Change!

I love the the ideas that Miro presents in the following article. Brand's becoming part of their consumers life and offering extended and long term connections which are not necessarily price driven. Very interesting read!

Is it time to change the game? - Miro Slodki

I can’t help but wonder whether our principled notions of brand really mean anything at crunch time. Do consumers really care about our brand? Do we? How prepared are we to sell our brand principles and strategies for the right volume?

These are inconvenient questions but I feel a closer examination of today’s CRM programs will reveal that many have drifted from customer relationship management to customer offer management. It is the offer, wrapped in the mantle of relevance that has become the hub of many brands’ relationship building efforts.

We seem to forget that offers have relative—not absolute—value. And if price is the central validator of the brand’s value proposition, do we really want our brands defined by comparisons to something we have no control over? Are more disciplined pricing strategies the order of the day or do we need a stronger brand paradigm?

While pricing is certainly the easier path, the road less traveled to stronger brands holds the promise of being a game changer. Nevertheless, there are no guarantees in life, so a measured approach is prudent.

Game changers:
As part of a broader context that I call “Share of Life” marketing, successful brands should strive for tangible emotional brand linkages by realizing that while brand value is relative, brand values are absolute.

Brand value relates back to the extended bundle of product, service and communications that the customer prizes. The consistency of that value chain becomes the inherent brand promise that consumers buy on the open market — the monetary value it is able to secure being defined relative to other competing brands.

By contrast, a brand’s values are absolute in the same way that a person’s values are. What a brand stands for, its role in supporting the community and the benefit of its existence (over and above getting things “whiter than white”) can become a badge of distinction that in the real life of rock-paper-scissors (price-convenience-affinity) decision making, can tip the odds in the brand’s favor.

Brand values can usually be found in the mission statement, defining the future path the brand seeks in order to increase customer relevancy. While it is not necessary or even possible to have solutions directly relevant to everyone all the time, having a solutions focus IS critical. The resultant solutions activity focuses people on the brand and instills de facto category leadership status that can be leveraged into lifelong partnerships.

Two recent marketing announcements acknowledge the notion of Brand VALUES.

Citing a “challenging” environment, Macy’s, during the 2008 Christmas season, launched its “Believe” campaign which emphasized the spirit of Christmas over value messaging, with children being invited to drop off their letters to Santa at Macy’s stores. For each letter received, Macy’s donated $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation — up to $1 million.

P&G’s departing global marketing officer Jim Stengle announced plans to pursue “purpose-based marketing,” which he described as being “about defining what a company does — beyond making money — and how it can make its customers’ lives better”. The Wall Street Journal article went on to highlight an example using Pampers.

Several years ago, [Pampers] decided it had a higher purpose: helping moms develop healthy, happy babies, rather than just keeping babies’ bottoms dry. To drill home that message, the company offered parenting advice and teed up experts on an array of parenting topics. It also did research into why babies don’t sleep, a study that eventually yielded a design change in Pampers to give them a more cloth-like feel. The new design keeps babies warmer, helping them sleep better.

Interacting with the brand’s “tribal community” so as to bring the brand to life is another important contributor to “Share of Life” marketing.

Unlike brand personas, which are a stereotypical representation of consumers, tribal communities describe brand constituencies with a shared identity, ideology, needs and values. One of the most common and powerful ways of defining a tribal community is based on generational dimensions much as Boomers as a shared community are distinct from GenNext. Naturally, there are many other dimensional slices around which a tribal community may co-exist (fashion, sports, culture, philanthropy, the environment etc…).

The key is to select the defining community characteristics that can be reached in the (social) media world. If the community cannot be reached cost effectively, then pragmatically it doesn’t exist. However, those that are reached will be at the intersection of CRM and (social) media — providing opportunities for conversations about the brand’s programs, innovation, values and community issues.
What might some of these programs look like?

Pricing: Deep discount pricing activity is rarely necessary. Even when working within a strategically defined pricing zone, the brand can rally consumers with publicized purchase events in support of the community’s desired good works programs, an approach that has been used effectively by The Body Shop. Over time, these actions and pricing policies will work to establish a higher appreciation of brand value and gain deeper brand support.

Community: (clan-based) marketing efforts can be designed to stimulate “shopping parties” to generate leveraged volume benefits for all. Expanding the focus to include the shopper AND “friends” taps into an entirely new powerful texture to the traditional purchase offer, creating natural marketing leverage that will yield higher response rates.

Co-creation: To help drive meaningful brand innovation and visibility within the brand community, many marketers have embraced co-creation. Virtually any range of input can be solicited – be it new product suggestions as per Dell’s Idea Storm initiative, voting for new packaging graphics or new flavors. Follow this link for an excellent review of co-creation/crowd sourcing.
These types of initiatives provide the brand with opportunities for becoming more actively engaged with the community, while developing deeper levels of profitable affinity. And not unlike the famous saying that chance favors the prepared mind, an active brand ultimately succeeds because it works to create game changing conditions in its favor

http://miroslodki.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/is-it-time-to-change-the-game/