clear about their role in the delivery of the brand. Somewhere within the leadership of the business, and probably over many years, the truth of brand building was either forgotten or ignored. They would have done well to either visit my old favourite Foyles or read Michael Eisner’s great book Work in Progress especially the paragraph where he describes their attitude to building the Disney brand. “Frank and I soon recognized as something that could be achieved in a single broad stroke. We came to think of Disney as a canvas on which many artists paint in pointillist style - one dot at a time. If each of those dots is executed with precision, imagination, and an awareness of the whole, the painting becomes richer, more vibrant and multidimensional. Walt Disney and his team created such a masterpiece. When a new group of artists comes along, the risk is that they bring a diminished commitment to excellence, or a lack of attention to the whole. Then the opposite process can occur. Point by point, stroke by stroke, the masterpiece deteriorates into something mediocre and commonplace, even ugly, until eventually destroyed altogether. A brand is a living entity, and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.” Keep adding those bright inspiring dots - Its what brand alignment is all about!

Procurement must be a brand boosting process not brand eroding

Some 8 years ago I went to see some of the marketing team of a significant global brewer who, when I raised the question of aligning his suppliers to his brands, rather looked down his nose at me and questioned why, as a marketer, would he be in the slightest bit interested in where his raw materials came from. I am sure he has changed his tune by now. The news that horse meat was found in burgers sold by some of the big supermarket chains raises some very important brand alignment issues, the most critical being the truth that building brands in the new era is a whole business process. The supermarkets and, especially, their suppliers can shout as much as they like that it doesn’t represent any form of harm to the customer, but that is not the point chaps. No doubt somewhere in the communication channel they will find a way to blame the consumer for wanting cheap food. The supermarket teams that manage their brands have failed in the duty of care they owe to their brand; they have allowed others to manage the critical process of trust and authenticity and have suffered for it. What other unacceptable nasties lie in wait for the brand as suppliers are screwed to the ground and seek to cut corners in order to make profit? Remember BSE – that looked like a similar “cost efficiency” process. If you, like I do, go to major sporting events and concerts it will not have escaped your notice that much of the customer facing staff are in fact security guards not directly employed by the event brand but some other organisation. Increasingly, customer service is outsourced to people who are more focused on customer control and enforcement. Nice one chaps, but at least the deal was good financially. So, if you love your own brand and are passionate about the consistent delivery of its promises, get passionate and involved with your procurement teams, and the processes they run, as soon as you can. If your procurement team are really aligned to the brand they will not see their role as just driving down cost but in adding real value and helping to value engineer amazing solutions for you and your customers . Engage them, inspire them and show them the value they add to the customer – why not even get them to talk to your customer, or attend research groups? They are bright people and will get what you are trying to do and they will become more positively involved with your brand. We are seeing the advantages and benefits of such alignment work in the support we are giving to the marketing and procurement teams at a large European Pharma company, real progress in aligning the needs of both parties for the benefits of their brands and customers. More of this at a later date. Yet again, it’s clear that the real value of aligning what you do to the brand position you seek to own is business critical. You may have SLAs and contracts with your suppliers but if these don’t include your brand and its values into these, then you may have issues you don’t need or can’t see until it is too late! This whole lack of alignment has wiped £300m of the value of Tesco’s stock this morning – who says its not business critical. Time to engage and enjoy the procurement process, not be suspicious of it!

Keeping your brand promise is business critical

Great Alignment is a difficult thing to deliver in the real world of business but my feeling is that the coming years will show it to be a business imperative. As the world economies struggle to re-find the energy of growth brands they will have to cope with multiple pressures. This will include ever increasingly more informed and vocal customers, many who have continuous pressure on available money and time. Brands will need to capture and use “Big Data” to inform customer focused decision making and maintain the ever increasing challenge of driving competitive advantage through product innovation. Overlay on top of this that every business I know has driven cost out of their business time and time again and there is only so much one can do to “cut to greatness”. Add this all up and we have a rich cocktail in which brands will need to do their bit to deliver business success. With so many influences and pressures, I don’t know about you but we sometimes find ourselves getting into a bit of “back foot thinking”. By this I mean always having to defend what we are doing to our multitude of “stakeholders”. We see the same experience happening in many of the sectors we work with, what we all need is some front foot, attacking thinking. Thinking that allows us to focus on building great relationships with customers. We need brands more than ever to act as lighthouses to guide us through the stormy seas we are currently experiencing. At such times, building brands that deliver not just their promise but a commercially effective relationship with its customers is a business critical process. Delivering the promises they make was often seen as something to do with marketing rather than a whole business issue. If we are to build meaningful and trusted relationships with our customers the silos within business need to be busted wide open to create new structures that help businesses deliver consistent promises to their customers. Done well this is the source of trust and brand efficiency via repeat purchase, recommendation and “willing” share of wallet. Roy Lewicki formed the Fisher College of Business in the States and has studied the concepts of trust in business. They believe ‘trust is an individuals belief in and willingness to act on the basis of words, actions and decisions of others’. He also defines the 3 critical elements in its delivery Ability – Can you actually deliver what you say you can? Integrity – Do you actually deliver what you say you are going to? Benevolence – Are you genuinely concerned with the needs of the other party, are you really seeking to improve the lives? 3 great principles to apply to your alignment process. Get this wrong and the journey back is long, expensive and never totally successful as you will have broken the bond of trust. Never mind brands just think about your own life experiences, if you are let down by a friend think how you feel and how you react!

Seeing and feeling alignment – 1st hand

One of the things I really enjoy is buying books for my families “stockings” at Christmas and this year it coincided with a very busy period of my working life. The answer, like so many of us was going to be the good old internet. However I found myself in London with a couple of hours to spare and not far from the great institution of book shopping Foyles and so I ended up spending just over an hour loosing myself in what many people say is a dying form of retail. How wrong the sceptics can be! What I found is a wonderfully aligned shopping experience in which the front of house team not only know their stuff but also showed a real passion for what they do and a real sense of purpose for why they are doing it. They provided me with an escape that didn’t just sell me more than I went in for. I was very happy to spend my money and actually learnt a few things along the way, and this at a time when two of the presents I was also giving were Kindles!! It is no surprise to me that they have won the top 100 best shops in London, against some pretty stiff competition. The financial performance of the business has certainly been less poor than much of the rest of the high street and that has been delivered whilst this flagship store has been effectively cut off from many of its customers. This was thanks to a Cross Rail project effectively building a huge construction barrier between it and the shoppers of Oxford Street. What also struck me was there was not the sense of panic so many retailers communicate to us at these difficult times. There were no deep discount, loyalty card obsessed, and extraction thinking being communicated to me across the store. The insides that leak out here are all about knowledge, passion and engagement; it felt like a huge place with multiple specialisms, a rare trick to pull off. All delivered with a calm confidence and brilliantly delivered service collaboration between customers and the front of house team. Everyone rightly praises the performance of the John Lewis Partnership for its aligned service and great promise delivery but here is another tremendous example where we all can go and study how alignment is done really well. It really added to my Christmas shopping experience and the exciting thing is that they are going to be taking all this brilliant alignment thinking into a new store to be built next door. When that is open I would encourage all of us to visit, especially those of us who have to deliver promises consistently. I sure that everyone who does will learn something.

Mob rule or consumer power?

I was having a lovely dinner with number 2 daughter last week and our chat turned to new stuff I might not have seen on TV – that’s just about most of the stuff she watches!! She was raving about a BBC 3 programme called “the revolution will be televised” Having spent a while looking at the said programme and listening to the current corporate tax avoidance discussion one is left with very mixed feelings about how brands need to organise in order to cope with these situations. The ‘revolution’ programme is exploiting the easy and evident leaks in brand behaviour that are so evident in today’s connected world whilst the tax avoidance bashers are taking a morale stance against something that is legal but questioned on ethical grounds – something for the CSR/corporate reputation people to get their head around, and quickly. For radical consumers these are easy targets with which to bash organisations and their brands but one should always be very wary about unforeseen circumstances – we must be careful what we wish for. If we are to effect a significant cultural change away from an extractive thinking platform that grew so prevalent in the indulgent decades preceding the collapse of global economies then we need to give organisations and brand time to change the cultures that have driven behaviours There isn’t a company or brand that I know that understands that they have to continuously change and innovate in order to meet consumer demands, it is just that these demands are so radically shifting away from a historic transactional relationship to one that is more balanced both emotionally and rationally. The issue for brands is that the consumers can change far quicker than they can, and no matter how unreasonable that is the “mob culture” that social media can drive is very challenging for brands. The board directors of a company have a legal duty to organise and manage their business in order to maximise the returns for investors and at the same time they must inspire and engage with their customers in such a way for them to give them the money on which they can then manage and maximise the returns. It appears that we may well be witnessing a change where something will have to give, at this moment in time I don’t think it is entirely clear what that might be. The customer may always be right but then the don’t always know what they want – mob mentality is a dangerous thing and rarely leads to stable conclusions – ask the people who enjoyed the Arab Spring abut that one.

A brand is an outcome and not an input

I have lost count of the times I have had to spend chatting to clients about the danger of fluffy tree hugging type brand work that can’t be translated or used internally by all the teams around their business; it really annoys them (and me for that matter) and does the world of brands and branding no credit at all. It seems that too many people in the world of brand consultancy consider a brand as some kind of magical input rather than an output created or destroyed over time by the consistent application of truly authentic vision and values. They forget that brands live, thrive and survive in the minds of consumers and not creative people seeking to win awards or further their careers. In a way I don’t suppose I complain too much as it provides us with a healthy income stream as translators and appliers of the fluffy stuff into well-articulated and clear narrative that makes sense to the people being asked to deliver it across the business, no matter where they sit . Helping those members of the team understand what outcome is being sought has a real and lasting impact on the experience the brand provides and therefore what brand lives in the minds’ of your consumers . The more engaged the whole team are and the more inspired and excited they become with the prospect of delivering brilliant outcomes, based on the vision and values, the more authentic the brand becomes in consumers’ minds. If the team believe in it and understand it then there is a fair chance that consumers will become equally engaged and inspired. Just visit and Apple store or Merlin Theme park or attraction and you will see a team of people who naturally and authentically live the brand. They know what they are trying to leave the customer with and that they want to see them come back, it is a matter of pride and motivation to them, they know they are building loyalty that doesn’t always require vouchers, money off and deep discount. Experience is, and has always been, one of the most critical brand communication channels and it is there that we all build repeat purchase, recommendation and increased share of wallet. It lives in the minds of consumers and not in marketing departments or ad agencies. The place that the brand meets the customer is where we should look to prove the value of brands to organisations, because we can track these interactions and the outcomes they deliver in terms of value to the business. Treating the brand as an outcome can help business leaders see its true value, just as they see the value of great innovation, insight, logistics, operations etc. and many brand advisors should get of their high horse, roll up their sleeves and get stuck into the nuts and bolts of how a business and its people actually deliver the brand promises and build real authenticity into it.

Building brands has always been about the experience

Being of “mature” years I find it very interesting and always engaging to reflect on what stays constant in the world of brands and what represents real change and momentum. The most obvious and much talked about change for brand owners is the, now, old chestnut of social media, in its multitude of bedazzling incarnations and channels. No sooner have we got used to one channel than another pops up with some more edge or more connectivity to its new segment or audience. The shift in communication power from the mass media game is there for all to see, from the old era “brand transmission” model (sometimes called advertising, PR etc) to the consumer interconnected model. This shift of power still leaves many brand owners scratching their heads about how to use this change to their advantage and how to get their messages through to this diverse audience through these fragmented media channels. All of which is vitally important but there is a hidden danger in all of this, we can forget about the real brand building drivers that consumers appear to be commenting on – the delivery of the brand promises made to them. Brand experience is, and in my view always has been, the critical brand building activity. Consistently delivered, fresh and clear brands are the things we all want to buy, over and over again – that is the measure of real loyalty. This makes it brand critical, for all of us, to makes sure our brands deliver on their promises because when they don’t we all know what happens. The fragmented world of social media becomes the “amplification” mechanism for customer complaint. The irony is that for many brands these complaints are invisible for much of the time only breaking cover when a momentum has gathered behind them and the press get hold of it, amplifying it even more. Complaints now reach 100,000’s like-minded people in an instant, all of whom talk to their connected world, it is this “voice amplification” mechanism that now gives the power to the buyer and not the supplier – haven’t we seen such power shifts before? The big surprise, for me, however is that brands still seem to struggle to understand that it is the delivery of the promise when and where it touches the consumer is the critical thing. Too many still pay lip service to resolving the issue. This is the place where loyalty and repetition are built day in and day out, making rather important to the shareholders as well! We all allow well run brands to make the occasional mistake and we can forgive them; after all we have invested a lot of time and money into the relationship. To see how responses can regain ground have a look at how O2 handled its system failure earlier this year. Some pretty abusive social media commentary from a few deranged customers was, for me , turned to the advantage of the brand in an on-brand and somewhat irreverent response to a difficult situation. But we do not forgive the consistent poorly aligned behaviours of brands that appear not to be bothered with consistency, honesty or freshness – the problem for these brands is that we now have the vocal amplification mechanism to be heard – big time!

Time to align CSR, reputational management and the brand

I often marvel at the way in which organisations structure themselves in order to protect and develop their reputation and brands. It looks to me like they manage to establish some impenetrable silos from the very start that would make the US missile defence system proud. We are seeing many of the consequences of these structures coming to the fore right now. Detaching the CSR and corporate reputational teams from the brand teams might look great from the inside but it seems to me to forget one fundamental thing, customers look at the whole and not the parts. This is why it is vital to get alignment sorted across all these essential disciplines. I have a few happy moments watching the MP’s vs. corporate representatives’ session on You Tube, my favourite TV station and ultimate reality TV! I would have thought the likes of Google, Starbucks and Amazon would have played their 1st team rather than the bean counters. They did not cover their brand in glory because they appeared not to understand the impact on their brands of what they were saying. More squirm management rather than brand management. Whether their “tax avoidance” strategy will make a blind bit of difference to our short term relationship with these brands I very much doubt, but it may have triggered us to look at these brands a little differently. They may have become a little more ‘commercial entity’ and a little less ‘friend’. The issue for me is that decisions made to legitimately maximise the returns for their shareholders may begin to impact on the people who give them their hard earned money. Money for transactions upon which they want to add value and differentiate. The key will be how they explain themselves and the behaviours they exhibit will be critical. If your team look guilty then we will assume they are. If they defend their rights and protect the thing we love – their brand – we may well worry less about how they do business. None of the people they fronted represented the brand in my opinion; they were batting on behalf of the balance sheet. Had they used the brand as their guide to how they responded I think the result would have been different? After all our MP’s haven’t exactly been the most transparent in their financial dealing recently. So I suppose what I am suggesting is that we all get real and that we don’t allow corporate structure to get in the way of looking after the holistic relationship we have with the people who give us money. Organisations need to align what they see as the big corporate stuff (CSR & Corporate reputation management) with the ultimate manifestation of our customer relationship - the brand.

How the brand and its leaders behave at the time of crisis helps define the brands future

I couldn’t help but notice in the press the other day a sequence of very interesting, yet conflicting pieces about Toyota. The first one was in the marketing press and reported that, according to YouGov’s BrandIndex, the brand had “slumped” to bottom of their car brand tracker in terms of Buzz. The second was an FT article that reported the 2.6% increase in their profits. The final one was yet another recall of their cars for manufacturing faults!! One wonders whether the management team feel they have built a roller coaster rather than a business!! The decline in the brand rating is seen as a result to the worldwide recalls of their products and the fact that there is an obvious gap between their quality position and their delivery. So this latest recall will not help!! On the other hand, the FT reported that the rise in profits is due to strong sales, cost reduction and limited exposure to China (who are having an informal boycott of Japanese goods at the moment!). I would like to suggest that the critical business performance can also be attributed to how the company has handled the issue and the humility and authenticity of its public response about how they were going to put it right. A quality response in their brand conversations with customers not just their production ethos. Again shooting yourself in the foot a week or so later doesn’t help! This got me thinking about the role of the brand in the whole business environment and the potential damage if the leaders don’t take it as seriously as their customers do, this should be keeping them awake at night. As consumers, we have long memories especially when we are let down, but we also have a degree of compassion for the brands we love, admire and respect. Our brand may let us down, occasionally…one might say it’s only human!! But it is in the response that it can make or break itself. If it responds with positive action and an apology, as Toyota have so openly done, it can really regain their position in our minds indeed it can even enhance its position with us, hence (in my view) one of the reasons for the better than would be expected financial results. On the other hand, when a brand with a hugely loyal following lets us down, behaves in a way we don’t like, recognise or admire then it is a very long road back. In fact it may well be impossible for them to regain that loyalty, as they have shown themselves to be “just like all the others” and not as exceptional as we had felt them to be. Talk to M&S about this and their results recently – especially in their clothing offer. They have never regained that place in our minds they used to own before their tragic disconnection with customers way back in the 90’s! We have long memories and were released, by their behaviour, from or relationship to find better or more interesting alternatives when we are let down. It’s the old “plenty more fish on the sea “concept! My point here is that brand owners who really understand and have a deep seated belief that it is their behaviour and that of their people, especially at the top, that really does impact how loyal we are will always win because they will be authentic in our eyes and not manufactured by the marketers and their old era spin doctors. The brand builders of the new era are the people how deliver the promises and guide those who deliver them. Toyota really is going to be an interesting case study.

The new era of branding needs new measurement tools

I have been in the game of brand building for a very, very long time – some might say too long (I tend to ignore my colleagues on that one), but there is one thing that continues to confuse me: Why do we make measurement so complex and often totally unfathomable? There is a whole industry that has grown up around measuring the things that are not important (certainly not in the way brands are really built today), full of manufactured measurements that you need a glossary of terms to understand. One wonders how they will ever be any use to a front of house team member who is being measured against criteria set by the members of the senate of Alfa Centuri! How many of us have sat in the 150 slides and 4 hour presentations having paid massive amounts of hard earned cash on research technique that don’t measure the things that matter. You know the ones: lots of earnest people telling us earnest stuff in fact lots of really, very, very interesting stuff with lots of logarithms, degrees of freedom and you get to that moment, just before losing the will to live, when you think… how am I going to use this and how are the teams going to turn this into actions that make a difference, tomorrow. It was a little like a Chinese meal, they often leave you a bit, well, unsatisfied. The other day we attended a debrief of some 125 slides (each of which would have benefitted from being sliced in three so it is really a 375 slide presentation). After the marathon the client asked the most telling question of the day “have we done well or badly?” All this at a time when insight and understanding has never been more important for the people managing brands to know what is and isn’t working. We all need the ability to ensure we can use every bit of our research stimulate action. It must help more and more people who do not have research as their first language to make decisions and diagnose how to solve problems. It has always struck me that Michael Eisner, of Disney fame, had it about right when he said that ‘A brand is a living entity and is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures’, surely then we should measure how a brand is built and improved in this way, what I would describe as the New Era of branding. Then surely this is how we should measure the performance and delivery of our brands. So that everyone in the business can see what they need to do to improve the brand’s alignment with the needs of customers. A form of measurement that enhances and helps us improve the delivery of our brand promises to customers (current and potential) and one that guides our teams to know what is going on, where the issues are and what needs to be done about them. Simple really. I have always thought of Eisner as one of the earlier Brand Aligners and his simple thought really stimulated us to develop a measurement tool that does just that. More of that in another blog but all I will say for now is, in the words of that great domestic cleaning agent , is “BAM…… and your brand is measured in the way it is built in the real world”.

Make it real - Make it rigorous

I finished last week with one of my favourite quotes of all time, a classic from Thomas Jefferson, where he sums up so much about Brand Alignment that he could have been a “Vistarite”. Vistarite n. fanatical member of the clan Brand Vista dedicated to building brilliant business through brand alignment “Vision without action is hallucination.” Is what it is all about and that’s what we are fanatical about help brands prevent happening. His words are even more meaningful in today’s hyper connected world than they ever have been. We all know that the days where brands could just use advertising to shout loudly at consumers and they would come running are long gone. The dilemma for brands is that so many have developed brand visions in tree hugging sessions, developed all the stimulus material and brand guideline manuals but often are left scratching their heads wondering what happens next. More importantly, how are they going to explain and articulate this in order to help the diverse community within their business understand what they need to do to deliver the brand experience to customers, wherever they bump into the brand? A couple of weeks ago we had a session with a client whose advertising agency had developed a great brand vision but who had rather been left wondering how to effectively deliver it through the business to the customers. The solution we helped them develop was based on the insight (may be a bit of an overstatement here!) that the needs of the operations and front of house teams were very different to those of say, the marketing or HR teams. They needed to be able to understand and use it when dealing face to face with customers. An obvious point to many, but so often left unresolved in the normal process of brand development but to me it is just good old common sense that needs working on. The outcome has been some rigorous plans based on the 4 drivers of brand alignment that can be used by the teams to guide them in their actions, identify clear responsibilities, defined timelines all focused on delivering the brand experience that is driven by their vision to where the brand meets the customer, delivering the emotional customer journey not just the rational one. But more of this in later blog. Early signs are that internally the team know what they have to do and why. Most importantly they know what good looks like and can now see the experience through the brand’s eyes and those of the customers, meaning they can now continuously improve it as they are going along. As for customers, it look like we are seeing improvements in the net alignment scores and the £ through the tills is on the rise. Early days but heading in the right direction. I’ll keep you posted when we have enough data to prove the stickiness of the Brand Alignment. The really important thing for me from this experience is that we must all treat a brand as another business process designed for improving the performance of the organisation and its people making sure it delivers in the same way as great logistics, procurement, HR, operations all deliver their bit. I suppose the important point here is that it is essential to look at the brand as something that needs to be physically as well as ethereally delivered. After all it is just another one of the tools a business uses to reinforce its position in its markets and deliver greater returns to its shareholders. In the totally connected world brands live in delivering and maintaining competitive advantage and differentiation is about delivering what you say you are going to deliver consistently experience by experience. From a customer prospective hardly the most challenging expectation, but we all know the scale of the challenge form an organisational perspective. But then the brand does make promises that need to be kept – as Thomas Jefferson alluded to…..

Vision without action is hallucination

One of the things that has really inspires us over the years has been working with clients who are real visionaries in their markets. They spend a lot of time working out and articulating how to differentiate their brands in the minds of their customers and then how to execute in order to achieve their vision, and deliver their brand promise. With great vision they turn good brands into great ones. They also know how to deliver the vision so that it becomes a reality and not just a set of nice words on the reception walls or in some brand manual somewhere, but more of that in a later blog. But it often surprises us how many brands appear to lack a real sense of direction and clarity of vision. Lewis Carroll made a really good point when he said “If you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there! “ Great brands avoid this problem. They have developed active processes that inspire and engage its people in such a way as to turn cynics onto advocates. Helping the team to see the journey ahead and working with them to nail the brand vision can help even the most cynical team member become more enlightened and excited about the future for the brand. They have, after all, been a party to planning its future. Imagine their greater excitement when they see the results of their actions and activities in their performance and the increased contribution the brand makes to the business performance. Brands that fail to have a clear and well-articulated vision that is understood by everyone are the ones that tend to spend hours trying to understand the margin decline impacting their business, why they are always talking price in negotiations and why they are being attacked (and beaten) by me too products and services coming in from overseas. An inspiring, well-articulated and clear vision is one of the essential building blocks of any brand, or indeed business, as it sets the ambitions and direction of travel for the brand and the people who are going to help deliver it. Without it the brand will just reinforce the words of Lewis Carroll, some even fall foul of Einstein’s theory of insanity “repeatedly doing the same thing whilst expecting a different result!!” So on reflection it is one of the great no-brainers in business. If you really want to develop a great brand, you have to have great a great that shows the team where you want to go and how you are going to do it. It isn’t easy and needs robust and rigorous process as well as insightful and sensitive testing but the rewards are huge. Avoid anything that looks like tree hugging by making the process clear and the outcomes rooted in action and activities (and of course responsibilities) rather than ethereal creative concepts. This will mean that you will be able to articulate how the vision will deliver advantage to the business, and its people. So keep in mind Thomas Jefferson’s words “Vision without action is hallucination” but more of that later. As the seafarers of yore used to sing “Align Align Ho” – and they really knew where they we going!

Let the best of your insides leak out to aid differentiation

Last week I had the enormous privilege to join 2000 academic delegates from around the world who had come together to attend the IROS 2012 Robotics conference in Portugal. I had been invited to speak in a workshop sponsored by the EU focused on funding and what they call “outreach”; I would be more inclined to call this “communication, engagement and alignment”. I listened and watched with wide eyed the amazement of a young child visiting Hamleys for the first time at Christmas, as speaker after speaker gave illustrated talks on what they were developing in the way of robotics that are designed to help the societal and industrial challenges that face Europe in the future. Talk about an intense WOW factor, this was off the scale! However the more I listened to the more what I was going to say in my presentation really began to make sense. A classic case of hiding one’s light under a bushel, and yet this sector is fast becoming a key element of the global search for competitive advantage on all fronts. As citizens of Europe, most of us have no idea what the EU Robotics community is up to, what they are doing or why they are doing it. And yet the truth is that hiding away in the academic institutions and industrial R&D units is an amazing powerhouse of knowledge and innovation that could significantly fuel the future of Europe. It struck me that the issue here is all about taking control of one’s destiny, not allowing the competition to steal the lead position. If the European Robotics community allows this to happen then it will always be in catch up mode and come to be been seen as the “me too” continent. To a degree this is already happening as some 93% of all the robots referred to in Wikipedia were identified as being from the U.S.! So what is the task here, in simple terms? It seems to me to be a classic Alignment opportunity where the brand will be built not by a nice logo or advertising campaign, but through a huge level of collaboration and co-creativity within the community, guided by a differentiating and inspiring vision and then driven by a plan that directly feeds into their own route maps. This will ensure that the brand an integral part of overall plan for the sector and actively position the brand in the minds of all its complex audiences. Without it then the danger is that the competition takes over the positioning of the brand and we will know what can happen in those circumstances. A classic case for Alignment where the size of the prize is societal and potentially financial, but for me it would also make me that little bit prouder to be a European living in a part of the global village that leads in this essential future industry.

Stopping the insides leaking out

We have, over the years, developed a number of sayings that help us explain some of the essential drivers of Brand Alignment, why it is critical and how it works. It would be fair to say that they are not always our own unique thoughts; some have been borrowed from others to help us articulate our findings. This week it’s the turn of “You can’t stop the insides leaking out” How many companies do you know that have developed values or missions around “customer centricity” or “ having the customer at the heart of our business”? Easy words to use, but so often the evidence that is just what they are; empty words. What the customer often experiences is a business that is more orientated to extraction rather than delivering value and customer service. A consistent finding from our work is that we observe that both customers and colleagues have adopted similar strategies for coping with the contradictory behaviour of many brands, saying one thing and doing another. Over the last couple of decades both parties have suffered from being promised the world only to see the delivery to fall far short, brand and business promises just haven’t been kept. So now they stand back and read the brand or company through their actions and not their words, basing their loyalties and recommendations on what they see and not what they hear. The brands that not only use the words but deliver a totally aligned brand experience through the business from the top to where the business meets its customers win every time. It becomes a deep seated part of the culture of the brand. But beware the brands who keep their front of house teams in the dark, over promise and under deliver. This is the most dangerous place to see brand misalignment, where the insides really leak out. Consumers “feel” the brands attitudes and behaviours, and all too often this is based on a serious lack of alignment between the top of the company, its middle and its customer facing team. It might be seen as more cost efficient to shout promises at customers but in the new era of branding it is the experience that builds the depth of the brand, day in, day out. So the moments where the insides leak out are clearly identifiable throughout the customers journey, if you take the time and care to look. Everyone in your business should know where to look. Senior team members need to go back to the floor to find leaks and help the team fix them. This is exactly what we have spent more than12 years of our lives dedicated to, and it gets us out of bed in the morning ready to help brands simply do what they say they are going to do, it’s good manners in our book. But it is not all bad news. If your brand is beautifully and elegantly aligned then the opportunity is that you need to find ways of letting all the good stuff leak out and touch the customers. They will feel it and respond positively, recommending your brand, purchasing more frequently and ultimately giving a great share of their wallet, you know it makes sense. The results from John Lewis, in our view, one of the most Aligned brands on the planet, illustrates the commercial advantage and benefit great brand alignment can deliver , a 60% increase in profits in a retail market struggling to respond to recession and changes in consumer behaviour. In the UK , The low cost attitudes of Ryanair might not be to everyone’s liking but it is a well aligned brand. It does absolutely everything it can to bring its customers uncompromised low cost. If they want more then they pay, it is hard and clear about what it is. In the US, the famous example of Southwest Airlines shows another way of delivering brand alignment to the competitive advantage of the company – its low cost and high customer engagement attitude totally reflects the brand. Just check out You Tube to see how they team deliver the brand. Also check out their share price performance over the past 20 years. We have been fortunate enough to work with people who understand the need to consistently deliver the promises their brands make, day in and day out. Working with these inspiring people has enabled us to identify the 4 critical brand drivers that really underpin the delivery of Brand Alignment and financial advantage it can bring to any brand. More of those in a later blog! For now all I would say is ask yourself the question do all my team know exactly what they need to do to deliver the brand and are they inspired to deliver this day on day out. If you have any doubt don’t leave it to chance, get out there and see what is happening at 1st hand, it will be your first step to great brand alignment.

Welcome to the Brand Vista Blog

Welcome to my 1st attempt at, what will hopefully become, a useful and stimulating blog. If all goes according to plan it will be the first of many focused on what we think is one of the most interesting subjects confronting the world of Brands and their very ability to thrive in the interconnected, customer driven world we live in. That subject is Brand Alignment. It is my intention to evolve the blog into a series of useful views, observations, evidence, insights and general stimulation pieces for all of us who wrestle with the absolutely vital issue of helping our organisations deliver the promises they make to their customers. We have been on our great Brand Alignment adventure for over the last 12 years, spurred on (all those years ago) by an intense feeling that brand communication is only a part of building a brand and not the sole mechanism, as some would have us believe. When we set out we knew we needed to develop a whole new set of skills and capabilities to help businesses deliver and drive their brands through their organisations, some we could develop for ourselves but most were well beyond our skillset. The Journey has made us look at so many things differently and understand more than ever the real economic value of a brand to its owners and shareholders. We have been so lucky and privileged to have made this journey with some amazing people, from every business discipline you can imagine and they have fuelled our passions and fed our brains and now feels right that the time to put something back into the system. Hence this blog. We have, over the years, become Fanatical about Brand Alignment, because it is what all brands should be doing as it works in all the best places – the balance sheet and consumers' minds. It can inspire the whole community of a business to do amazing things. It really is a case of "every home should have one". As the great Jim Collins puts it in his book Built to Last "When you have superb alignment, a visitor could drop into your organisation from another planet and infer the vision without having to read it on paper" Can we all say this about the brands we cherish and look after? As we talk to many brand owners from many different sectors, B2C and B2B, the common thread is that we all know we should be doing it and customers are demanding it "You know it makes sense" as the great brand experience provider Fred Pontin used to say 'Get it right and customers do 3 very important things. They come back to the brand, they tell other about it (positively) and they tend to give it a greater share of their wallet (according to a recent Gallup poll twice as much shares than an unaligned brand. Brand Alignment is not an accident, it is about great understanding and insight, visionary leadership, diligent planning and execution, a whole business view not just a marketing one, rigour and robust process and above all great engaged and inspired people. All measured in such a way that helps the business understand the journey towards its vision for its brand. The great news is that after 12 years ploughing this furrow often feeling like the lone voice of branding, The Chartered Institute of Marketing have dedicated a session to Brand Alignment at their conference on the 28th October 2012. The theme of their conference – how to Survive, adapt and thrive in today's markets – we couldn't agree more that this is a vital discipline for all brand owners to get sorted. Over the coming weeks and months we hope to build up a picture for you that will help you see the value of Aligning your Brand, what effects it can have, what pitfalls to avoid and what the financial rewards can be. We will also give you some examples of aligned and unaligned brands to watch out for and even fire off some random thoughts that just might stimulate further thinking or feedback. We would love to hear from you. Keep Fanatical, Stay Aligned.

The Aligner at Virgin Gyms

Background After weeks of missing exercise classes at my local community gym due to my busy schedule and their lack of classes past 6.00pm I decided it was time for a new gym. I am the sort of person who actually enjoys going to the gym (well most of the time), I find it a great place to escape from the day to day schedule and have some genuine me time. So as my local gym was not providing me with this I went on the hunt for a new gym to pledge my allegiance to. I am very lucky in that Manchester has a great range of gyms so there was a huge choice available to me from budget gyms to the more luxurious fitness centres. However with the aid of a telephone and the internet I was able to narrow down my choice to three candidates based on product, location and price, it was now down to how they felt when I visited them. After a week of flirting with different gyms it was Virgin Active who had wooed me successfully – they were confident and friendly, not over bearing and keen to bring me into their fold. There was a fun but relaxed feeling when I visited and I appreciated that they boldly splashed their values on their wall – it felt like they were committed to them so I should experience a ‘fun’ and ‘innovative’ workout that ‘challenged the norm’ whilst giving ‘excellent customer service’ and ‘value for money’! The Experience With some excitement I emailed Sean, the membership consultant I had been chatting that I wanted to join and got a great response - “fantastic Jo, would you like to pop in today as I am in the office untill 8:30 this evening, I'd be more than happy to help with this!”. We arranged for me to come in on Wednesday night at 6.15pm – I was genuinely excited. Its Wednesday night, it’s been a busy day and by some miracle at 6.16pm I have managed to step into the lift to go up to the gym and my new fun healthy lifestyle. My phone starts to ring, oh please not work I think, I look down and don’t recognise it so quickly answer. “Hi Jo it’s Sean from the Virgin Active, where are you?”… okay I am one minute late, this felt a bit over bearing but I ignored it and just told him I will be there in 30 seconds. I step out of the lift expecting some sort of fanfare and excitement around me being a part of their community. Instead I was hastily greeted by Sean, sat down and given a form as he talked to one of his colleagues and another member. In less than 10 minutes I have signed a contract worth almost £500 a year. Not the celebratory experience I was hoping for. Okay so it’s time to get my membership card surely there might be a bit more fun and ceremony here? Maybe a nice little pack? Unfortunately not, my ‘membership consultant’ who was so excited about me joining continues to chat to other people as I stand there as a bit of an outsider and just hands over my card and offers me the opportunity to buy a lock so I can use their changing facilities. The residual feeling I am left with is that they just wanted to secure me in for 12 months and take my money. This did not echo any of the behaviour or attitude I had felt when looking for a gym, I feel a bit cheated. Where is the fun? How has my norm been challenged? And where on earth is my excellent customer service? Alignment Putting the signing up process aside how does Virgin Active live up to its brand values? There are some really good product developments in terms of equipment and classes which I have not seen before. They provide both 1 hour, 45 minute and 15 minute classes. The 15 minute fast classes are designed to use latest equipment so they don’t seem like unusual instruments of torture but great tools for your work out – in this sense it is fun and innovative. Where there is a misalignment is in their people and processes. The instructors are really friendly and enthusiastic but with my experience of gyms they are no different to other instructors I have met. Their gym staff can be inconsistent, some can be really friendly but there are a number who have a brusque nature and some of the confidence I spoke of before can come across as cockiness. Lastly their processes; the sign up ‘wooing’ was promising but the actual sign up distinctly lacked the experience their brand values promised. They need to look at how their people embody and present their brand to their customers. Simply stating that they have a value of ‘excellent customer service’ will never really allow them to stand apart from the crowd because that is what all gyms are striving for, they should provide a certain type of service that is truly distinctive to Virgin Active Gyms and ensure this is built into their recruitment and training programmes. They should also look at the customer journey and identify what are the critical points for not only the company but the customer and ask how can we inject our brand at each of these points? Overall there is great scope for Virgin Active to create a much more distinctive experience but at the moment it feels very much the same to all the gyms I have been at before. There are some products that are innovative but this is a point of differentiation that can be easily copied. In creating a truly fun and challenging environment through product but also people and processes Virgin Active have the potential to create a truly unique gym experience.

The Aligner at Best Western

Background I had been sent on an overnight business trip to London, so as ever, I planned my travel and accommodation well in advance. I was looking for a place to stay for just one night; I needed something easy and comfortable, just on the outskirts of the city and that of course, above all, wouldn’t break the bank. A Best Western hotel was the first response in my Google search, and the hotel I had chosen fitted all of my criteria. I had seen the unmistakable crown logo countless times up and down the country, I was familiar with the hotel group, and I expected a good, clean and comfortable stay. After learning that Hotels With Personality is how they position themselves, I was looking forward to experiencing some charisma and charm. I booked online and packed my case. The Experience I arrived by cab after a long, hard day and checked in. The first thing that struck me was the décor; the lobby was decorated fuchsia pink, it was modern and contemporary, and was nothing like what I had expected after seeing the ever-so-slightly-dated signage outside. The lady behind the counter was personable and polite, if a little bland as she paled away against the hot blush tones of her surroundings. I asked about recommendations for a nice restaurant to eat in that evening in the area (I asked for Italian to satisfy my Penne all’ Arrabbiata cravings.) She said she couldn’t think of one from the top of her head and showed me the menu for the restaurant in the hotel. I passed, and went straight up to my room. The bedroom was less than I expected after my bright and modern welcome. The room was just as any other, in any other hotel. I found myself lying awake looking up at a beige ceiling, surrounded by four beige walls, beige curtains and a beige carpet. I felt disappointed and cheated out of charm. I thought about this for a little while, and it occurred to me that as far as good standard, mid-ranged hotel chains go, does it really get any better than this? Comfortable, clean and reasonably priced is all you ever need from one night in a hotel, right? So am I asking too much for wanting more? For wanting what they Best Western are all about? I wanted personality where there was none. On leaving, I asked the lady who checked me out, about the cost of hiring a meeting room here, perhaps for the next workshop I’ll be running in the area. She went into a back room and resurfaced some time later with some papers and the business card of the person ‘who is not here at the moment but knows about this stuff’. A conversation completely devoid of any personality. The Frushia Pink really was nice though. Alignment As far as I am concerned, the mid range hotel market is static and I would love to see it be shaken up a bit. As the world’s largest hotel company, Best Western is in the perfect position to take this lead. Each Best Western hotel is a franchise, and therefore, independently owned. To them, this independence automatically delivers an experience that will be different to the next Best Western hotel. But isn’t there something greater to help these hotels stand out in a stagnant market, than the hotelier’s taste in hot pink wallpaper? What else can give a franchised hotel group the edge over its mass, cookie -cutter approach competitors? Are Best Western hotels missing a trick to make their hotel experience more memorable and become the go-to hotel to stay in for holidaymakers and business travellers alike? Each hotel’s personality can be brought to life through each hotel’s unique knowledge, not their soft furnishings. The hotels are independently owned, and therefore, the hoteliers and people who work there, go to work there everyday, they live there, they will know the area like the back of their hand and they will have so much knowledge and experience in that area that they should share; a strength, I don’t think Best Western are capitalising on. No hotel is. So here, is an opportunity to break away from a cluttered, unchanging marketplace. The fundamental ingredient to achieving this is already there for Best Western to reach out and grasp. By choosing to run a hotel in a particular town or city, by default, gives them the wealth of knowledge to make this possible. Now what they require are the tools and techniques to galvanise this knowledge through their businesses. Imagine a hotel that is a real life tour guide, a bank of knowledge that is the go-to place for any traveller who needs help, guidance and inspiration for the city they are in. Imagine a hotel that shares information and knowledge generously to help anyone who visits, and imagine a hotel that ultimately delivers a truly helpful travel experience every time. Imagine a hotel whose people are put through an inspiring training programme so they will be continuously excited and educated about the area they live and work, a hotel company that cultivates people who can’t help but share their knowledge with fellow colleagues and guests. Employing the right people, putting them through training programmes, and injecting them with a constant flow of enthusiasm, and ensuring they are always the people in the know will be imperative to success. The hotels need to become the beating heart of the community, so being proactively involved and constantly innovating to find ways to being on the cusp of the newest happenings will be essential. Next, creating processes that are flexible enough to be rolled out across the world, yet taking into account the idiosyncrasies of different places will be key to success. All this, whilst ensuring customers always have the same brilliant, knowledge-soaked experience, and get a sense of the hotel’s real personality. Every time. In the future, Best Western can capitalise on their ‘personality’, their expertise and knowledge of the city they are in and become a world wide hotel group that delivers an informative experience that no guidebook, tour guide or Trip Advisor can compete with. Pumping up their people to be excited about where they live and work will be the first step of many. Then, re-think the wallpaper.

The Aligner at IKEA

Background I recently moved house, and I needed to kit out my new pad fast and on a budget. Where else to do this but IKEA: the home of simple, modern furniture at affordable prices. It seemed like the obvious choice and I visited my closest store one Monday evening. ‘Creating a better everyday life for the many people’ is IKEA’s driving vision. It offers functional furniture combined with distinctive design, and from what I know about IKEA the company holds cost cutting, simplicity and convenience in high regard. To me, this works well on paper, and as a consumer I buy into this social aspiration of low prices, practicality and nationwide happiness. I participate in the system because I understand my role of taking my furniture home with me and assembling it myself, it is these processes that reduce the price I pay. The Experience: It is worrying that to begin with I had to mentally prepare myself for such a shopping experience. I knew what to expect: a windowless, airless and soulless warehouse, but such things I can live with if it means decking out my whole bedroom at an affordable price. Firstly, I was welcomed by a store layout that has modeled itself on The Cretan Labyrinth…with simplicity as a value, I find this unnecessary weaving in and out of different departments, irritating, annoying and far from simple. Everyone understands why the shop floor is designed like this - in the hope that you’ll buy 20 extra things that aren’t on your list. But already, I felt like IKEA was firmly pulling at my purse strings. After whizzing round the store, and writing all my items on my order form; which all went without a hitch might I add, I took my order form to the pay station to get it processed. The shop assistant looked like she should be revising for her GCSEs and was more interested in last night’s TOWIE than my furniture. It was 9.30pm and probably past her bedtime so I intervened with her process and checked the list on the computer myself…She’d made two errors, which I amended (I did not want bunk beds that turn into a sandpit). Amazingly, all of my 18 items were all in stock, so I handed over my credit card and furnished my new flat in an instant. My everyday life certainly is better. For now, anyway. The assistant telephoned down to the warehouse to let them know about my 18-item order and she called to me inbetween conversations with her colleagues. “Do you want someone to help you lift the items down from the aisles?” she asked me. I looked at her as if it was a trick question; my stature doesn’t lend itself to carrying around beds and wardrobes, albeit flat pack. I’m 5ft 0 inches and hardly built for heavy lifting. I thought that shifting a bed from the top of aisle 7 would have been a given, but it turns out I have to pay £15 for such an effort. Value for money just moved a step further away. Next, was home delivery. ”When do you want this to be delivered, tomorrow or in 8 weeks?” A somewhat distracted assistant asked me, without looking up from her computer system. “Well, neither to be honest.” I replied, “My bedroom isn’t ready for the furniture yet, and 8 weeks is far too long. How about we organise a date somewhere in between? “ “No can do, I’m afraid – it’s tomorrow or 8 weeks.” I have to opt for tomorrow and suggest we schedule a time for delivery that suits me. Between 9am and 5.30pm is the only option I got. They can’t even specify whether it will be morning or afternoon. I can’t see any evidence of IKEA tying to make this convenient for me, it’s a hassle more than anything. Next, delivery charge. In my experience the more you buy, the less you pay for delivery. Not at IKEA, the opposite is true here. The more you spend the more delivery charge you pay. Which, in theory makes sense, but falls out of synch with the way other retailers operate; John Lewis for example, offers free delivery on items over £30. I reluctantly, handed over my plastic to pay a £60 delivery charge. My shopping trip at ‘cost conscious’ IKEA was turning out to be more expensive than I anticipated. It was a stressful trip to IKEA. I forked out money at every twist and turn, and felt bullied into having my furniture delivered at a time that is not convenient to me. Contrary to what IKEA advertising says, I am not happy inside. I cannot argue that they have provided me with attractive furniture, but not without paying for the privilege – I have dealt with disinterested staff, hidden charges and a convoluted, inconvenient process. I don’t feel I am benefitting from IKEA’s ‘value’ pledge or that the company is what they claim – to be my ‘partner in better living’. I feel that they have let me down. I definitely did my part; I endured the airless maze for 3 hours on a Monday night, I paid my dues and I assembled the furniture myself (Thanks Dad). At this point in their vision to create better living for everyone, IKEA have fallen short on their part of the deal. Brand Alignment: So, how could my experience at IKEA have (a) been improved and (b) aligned seamlessly with their vision and values? I cannot fault the products they have sold me; they are indeed, modern and functional, and I bought them at rock bottom prices. However, beyond the products, I struggled to see the ‘value’ aspect of IKEA’s vision; there were extra charges along the way that I wasn’t made aware of until it was too late. A more honest and transparent approach to pricing would definitely make my everyday life (and my wallet) better. Apathetic staff might save money but it also erodes the customer experience. A training pogramme to energise the people within the business about the IKEA brand vision will equip staff with the tools, knowledge and enthusiasm to deliver it – even at 9.30pm. Simplicity, as value is evident in IKEA’s products, but less so in the shopping experience. The maze-like layout seems unnecessary and time consuming. It would be great if IKEA could provide me with an option to by-pass the areas I didn’t need to visit and simply guide me to the area of the shop I want to be in, making my shopping trip less stressful and more convenient for me. IKEA is a global institution, and a brand people still love… for now. Brands at a cossroads need to make careful decisions and, for this customer, they need to re-acquaint themselves with their brilliant brand vision and work out what it means for them in 2012. If they do this, they’ll once again become a genuinely loved experience.

The Aligner At Sainsbury

Background The weekly shop is something most of us have to do. For many of us this means the ritual visit to the local supermarket to stack up on those essentials that will sustain you and your family through the next week. If you are one of the fortunate ones who by virtue of your working hours, understanding partner or through some sort of chores trading arrangement, are able to avoid the weekly shop there is something you need to know; it’s not cheap. And, of course, it is a chore, albeit an expensive and essential one. This week, despite my best efforts I found myself in Sainsbury’s, working my way up and down the aisles. Sainsbury’s is our closest supermarket but it does sit next to Tesco and Aldi. It is our supermarket of choice although we occasionally use the other two. It is an interesting relationship; we are regulars at Sainsbury but wouldn’t say we are furiously loyal. There is a quality about the products and of course we are familiar with the layout which makes the chore easier to undertake. In truth I am not sure they are very different from the other big supermarkets and I have a sense that like the banks they would have to do something major to snap you out of a familiar routine. So the thing that really caught my eye was the small advert in the trolley; ‘It’s our values that make us different’. This is a principle that is right at the heart of the Brand Vista philosophy. We believe that great brands have clear and differentiating values and they deliver them through everything that they do. In great brands customers recognise these values. They won’t know them explicitly of course but they will recognise them through the experience they have. So Sainsbury was being bold enough to tell me that their values were the thing that made them different. Perhaps it was these values that kept us coming back and not apathy and routine after all. The Experience Alerted to the promise I continued my journey around the store to see if I could ‘sense’ those values that really made a difference. Of course they weren’t written anywhere (that rarely works) but perhaps I could work them out. That proved to be more difficult. In truth it was hard to really determine what was different between this store and some of the other high street brands. My nearest ASDA is at the other side of town but on the occasions I have shopped there and the concept of good value really comes through. They have a sense of focus but I was not sure what the Sainsbury focus was. I was beginning to guess that quality might be a value, the fresh product was well presented, and plentiful, the store was clean and bright, but was it enough to differentiate? I don’t think so. Of course the issue is that quality is not really a differentiating value. For a start no one can define it; quality means one thing to me and something else to you. Quality is customer defined so whilst it could be an important driver for them it couldn’t really be differentiating. I did notice an area in the cafe dedicated to local community activities, which suggested that something around community might also be a value. There was another dedicated area with letters and fund raising examples close to the exit which reinforced my thoughts. In truth I arrived at the tills not really being any clearer so I decided to ask a couple of members of staff. Both conversations drew a blank which was not encouraging. If they didn’t know what those values were then it would be pretty difficult to live them. One response was particularly concerning: “Those things we are supposed to do but probably don’t”. I decided to go home, see if I could find the values on the web site and then return to see if I could recognise progress in aligning to them. Alignment The good news is that the values were easy to find. Those values represent a promise to the customer and they were written clearly on the web site: • Best for food and health • Sourcing with Integrity • Respect for our Environment • Making a positive difference for our community • A great place to work Armed with these values I paid a return visit to see if I could see these in action. The community notices at the entrance were locally managed and looked a bit like a school collage but were probably better for it. It clearly looked like a store initiative not a corporate one. This was repeated in the cafe, with evidence of working with local charities and hospices. It was a value I had sensed on my first visit and confirmed now. At the vegetable aisles I began to notice posters about the partnerships with growers and freshness of produce. There was something about sourcing coming through, maybe not as strong as it could be but certainly a start. Beyond this good start however, signs of the values in action seemed to dwindle a bit. Whilst the fresh meat and fish area looked good there was little connection to sourcing or health, a couple of key values. Messages about the environment were few except for some near the tills. Whether it is a great place to work only the employees can say. However, the service at the tills was good, people were friendly chatty and helpful. Not too many long faces and bearing in mind that it was 8.00pm this probably says something about working at Sainsbury. My overall reflection was that there were signs of the values coming through in patches but there was an opportunity to do much more. We know that aligning a set of values throughout a business as large as a national supermarket chain is no easy task, and you have to start somewhere. There is evidence that Sainsbury have started. My biggest concern was that the staff I spoke to didn’t know the values never mind understand how to put them into action. In our experience if you immerse staff in the values and let them look at their own store through the eyes of those values they will find the opportunities to bring them to life. Sainsbury are to be congratulated on the bold promise that their values will make a difference. The evidence of some of those values emerging is encouraging but of course brand values are delivered primarily by people. By engaging staff in the values so they understand them and are allowed to work with them they will find the thousands of small gestures that can bring those values to life for customers. When they do that it really might make a big difference.

The Aligner at Currys

Background: Everyone’s favourite Friday night - a trip to Currys to buy a new washing machine to replace the one you killed with a stray 10p piece. Currys was the first retailer we thought of, offering a fantastic selection at their new megastore in Chester. Having not been to Currys for a number of years, I was extremely interested to see if they had learnt any lessons from the likes of Apple. Would the Currys colleagues be simply sales people, or would they be product experts and advocates? I desperately hoped they’d be the latter. A quick glance on the Dixons Retail Group website revealed that the group has a ‘Customer Plan’ in place, driving their transformation strategy. On paper, it sounds great – I was looking forward to seeing how it was delivered in reality. The Experience: The only good thing about shopping on a Friday night is that it’s quiet, and as we entered the store, I started to feel confident that we’d experience great service – if they couldn’t’ deliver what they promised when we were the only people in there, what would it be like during peak time on a Saturday afternoon? Walking into the store, the sheer breadth of product range was overwhelming and impressive. Each area was well presented and distinct. We headed upstairs to the kitchen section, and were greeted with a muted ‘hello’ from the two team members who seemed far more interested in arranging their plans for later that evening than in serving their customers. My wife and I were faced with a fantastic choice of approximately 40 machines, but no discernible information to help us decide where we should start. After some toeing and froing, it became apparent that the machines were ordered according to price, and so we moved to the section that had machines in the £250-£350 bracket that we had in our heads. Advice, knowledge and passion was clearly not forthcoming from the Currys employees, as we made our decision purely on gut feel and then had to approach them to try and pay for the machine. We saw no sign that they were “interested in working out what’s right for me” as promised. Once we had engaged the colleague, she was very polite – calm and efficient, processing the order quickly. We then moved onto the part of the purchase I was least looking forward to – the extended warranty hard sell. Fortunately whilst our girl recommended it, she didn’t overly push it. Although her insistence that if we’d taken out their Whatever Happens cover on our previous machine we would never have had to buy another washer ever again was enthusiastic, I personally just didn’t believe it, and it concerned me that the staff seemed to be making up stories to suit their own requirements, just like the PPI bankers. We paid for a specific delivery and installation time, and the washing machine duly turned up bang on time. All was fine and dandy, until the delivery driver informed my wife (who was home alone) that he couldn’t fit our machine, as it would breach health and safety. “Why?” she asked. “We can’t deal with anything electrical”, he said. After a verbal arm wrestle, the driver’s colleague appeared and fortunately took a much more conciliatory line. And within, quite literally, 5 minutes, the machine was installed and working. A quite baffling approach to his job from the driver, and a sure fire way to p*ss off your customers on what had been an otherwise pleasant part of the customer experience. Overall, within 5 days of the washing machine breaking, we had a new one fitted and working, courtesy of Currys. But, with no genuine experience to talk of, I wonder whether we’d simply buy online, securing the same machine cheaper, next time? Alignment: As Currys doesn’t publish its brand vision and values, it’s hard to know for certain how aligned they are. However, there are some clear gaps in the ‘foundation’ or ‘hygiene’ values of electrical products service. Whilst the staff were pleasant throughout the in store experience, they clearly had no passion for their work or the products they were selling, a complete contradiction of the ‘Customer Plan’ they’d detailed. Perhaps Currys needs to create a genuine vision for the business, and engage all colleagues in it – showing how their role in delivering the brand is crucial to the future success of the business. Similarly, it seems essential that the delivery drivers understand that they're playing a critical role in the delivery of the Currys brand. At such a personal interaction – entering our home – the driver was rude and unhelpful, values that I’m sure Currys doesn’t want to be associated with. It seems to me that Currys needs to work out what it stands for, and give customers a genuine reason to visit its physical stores; otherwise they’ll just end up buying on price. Maybe they need to take a leaf out of Apple’s book and reverse traditional commission structures, developing teams of genuine product advocates. Why not employ Mums in the kitchen area – in the way that B&Q employs retired gents: employ people who genuinely love keeping their home clean and tidy to advise on the best washing machine, not 21 year olds who probably take their washing home to Mum anyway. Rather than aiming to deliver ‘great’ customer service, surely the most base aim of a retailer, perhaps Currys needs to define and align to a set of values that can truly differentiate its experience from that of the competition. Otherwise, we’ll all be buying purely on price.

The Aligner at Mothercare…

Background My husband and I are at the exciting yet terrifying stage of becoming parents for the first time and with 6 weeks to go until D’DAY I thought it was time for us to get organised and buy our “travel system”. That’s pushchair and cars seat to you and me. Being from a big family I’m no stranger to babies and the mountains of stuff that comes with them, so I thought that buying our pushchair and car seat would be a relatively easy and straightforward decision. Upon my Mum’s advice I decide to skip the Internet research and go straight to the showroom: “You’ll need to see how it feels and have a go at folding them away” Mum had said to me. So after work one evening I took myself to the first place that came into my mind: Mothercare. Although I didn’t expect to need much help with this purchase it felt right to go the place that had always been the experts in such things. The Experience Once inside I realised that it wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d naively imagined. There were so many different brands and different models within those brands, all screaming different benefits and features. Should I go for the Silverscross Surf “The Bentley of Pushchairs” according to my style conscious brother in law, The Obaby Monty, The Chicco Trio Living or the Mothercare Saftey First travel system?! And then there’s the car seats – do we want a combination car seat, rear or forward facing, Isofix or belted base for extra safety? After 20 minutes of taking it all in and trying to work it out, I was feeling a little overwhelmed and with prices going up to £800 I though I’d better get some advice. Not to worry though, I’m in Mothercare. They are after all the child and baby experts. Surely they’ll be able to guide me through this decision. So I looked around and it was really quiet being a Thursday evening and only about an hour from late closing. There was one person being served at the till, a couple of other around the store browsing, and then me. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a member of staff to help me. Other than the lady serving at the till there were two other members of staff in the corner having a chat and another person moving around the store looking very busy so I decided to interrupt the chatters to see if one of them could help me. Just as I headed towards the chatters, another member of staff came from out of the back and header straight towards me so I left the chatters to it and asked Gemma. “Excuse me, I wonder if you can help me? I need to buy a car seat and push chair and could do with a little help” “OK” Gemma responds, clearly wishing she’d come out of the back a few seconds later. “Which one do you like?” “Oh well, I do quite like this Silvercross one”, closest I’ll get to a Bentley, “But it says it has an Isofix base and I’m not really sure what that is and whether I have it in my car” “Oh right” was Gemma’s response. I thought perhaps a direct question was the route to a better response so I tried with “If I was to buy this car seat but didn’t have isofix in my car, could I still use this seat or do they do a car seat with this pushchair that doesn’t have Isofix” “Oh, I dunno – I’m not sure” “Could you find out please?” So Gemma went to the till to find out. While I was waiting for Gemma I decided to have a play with a couple of the pushchairs I had liked the look off. For more than 5 minutes I occupied myself with pushing the display items around the space, and a few unsuccessful attempts at collapsing the pushchairs to see how easy it would be, which is not very without a demonstration. I’d given up playing by the time Gemma returned. “Yeah, you can put all the Isofix seats in with a seatbelt”. “Ok, right. So they don’t have a non isofix one with this pushchair?” “No” “And would you recommend getting this one even if I don’t have Isofix” “Well it depends if you wanna pay extra for something that you’re not going to use.” Well, I certainly don’t want to do that but I did want to know a little more about this wonderful Isofix so I tried “Can you explain to me what Isofix actually is and then benefit of using it?” “Well it’s just something to attach the seat to your car” “How can I find out if I’ve got it in my car?” “Oh, I reckon you’d need to go to the garage” “Is it safer to have Isofix rather than just using the seatbelt?” “I dunno, probably”. I did think about asking Gemma to go and find out for me but I didn’t fancy waiting another 10 minutes for her to return with another one word answer so I decide to thank her for her ‘help’ and be on my way. To give Mothercare the benefit of the doubt I did return with my husband at the weekend to continue our research. Unfortunately, Nikki was not much more helpful that Gemma had been a couple of days earlier, with a similar set of one word responses to my husbands questions. Later that day we decided to visit an independent local baby store a few towns away from us, which we’d stumbled across via a flyer in the hospital maternity waiting room. I pre-warned my husband that it would probably be more expensive than what we’d seen in Mothercare. We were greeted by Charlotte, who after our Mothercare experiences, was a breathe of fresh air. She was of a similar age to Gemma and Nikki early 20’s I’m guessing. After allowing us some time to browse, Charlotte had approached us with the offer of help and advice. She asked us lots of questions about what we thought we wanted, our expectations and our budget and then narrowed down the overwhelming choice with some recommendations to fit our brief. Charlotte demonstrated how to attach the different seat options for the travel systems she’d recommended and how to them fold away. She encouraged us to try pushing them around outside the store on the different concrete and grass surfaces, while she got us the prices for each combination, which to my surprise were hardly dissimilar to the prices we’d seen in Mothercare. Alignment I wondered whether it was me and that perhaps I’d got the wrong idea about Mothercare’s position so I checked their website, which said: “Mothercare is the name for Prams, Pushchairs, Car Seats, Cot Beds, Baby Clothes and much more. Established as the number one retailer for mums to be and parents alike, Mothercare can offer a wide selection of everything you will need for your Nursery, all your Maternity Wear and all the Toys and Gifts your baby could want. Supplying some of the finest quality pushchairs from Bugaboo, Maclaren, Silver Cross, Britax and Maxi Cosi. We of course have an endless supply of advice on pregnancy and parenting issues from our Experts in the field and all you Mums out there.” So I wasn’t being unreasonable expecting a little bit of knowledge and guidance about the products that they were trying to sell to me. I came away from Mothercare with no better idea of what to buy than before I went in, however after visiting the local store I felt excited and although we weren’t quite ready to make our decision, we were both clear that when we did that we’d be going back there to make our purchase. Charlotte had been extremely willing, helpful and knowledgable which was a stark contract to the service we had at Mothercare. Of course during a recession it can be difficult time for all retailers, and Mothercare is seeing its share of losses and store closures but it struck me that Mothercare’s issue is not the climate it’s operating in, but that the experience you get at Mothercare, unfortunately does not match the brand’s promise. This can’t have happened over night, and my mum assures me that in her day, Mothercare really was the place to go to find out about, and then buy the latest baby equipment, so when did they lose their way? Reducing their high street presence and focusing on cheaper retails spaces on the outskirts of towns sounds like a smart business decision at a time like this, so it’s a shame that Mothercare don’t appear to be applying the same level of intelligence to the training (and possibly recruitment) of their sales staff. It only takes one part of the experience to ruin the entire customer journey and the outcome – well I’ll be spending our £800 elsewhere and not only sharing our experience here on this blog, but will also share it with all the other Mum’s to be that we’ve been meeting in the parenting classes.

The Aligner in Manchester…

After walking through the Arndale Centre at lunchtime today, I saw this. I stood and looked for a while, and then I smiled. It’s Manchester’s Love Wall and it is part of a campaign launched by Manchester Arndale and Marketing Manchester in defiance of last month’s riots. This sea of post it notes reminded me of a favourite Michael Eisner quote; about building a pointillist style picture with each coloured point, representing positive actions on the brand, eventually building up a bright, colourful image & leading to success. This is what Manchester needs to do to counteract the negativity of the riots, though a slow process it will be…point by point, post it by post it… We all saw the effects of the rioting ricocheting around the world in hours and it proves how in today's modern world, stories of negative experiences caused by the minority can travel fast, doing more damage than any brick thrown the evening of the riots could ever do. But what I saw today was Manchester's heart starting to beat again. Before me, wasn't just a wall of post it notes, it was so much more than that. It was a pink and yellow wall of strength, and perhaps the start of what our city must do to right the wrongs of the devastation and get Manchester back on track; back to its best and back on brand. This small gesture has made a big impression, stirring up support and feelings of love that money can’t buy and HR departments can't train. The people of Manchester's emotional response to the riots is testament to how the people make a city, and the residents of Manchester are the biggest advocates of the brand. After all, we choose to live, work and socialise here. We represent what Manchester stands for, undeterred by mindless thugs. Unlike our shop windows, today our Manchester spirit cannot be broken. Perhaps, this city should not pride itself on it's shopping, or its football teams but it's togetherness. The response to the riots should trigger people to think of not Wayne Rooney when Manchester is mentioned, but team work, pulling together and a closeness that comes from the people of Manchester's undoubted love for their city. But how can this unity continue? How can Manchester become known as The City With The Biggest Love? Will this sense of community we've seen of late continue and keep momentum, or will it fizzle out, just as the trustworthy Manchester rain fizzled out the riots? Building a brand, especially around a city, that’s image has been literally torched, takes commitment, time and patience. Rome wasn't built in a day. And neither was Manchester.

The Aligner at the Sony Centre

Background The story starts with a classic lack of alignment by DELL and their totally rubbish back up that leaves my Founding Partner with no working laptop, no support and frankly no interest whatsoever from DELL. Shame: we were just about to move all the company's Laptops to them…still what does that matter to them! We needed to get back up and running, we are an SME and time is money, so we shot down to buy a Sony laptop from the Sony Centre mainly for the brand values of quality, reliability, and service. After all this was the company whose mission was to change the way the world thought about Japanese products…believe you me they have really succeeded in that…negatively! We came to understand that the Sony Centres aren't Sony Centres; they are Sonex Centres selling Sony and that seems to be the starting point for some very unaligned behaviour. The Experience The first experience of the Sony (Sonex) Centre was pretty good. They seemed to be informed, helpful (if a little disinterested), they understood what we needed and were delighted when taking over £1,000 off us. We left happy in the knowledge of the brand and its overt reputation – oh how I wish I had gone onto the web chat rooms about their laptops, it would have saved days of hassle. Within 36 hours our high speed machine was running at the speed of a tape driven Sinclair of the 1970's - so off we go to visit 2… somewhat less satisfying! When the problem was explained, the first thing they did was to discover a scratch that required an electron microscope to find it. This meant that as it had cosmetic damage it could not be replaced and must go back to Sony to be repaired. Trust me; if there was a scratch then we would have accepted it. The staff member even phoned Gary later to say how upset he had been to do that but it was company policy to make sure they did not have to offer a replacement!! Process designed to enhance the brand reputation, I ask myself?! Ultimately, they had to send the machine back to Sony as they were a franchise and had nothing to do with Sony! So off it went. And there stood poor Gary, laptop-less. His machine returned 3 weeks later, with a free screen cleaner and a note from the head of Sony customer service UK. The fan had been replaced and all was well. It was not. The fan made the sound of a low flying spitfire and it did not have the power lead we left. We phoned about the lead to be told that we were wrong and we have taken it away with us…so now we have been made to feel like liars! …Only to be phoned the next day to say they had found it. An apology? You guessed…no chance. Back to our friends at The Sony Centre for more ritual humiliation of a customer. It was highly unlikely that anything was wrong (we were clearly incompetent idiots) but they would send it back anyway. To describe the environment as hostile would have been the understatement of the year. So a further 3 weeks later the machine arrived back and all is well in the world. They basically threw the machine at us! A delighted Gary returned to his laptop, but none of the software we had put on it was there, so a phone call was made, to a delightful man who informed that this was my problem not his and he even said it was a pleasure when I thanked him for handing his customer problem back to the customer. When I asked him about the value he felt he was adding to the Sony brand his reply was that they were merely a franchise and in fact no different to a Comet or Currys! He did agree they only sold Sony, had Sony over the door and did present themselves as a Sony brand! From their website.. Sony Centres are the pinnacle of Sony's retail distribution. A cutting edge store environment dedicated to offering the full Sony product range. Staff are Sony trained and committed to offering exemplary levels of customer service, coupled with impressive technical know how. As well as a selection of competitive and exclusive offers, they also carry certain products which are exclusive to Sony Centres. Brand Alignment? Do I really have to spell it out?! Alignment is not about saying things and hoping we believe it is about doing things and making us believe, the consumer has the power to make or break brands that say one thing but do another. Ask M&S and Sainsbury about that one. Shocking and shameful. This is clearly a case of everything works well when shifting boxes but at the time a customer really needs help both of the brands involved run for the hills. One is driven to the conclusion that for Sony this further reflects their decline as seen in their security breeches in its gaming division and as for Sonex…sorry Sony Centres,.. they have processes, policy and training that are great at selling but not for looking after customers. In such difficult trading times I would have thought they would seek to keep and grow their customer base rather than create negative advocates. The sad thing is that it isn’t just us, it's all over the internet, where real consumer conversations are going on. The insides of organisations always leak out and I wouldn't mind betting both these organisations are scratching their heads as to why they have issues with their brands and its relationship with its customers….others do it so much better. However my campaign to impact on the brand is currently running at 2 conferences I have presented at, and at least £6000 of sales prevented for both Sony and Sony Centre. I will hopefully beat my target of £10,000 soon, although the slump in retail sales isn't doing much to help me. To sum up, it’s so so dangerous for a business to put its brand in someone else's hands. Customers don't distinguish. They vote with their feet, their wallets, and their blogs.

The Aligner at AMC

As an uber Harry Potter fan, I could not wait for my final encounter with Harry, Ron and Hermione. But where to go for the final chapter of Harry’s epic adventure? The Odeon that are ‘fanatical about film’ or maybe Vue who promise ‘the ultimate guest experience’ Generally speaking, I always opt for the cinema nearest to me (in this case the AMC). However, do we ever choose a cinema due to what the brand promises? And, if not, is there a real gap here for a major cinema chain to truly differentiate themselves? AMC describe themselves as innovators and entertainers, priding themselves on superior guest service but does the heart of the brand come through in reality? The Experience The first thing that hit me as I walked through the doors of the AMC on Wednesday was that it felt very cold, both physically and visually. No glimmer of entertainment, just a huge queue. As I approached the box office the staff smiled but apart from that buying my ticket was a dull affair. There was no interaction or even a thank you for choosing to come to ‘AMC’ – I’m a stickler for manners! However, the price was fantastic at £6.75 compared to the Odeon prices which reach a whopping £8.85 for a ‘standard ticket’. Then I encountered one of my favourite parts of the cinema experience, the purchasing of the popcorn! Now don't get me wrong, I cannot fault the product at all, but the service and ambience was a bit of a let-down. The staff seemed bored which was quite ironic seeing as this is a company that embraces entertainment. There was certainly no sign of their brand values shining through. Finally, the main auditorium. Overall I found this to be quite a pleasant, yet generic, experience. The seats were comfy and I had room for my drink and popcorn (always a concern). The room was very clean, which is always a good sign, showing that the owners care. Brand Alignment From a film point of view I can't praise the AMC enough; for me, I feel the final chapter of Harry Potter was fantastic. However, the experience was completely generic and couldn’t be attributed to any cinema brand. I feel the main problem with the major cinemas (the AMC being no exception) is that they all look and feel pretty much the same. None of the cinema chains stands out and truly differentiates themselves in terms of the experience offered. As the cinema industry predicts what happens now the Harry Potter mayhem has come to an end and what the next big innovation will be (such as 4D and more bespoke cinemas opening), is there an opportunity for one of the major cinema players to think beyond the film (which in this case, I see as an hygiene factor) and focus on creating an unique cinema experience, which staff can embrace and deliver day in and day out? Even though other main chains in the UK have a bigger presence, AMC, potentially, are in great position to create a unique brand experience aligned with what is already rooted at the heart of their cinema – exceptional guest service. Did you know that AMC were the pioneers of the cup holder? Now that is a little gesture that made a big impact on the guest service. Could AMC create new and exciting gestures to deliver a truly entertaining experience? Could they bring the essence of entertainment back into the cinema world beyond the film? Looking at the cinema chains, what does seem clear is the potential for AMC (or potentially another of the big UK cinema chains) to really be famous for creating a uniquely different experience. It will be interesting to see how the industry continues to develop; maybe in years to come we will not only be excited by going to see a film but also the cinema we are going to watch it in.

The Aligner at Jessops

Being somewhat of a novice to all things photography, I was predictably nervous when it came to buying a new camera. The photos taken on my mobile over the years had served me well up until this point, but I knew that this year’s holiday snaps deserved to be in focus. With such a massive choice of cameras on the market, I knew that there must be at least one camera that could enhance my ‘talents’. Online shopping would have been my usual port of call if I was after convenience and a potential bargain, but I knew I needed a little bit extra in this scenario. I needed a person to talk me through my options, advise me, and provide a little bit of hand-holding. Enter Jessops- ‘with over 75 years in the photography business and the perfect choice for all of my photography needs’. The Experience Walking through the City Centre wondering where to look for my new camera, I literally stumbled upon the opening day of a brand new Jessops store. There were balloons outside of the store on the main high street and smiley staff chatting to passersby, offering the best deals around. I couldn’t believe my luck! I was warmly welcomed into the store by a young lady: “Can we help you today?” They certainly could help me. “I need a basic camera that I can use for work and holidays. Something I can pretty much sling around in my backpack and use on the go”. Warm lady responded: “I'm sure we’ll find you just the thing. Let me pass you over to XX, our store manager who will help you”. The store was very busy and I was somewhat surprised to be passed to the store manager, but very impressed by this all the same. I explained again to XX what I needed, stressing the point that I could not go out of my budget and hopefully giving him the message that I was not going to be his biggest sale of the day! XX didn't flinch and didn’t stop smiling for the rest of our encounter. I felt extremely pleased that the manager of the store was taking the time to provide such great customer service. He nodded intently, asked me a few more questions and I was shown a couple of cameras without delay that seemed perfect. Well done brand Jessops- I am very impressed at this stage. XX was called away and beamed that he had to leave me with a young chap (we'll call him Bob) who would take good care of me. I thanked XX and turned to ask Bob which camera would be best for me out of the final options. This is where the problem started. “I don’t know. They're all the same price” shrugged Bob. Oh dear. Bob looked bored and was already scanning the room for other prospect customers. I selected what I thought was the best camera and after some seriously pushy, sales behaviour about an additional accessories package, Bob rolled his eyes at my resistance and had seemingly had enough. He turned his back on me and spoke over his shoulder: “cash or card?”. I made my purchase and nothing else was said. Brand Alignment Sadly, there was no thank you for my purchase, no eye contact, no smiles; things that I had expected after such a sterling display of customer service from the rest of the team. Was this a younger team member who was simply not invested in the Jessops brand, or was this a case of commission-based customer service? You don't earn them commission; you don’t earn their best service? I have worked in several commission-based roles in my time, yet I'm sure I'm not the only one who can recognise an ‘upsell’ at 50 paces. My customer experience that day was brilliant up until that point, and all it took was just one moment of poor service to undo all of that hard work. The ironic thing is that if Bob had really listened to my initial needs (a camera to use on the go and sling around in my backpack) he could have quite easily sold me a case for my purchase - of course I needed one. I have actually purchased a camera case and a memory card elsewhere since. A customer journey is a precious thing. If it fails to meet your expectations at every point where you come into contact with the brand, it is all too easy to drop out (often into the arms of the competitor) and have your needs met elsewhere. Jessops certainly know how to deliver a very good customer experience and they stand firmly as the product specialists of their field with remarkable customer service standards - I commend them on that. If they can align their whole business to these wonderful standards, I will no doubt return and recommend their services. I might even go back for those camera accessories one day…

The Aligner in Venice (Airport!)

It's that time of year when many of us will be flying off on holiday and enjoying the experience of at least two different airports; an enjoyable indulgence or an ordeal depending on your point of view. On a more serious note the Competition Commission has recently ruled that BAA must sell off two of its airports. There are mixed views on this but certainly a strong body of opinion that this will be a good thing. Bob Atkinson from Travelsupermarket.com thinks the ruling will be welcomed by consumers. “The introduction of new operators for some of the UK’s key airports will give consumers greater choice and in turn should raise the standard of service within all UK airports across the board.” A future of greater choice and better service suggests that airports will be actively competing for our business. So as we prepared to fly from Leeds Bradford to Venice I was intrigued to see just how each of these fine airports are positioning themselves now. I suspected perhaps the ‘easiest’, ‘most hassle free’ or perhaps ‘the gateway to…..’ It was worth a look. The Brand Position Sadly the web sites was not too revealing. They worked perfectly well and were packed with useful information but no hint as to why we might choose to fly from their airport rather than one of their competitors. Very functional, very helpful but not really compelling. And to be fair to both of them, I have been on others and found the same kinds of messages. And maybe that’s for a reason. Could it be that the decisions we take are so driven by the airline routes and costs that the airport’s role is just to do a good job and get the hygiene factors right. It’s an interesting hypothesis and worth testing. The Experience At Leeds Bradford and checked in within 5 minutes of walking through the front door. This was exceptional and got us off to a great start. The facilities were adequate enough and if you didn’t fancy your cappuccino amongst hyper active children ready for their holiday or with adults who think the sun goes over the yard arm at 7.00 am then there was a lounge where you could pay and chill out. Arriving at Venice was also efficient enough, passing through baggage claim and passport control, but then it got interesting. In a very high profile position in the airport was the information and ticketing point which created a real feel that Venice Airport was a welcoming point to that region of Italy. The boat ride from the airport to Venice completed the experience. Now not every airport is built next to a lagoon, but Leeds Bradford didn’t really feel like the gateway to anywhere and so we could already start to see a positive differentiation in the airports. Leaving Venice was an altogether different story. The queues at the check in were not just long they were managed quite appallingly. People were trying to guess which line was going in which direction and no one from the airport was helping. I think there is a rule amongst B&B owners that the breakfast must always be great because its the last thing that people experience and it will live long in the memory. Having arrived at the check in 2.5 hours before takeoff we dashed to the gate as the flight was boarding. This is one experience you would want to forget. Not only was it stressful but the opportunity to enjoy the cafes, bars and shops which seem so important to the airport’s offer was completely lost… and the revenue with it. Brand Alignment My wife is an employee of the NHS and her first view was that if they had queues like that they would out amongst the people explaining what was going on and why as well as trying to sort it out. Well done brand NHS! Her second was more telling. Her honest view was that if we return to the region we will not be using Venice airport. There are plenty of alternatives and with a bit of planning the cost of flights will not be that different. In fact a small premium is probably worth paying to avoid this. And if you were going to invest in the region does this represent the level of efficiency and organisation you are likely to face. Not all decisions are taken rationally! So perhaps the brand for all airports does need defining and the actions need to be aligned to it. Leeds airport did nothing wrong but a more compelling proposition and experience from Manchester, East Midlands or Doncaster might make a difference. But even if airports do consider themselves to be a cog within a bigger process they are clearly gateways to both Brand England and Brand Italy. In which case they need to align to the positioning and values of the bigger brand. Either way there is a brand alignment challenge here. Airports could take a clear, differentiating position and seek to attract travellers – this will please the Competition Commission. They could be aligned to the bigger place brand that they serve and that will enhance the place brand. What seems clear is that their processes and behaviours should be aligned to these values because it is clear that decisions will be made or at least be influenced by the experience.

The Aligner at Homebase

Homebase has a lot on its plate if it’s to keep us fussy customers happy and maintain its position as the second largest home improvement retailer. Claiming they are recognised for offering choice, how did they do when I made a visit there to buy a few lowly grow bags for my wilting tomatoes? The Experience On my way home from work the other day, I walked nonchalantly into the garden section of Homebase with my trolley and headed to the outdoor bit expecting to pick up a few 50 litre grow bags for my tomatoes. On reaching the garden section, the only grow bags on offer were Homebase's own 33 litre grow bags, or Jamie Oliver's 50 litre grow bags. I hunted backwards and forwards around the garden section, getting increasingly frustrated looking for other grow bags, unable to believe that this is all they stock. All I wanted was a bog standard 50 litre grow bag, not some celebrity endorsed one at great cost or a bog standard 33 litre grow bag which wouldn’t really be big enough for my poor old tomatoes. In the end, after much consternation I decided to go for the 33 litre own brand grow bags because I couldn’t face buying a Jamie grow bag. I lugged four onto my trolley, paid and left feeling a bit disgruntled about the lack of choice and the way I felt I was being manipulated into buying a brand that I didn’t want to. Brand Alignment Now don’t get me wrong, I haven’t got anything against Jamie – he’s done great things to try and encourage healthy eating in schools and I truly admire his guts and get up and go. The Jamie Oliver brand is an amazing success story. But what I do question is whether the Jamie Oliver brand has stretched too far and whether Homebase has lived up to its aspirations of offering choice for customers. Whilst I can accept the cookery books and the pots of Jamie pesto you can buy from Sainsburys as well as the Jamie kitchen utensils and equipment, I struggle to feel comfortable seeing the smiling happy chappy on my grow bags every time I go into the greenhouse to water my plants or pick some salad leaves!! Is the brand being too opportunistic, stretching into these new areas? Some would argue that the Jamie brand is about healthy eating, so what could be healthier than growing your own veg? Whilst I agree with that, I'm uncomfortable with it because I feel the brand has become greedy, turning something that is essentially a good thing into something that is another commercial enterprise. In the end, my eventual choice was more of an emotional choice than a rational choice – if I was being rational I should have just bought the 50 litre Jamie bags, but I couldn’t be rational. I suppose it goes to show that we relate to brands on an emotional as well as a rational level. I also question Homebase's claim about offering choice for its customers – I certainly didn’t feel I was offered choice, I felt I was backed into a corner and had to take something I wasn’t totally happy with. Who would have thought that just buying a few grow bags would make me ask some philosophical questions like how far can a brand can stretch and how well does Homebase keep its promise of offering choice for its customers? Well my visit to Homebase did just that!

The Aligner at Premier Inn

The Premier Inn is a real success story – it's the UK and Ireland’s biggest and fastest growing hotel company and plans to get even bigger, adding 4,000 new rooms (a 9% increase) over the next year and expanding by 50% in the UK over the next five years. So what is it about Premier Inns that makes them so successful? The Experience I almost always stay in Premier Inns when I’m away on business. It’s not like I’m looking to be wined and dined at the Ivy and put up overnight at the Ritz, I just want something comfortable, clean and fit for purpose and this is exactly what my experience from Premier Inn almost always is. Booking my room on line is quick, straightforward and simple to do – I love all those things in my busy, over complicated life! Then on arrival, the staff are generally friendly, welcoming and helpful. The room is almost always just what I need – as a business traveller, I normally work flat out, so I need space to do this which I tend to get in bucket loads! Then when I finally crash I must have somewhere that’s comfortable to crash in. The beds are always King Size, the pillows are always comfortable, the sheets are always ironed, there’s never any springs coming through the mattress and I always get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, usually after a run, I want to get showered in somewhere that's clean and has more than just a trickle of water – I have never yet come across a bathroom that's been dirty or grout that's looked orange! The breakfasts are simple, filling, and healthy (if you go for the continental) and reasonably priced too – I don't feel ripped off at just over a fiver. So, all in all a really positive experience the majority of the time – how do they do it? Brand Alignment The answer is quite simple – they do what they say on the tin! They are a brand that is amazing at doing what they promise – consistently. And why are they so good at this? It’s because they know what their brand stands for and they make sure everything they do delivers this brand promise – a great example of brand alignment. Part of the Whitbread Group, they have a clear vision which is to build the best large scale hospitality brands in the world by being the most customer focused organisation there is. They do this by providing outstanding value and making everyday experiences feel special. Premier Inn has worked hard to deliver this vision by understanding what their customers want, which is ultimately a good night’s sleep. They also pride themselves on providing a warm welcome, comfortable beds, and great food, all at relatively low prices. Simple isn't it? But they know their customers and they deliver what their customers are after really well. A great example of a well aligned brand which is succeeding in this tough economic climate, where everything is premier apart from the price!

The Aligner at B&Q

With Focus DIY entering administration, how does B&Q live up to its promises? B&Q's mission is to help people create homes to be proud of, and they claim to be driven by five values - Customer first, Down to earth, Respect for people, We can do it and Nobody does it better - that live through all of their colleagues. As summer enters full swing, I needed a new lawnmower to help me keep the garden in state I could be proud of. B&Q had to be the perfect place to go… The Experience Online Jumping online, the B&Q website immediately asked me if I needed a new lawnmower by tomorrow. It was as if it could read my mind - I certainly did! And if it could save me a trip through the commuting masses, then all the better. This was going to be easy, or so I thought. A simple click later, and I was told that ‘the page you were looking for has not been found’. Not so good. Giving diy.com another chance, I finally found the lawnmower page, but was presented by a confusing mass of choice. Did I want rotary or cylinder? Hovver or tractor? Electric or Petrol? I had absolutely no idea. I wanted a nice friendly person to help me do it, so I got in the car and decided to go to the store. In Store B&Q Chester started much the same as diy.com - a mass of loosely associated products. I ambled down the lawnmower aisles for a few minutes and found one that seemed perfect: electric, cordless and under £100. Too good to be true? It was - at the counter I was informed it was actually £249. So why was it with the £89 mowers? Maybe products and process not working hand in hand. After ten more frustrating minutes I finally found my saviour, the lovely Elaine. Whilst she was as baffled as us by the pricing system, she certainly knew her onions and after quickly and imply assessing the size of my garden and what I wanted the mower for (to keep the grass down, not to create a mini Wembley Stadium), she directed me to a small petrol rotary. Mountfiled was the brand she recommended -the biggest and the best in her words, and I felt thoroughly confident in the model she’s chosen for us. She even passed on an insider top tip about changing the oil after first use, which wasn’t even in the manual. Brilliant. So - a fantastic in store colleague experience, but as soon as I had selected my mower I was straight out of the store. A missed opportunity for B&Q. Brand Alignment The delivery of the B&Q brand through its people were brilliant, but it felt like at every stage of my customer journey processes were pulling against the brand. The colleagues in store embodies the spirit of ‘Down to earth’, ‘Customer first’ and ‘Nobody does it better’ that are crucial brand values, but the confused and broken website and messy in-store pricing really challenged my patience as a customer. So many businesses have a brand vision yet struggle to motivate their people to deliver it. This is clearly not the case with B&Q, and yet there are fundamental challenges to the complete alignment of their brand. This needs to be addressed and out right, because if the B&Q people’s passion wanes, they become just another home improvement store.