How to reach the highest level of brand equity?

Lately I am working quite extensively around brand equity. The current crisis shows clearly that short-term scenarios are doomed to devaluate business value. Brand Equity is something that you build up over years. Though there is much buzz around the concept of Brand Equity, however in reality not much is done to increase. Brand Equity is often looked from a tangible perspective, where in reality it is an intangible asset and I must say very subjective. Having said this, Brand Equity can be generated by consistently focus on customer gratification throughout the personality of a brand.

Based on our Biotic Brand Cultivation®  methodology, I have linked every of 9 Key Relationship Indicators (we call then Key Growth Enablers, as they really contribute to growth) to a Brand Equity level. The ultimate level of Brand Equity is to become an irreplaceable brand. However, before reaching that level there is a long way to go. Here is how I see the different brand statuses.

Vienna: ICSC European Marketing Conference

I just arrived in Vienna, after a yesterday being busy whole day in Düsseldorf for another seminar. I am attending the ICSC European Marketing Conference as a speaker. I will elaborate on ‘customer service’. The main question for optimal customer service is not what to do, but how to do it. Customer service is the moment of truth, the moment where the customer is going to experience first hand if all the promises made by a brand are true. This is the moment where the customer will feel, whether he/she is just a nameless stakeholder or a true person. There is much written about Customer Relationship Management, that sometimes I feel embarrassed to even use the word in my writings. There a many ‘cold’ and ‘analytical’ tools out there to allegedly improve the customer relationship. In my paper www.greenhouse-bbc.com/brochures/crs.pdf (which you can download) you can read how I look at CRM today. The conventional CRM is everything but ‘customer relationship’.

CRM 1.0 is dead, long live CRM 2.0

In light of the current challenging times, aspiring to grow might sound very cynical. The questions is: is there any choice? Is the option of not focussing on growth plausible at all?

When we consider that the opposite of growth is decay, then suddenly the prospect of not growing sounds very unappealing. So, the best way to survive these challenging times is to focus on growth!

One of the growth ‘miracle tools’ promoted in the past decades was CRM (now referred to as CRM 1.O). Despite of the exhilarating promises made, we know today that CRM produced a lot of hype and tons of data, yet little or no insight into the relationship or engagement of the customer.

The 2 most important objectives for you business

he current crisis has quaked a large number of concepts of economy and business. As long as I can remember there has always been an antagonism when it comes down to short and long-term objectives. Some swear to short-term objectives and some swear to long-term objectives. Well, who is right and who is wrong? Neither of these concepts are wrong or right. Every businessman should always aim for short-term and long-term results in one action.

Marketing does not make unique brands.

Let me quote Patrick Dixon, chairman of Global Change when he states “marketing can not predict the future”. Marketing can merely show a momentum that is not further than ‘here and now’.

Before anyone accuses me of discrediting the importance of marketing, we are talking here about the accuracy of disciplines to deliver relevant output.

In my experience whilst having dialogues with marketing and communication managers, many times the question arises “what about the perception of the consumer”? These questions make sense within the context of measuring the temperature of the needs and expectancies of the consumer. But when it comes down to defining the brand’s DNA (building block of the brand), I am somewhat puzzled to understand why major companies show lack of personality.

5 misconceptions regarding CRM

Misconception Nr. 1

Knowing a lot about someone equals having a special relationship’.

Really? In other words, if someone collects as much data as possible about a person, he/she is entitled to assume he/she is involved in a relationship? Is this not exactly what some psychotic people do? Gathering all information about someone and imagining that that person is part of one’s relationship? Since when is knowing a lot about someone equal to having a relationship?

Since when is collecting socio-demographic data about customers and keeping track of their sales and contact history equal to a relationship? Who came up with this? You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that this simply doesn’t make any sense. Make sure that you are not in an imaginary relationship. There is a word for this…stalking.

Brand Mutation: often tried, often failed

Years ago, I introduced the term Brand Mutation as a reaction to managers, gurus and consultants practicing ‘copy and paste’ tactics. Copying previous adopted marketing strategies and forcing them upon other brands. I would describe Brand Mutation as the attempt to insert in a brand the attributes and behaviors of other brands. I have seen companies investing considerable amounts of money in advertising and missing their targets big time. Brand mutation still seems to be a widely played sport for many consultants. Well, it is easy money: you just need a few successes and repeat your strategy over and over again. If it fails, you just refer to the past successes and blame the client’s unwillingness to adapt. Even at this very moment, the Brand Mutation ‘strategy’ is still engineering victims. Don’t allow your brand to be one of them.

Marketing 1.0 is dead, long live Marketing 2.0

Was marketing not supposed to stimulate sales? Well, how is marketing supposed to stimulate sales, since the increase of sales is a complex concept? Sales is influenced by a series of factors. If a company is not able to provide a marketing team or the advertising agency the sales key performance indicators are, how can one expect marketing to stimulate sales? Let’s be honest here; how many companies can name the sales key performance indicators? How many companies can quantify them? And how many companies provide these KPI’s – if they have them – to the marketing team or advertising agencies in order for them to operate on each of them? When I develop a marketing plan, I always ask my customer what the desired turnover is, which the KPI’s are that impact the turnover in order to know when and how to influence them. Believe me, silence is most often the kind of reaction I get.

I wonder; are companies O.K. to throw 50% of their marketing budget away in order to get their hoped results. My father always says, “man has landed on the moon”, meaning that man has been able to solve more complicated issues. Let’s adopt back some common sense, will we?

I like to define marketing 2.0 as an open source kind of marketing where a common platform is alimented by different disciplines that deliver a holistic view of the customer, allowing marketeers and companies to make quicker and better choices.

Growth versus Expansion

Often businessmen mistake expansion for growth. One thing is sure; expansion is not equal to growth. What these businessmen mean is up-scaling. But up scaling does not necessarily read growth.

Growth and expansion could not be more different. Growth is mostly seen as a result (consequence). However, before being a result, it is a process (cause) with its proper laws, nobody can alter. Growth is per definition a biotic process. Non-biotic entities or systems do not grow. Let me put it in simple words; can one make a chair grow? Even after hosing it? Or even after nourishing it? Off-course not. And there is a simple reason for it; there is no life in the chair molecules. Growth is entirely based on the law of multiplication. Whatever is multiplied has the same characteristics (genes) as what it is multiplied of. That is how growth works. No multiplication – no growth.

The Benefits of the Current Crisis

As cynical as it might sound, there are benefits linked to this crisis. Every crisis brings to the surface what didn’t work in the past. And yes, this crisis exposed some pretty revealing things about marketing.

A crisis is often an escalation, due to the culmination of non-performing factors. The benefit of this crisis is that we no longer live in the world of make believe. Now that reality hits us, we have to face the monsters we created – whether we like it or not.

Suddenly, return on marketing investment, marketing accountability and measurability have become the hot topics of the moment.