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.

Level 1: Elegible brand

Level 2: Preferable brand

Level 3: Desirable brand

Level 4: Wanted brand

Level 5: Commendable brand

Level 6: Expandable brand

Level 7: Shareable brand

Level 8: Contribute brand

Level 9: Irreplaceable brand

How can you reach each level?

Level 1 can be reached by answering the rational needs of the customer

Level 2 can be reached by become a setting the standard and conquer a referential position

Level 3 can be reached by meeting the emotional needs of the customer

Level 4 can be reached by having a passionate brand story or brand universe

Level 5 can be reached by always showing talent as brand by innovating and refreshing the offer

Level 6 can be reached by inspiring the customers to buy into the peripheral offers or to upgrade to a higher standard product

Level 7 can be reached by exceeding the customers expectations and surprise them in a positive way

Level 8 can be reached by inviting customer to contribute to the improvement of your brand

Level 9 can be reached by positively discriminating customers who are committed to your brand and building a durable relationship.

On what level is your brand? Level 1 or level 9?

Make sure that your brand is irreplaceable, than all you efforts will generate return on a short and long term.

Happy Branding

Customer Service is a very powerful instrument. It has to power to develop instant ‘word of mouth generators’. The questions is how you do this? Are there some promotions, tricks, techniques, etc… that make customer tick? In effect there is – it is a simple principle. Customers have a peer to peer communication on base of strong experiences. Experiences are in general so intense that customer cannot keep it for themselves. Well, how do you generate strong experiences?  Again, there is a simple principle. Surprise your customer. Make sure that in the relationship with your customer and especially with customer service, there is a positive unexpected element. It is that unexpected element that has the intensity to build up energy, strong enough to be shared with fellow customers. Customers don’t talk about what they expect. What they expect is their right. If you deliver 99% instead of 100% than this is a negative brand experience. They expect 100%, instead they receive 99%. It is this surprise element that will be shared with more other customer than you would like to. However, the principle of generating positive brand experience is exactly the same. do the unexpected. Especially during moments of customer service, don’t communicate everything. Surprise the customer in doing something that you intended anyway, however deliver it as something extra. My formula for customer service is – 80% + 20%= 125% – This is no magic, this formula actually works. This principle is based on the Pareto principle. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)

Let me explain. You intend to deliver a number of services and benefits to your customer. This package represents 100% of your intention to deliver. Instead, communicate on 80% of what you want to deliver. Make sure that the 80% is appealing and strong enough to please the customer. When you have serviced the customer, add the other 20% of deliverable service as a surprise. The customer was not expecting it. For the customer the 80% of announced deliverable was already the 100%, now he/she will perceive the 20% as an extra on top of the 100%. 20% is a fourth of 80%, so the customer will perceive an extra fourth service, hence the 125%.

Before accusing me of joggling with number, this is off course no exact science, though the principle is valid and works. Try it.

It is the 20% unexpected experience that will generate word of mouth, not the 80%. This principle always works, though requires a well-thought expectancy management. Most of the marketing budget are spend to generate leads, and by the time we have a customer, we have no budget left to turn the customer into a powerful ‘word of mouth generator’. Think about how your brand can benefit from this principle.

Try if, you will see that it really works.

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 problem with CRM 1.0 is that it has not much to do with ‘relationship’ in the first place. Mostly, it can best be described as a sophisticated Customer Data Management system.

How can companies define a ‘relationship’ with its customers solely on the socio-demographic and behavioral information about its customers, unilaterally? Since when is ‘knowing a lot about someone’ the definition of a relationship? In marketing this is called CRM, in the real world this is called ‘stalking’. Isn’t a relationship by definition bilateral? No wonder that in the end CRM became ‘the emperor’s clothes’ of marketing.

Now, the business principles driving CRM implementation were not wrong. If you want to grow, your best multipliable assets are your customers. However, the key to unlocking this growth potential is understanding how your customers rate the quality of their relationship with your brand/company. And what you need to do to improve and strengthen that relationship. This is the capital difference between CRM 1.0 and CRM 2.O. It’s not about the information companies have about their customers. Rather about the information customers give about a company. It is the customers who define the quality of this relationship and not the company.

A qualitative customer relationship has many benefits for a company or brand. According to research done by Susan Fournier (The Brand Relationship Model, Fournier 1998)), a strong brand relationship will deliver the following benefits:

• Accommodation

• Customers feel comfortable within their choice of brands

• Tolerance – forgiveness

• In case of errors made by a brand, customers will be patient

• Biased Partner perception

• Negative opinions about the brand are dismissed

• Devaluation of alternatives

• All other brands are considered less valuable

• Attribution Biases

• Brands are attributed higher qualities than usual

All these brand benefits are crucial for your growth, especially in the current times. On top of that, a strong customer relationship has a strong leverage effect, by turning customers into fans and endorsers of your brand.

In my approach and strategies, I always have two key objectives and I believe any businessman can share these objectives. I always aim at periodical sales results and long-term brand equity. Let me give my definition of brand equity. For me brand equity is the value of a brand as a result of the irreplaceable attributes of that brand by another brand. The more irreplaceable a brand is, the higher the brand equity, the more replaceable a brand the lower the brand equity.

Why is brand equity so important for companies? Let me put it this way; what is the point investing in marketing to achieve quarterly results and after 10 years finding out that you need to invest as much or more marketing budget to achieve your quarterly sales? In other words, your company has not increased its customer equity. What is the point of investing marketing budget to get new customers, when after 10 years you still have the chance loosing them?

What will be the value of your company if by the time you want to sell it, your brand and customer equity is low. Consider brand and customer equity as the fruit of hard years of work. Consider it as your pension fund. If you want to make money in selling your company, you make sure that you customers don’t want to replace your company or your brand.

How do you generate brand equity?

Here are a few tips:

• Make sure your brand-DNA is strong (coherent), with clear values, vocations and visions.
• Make sure that in all the expressions of your brand you are consistent with your brand-DNA
• Make sure that your brand has a unique personality
• Make sure that in every actions towards the customers, they can experience that personality
• Make sure your brand is altruistic
• Make sure your brand improves the life of your customers
• Make sure your brand can deliver unique benefits
• Be integer as a brand
• Keep all your promises
• Make sure you invest in durable customer relationships
• Make sure your brand is alive and always improving
• Don’t let advertising agencies redefine your brand. Your brand is your responsibility
• Never compromise your brand equity for short-term profit

If every businessman would focus on only these 2 objectives than he will be successful on the long run. Every time you develop a concept, set objectives, introduce new products or services, advertise your brand or hire new people, ask yourself 2 simple questions; am I going to attain my sales targets and increase my brand equity at the same time? If one does not invest in brand equity, and I am talking in real investments, than all you will get is short-term benefits, with short-term security, with short-term return.

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.

If we inquire the consumers, we will obtain information that is useful for the investigator but also for competitors. A consumer is self-centered. He is looking for self-accomplishment. Even on marketing level, the consumer will not be able to predict his future needs. How much does he know about technological and non-technological possibilities that will facilitate his life?

Can you imaging a man on his way to conquer a classy woman with the question, “who you want me to be”? One possible answer could be “how about just being yourself”. Ridiculous? This is what many brand owners are doing. I believe that the ultimate goal of a brand is to establish a relationship with its consumer. I am not talking about loyalty. A loyal marriage between two persons does not say that they are committed. I am talking about a relationship in which the consumer turns into an endorser of the brand.

Go ahead, ask the consumer how you should behave and look like. Most probably he has given the same answers to your competitor for another survey. Since the consumer is need-driven, he will answer from his needs point of view. It should not surprise you that if you define your brand-DNA according to these conclusions you might look a lot like the other brands. I compare it to the anecdote of a woman buying a dress for a party, hoping to be the only wearing it and facing the nightmare of an encounter with another female specimen being dressed in exactly the same outfit. What really would be the ultimate disaster is atrocity of a slightly over-weighted women forcing herself in that gown and devaluating the purchase altogether.

What is the chemistry between a brand and the consumer? The conversion of their needs throughout the identity of the brand. What creates relationship is not simply the conversion of the needs but the way the brand does it. This is what makes brands unique. So, the question is not ‘how you would like me to be’, but rather ‘tell me your needs and I will respond to them my way’. Responding to these needs in complete unity with the personality of a brand is creating opportunity for a relationship. How your brand converts those needs, nobody else can. Consumers even accept some weaknesses only if they are involved into a relationship. Otherwise, there is someone else ready to take it over.

Marketing is the tool to define the needs of the consumer. Yet a brand has to look for his proper coherent DNA and identity and stick to it. Don’t be surprised when consumers are drifting to other lovers once your brand behavior is showing inconsistency. Do you feel comfortable with a person who is always in a changing mood, always looking for his inner self? Tiring isn’t it? Why should the consumer put up with a brand that is always searching for his “proper identity”? Or worse, changing his identity depending on what is hot with the target group.

Branding is showing outside what your are inside. It takes more than marketing to develop a strong brand. It takes, guts, character and vision.

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.

Misconception Nr. 2

Focusing on your strengths will strengthen your relationship’

Sounds logical, but it isn’t. Imagine a relationship getting into a crisis caused by one specific lack in the relationship, and the two implied parties shifting their focus away from that lack and putting their hopes on something that is not an issue? If a relationship is in a crisis because of the disappointing behavior of one of the involved parties, how much good would emphasizing his/her strength do?

What once was admired can become irritating and even nauseating, when overemphasized in a relationship crisis. Do your really believe that a relationship can be saved by emphasizing one’s strength while ignoring the cause of the crisis?

Focusing on the weaknesses in a relationship and solving them is the secret to developing healthy relationships. The same is true for customer relationships.

Misconception Nr. 3

Loyalty is an accurate indicator of a good relationship’

Right, in other words, if two people are together for 20 years, they have a great relationship? Is loyalty giving us any clue regarding the quality of the relationship? Could there be other reasons why these two people might stay together, like habit, fear of change, fear of rejection, insecurity, monotony, not knowing any better, etc…?

Is not commitment telling us a lot more about the quality of a relationship and is commitment not automatically generating loyalty?

A couple cannot be committed because of habit, fear of change, etc… If in a relationship two people are loyal it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are committed; but if they are committed they will be loyal. By going for a committed customer relationship instead of just aiming for loyalty, loyalty will be an automatic consequence.

Misconception Nr. 4

What was crucial for initiating a relationship will always remain essential’

Hmm, is a relationship not a growth process? Does a relationship not need to be nurtured? Is nurturing always the same ‘relationship food’ going to help the healthy growth of the relationship? Do you feed an infant the same food as an adult? While growing, it is obvious that the nutritious needs and requirements shift. If you don’t have an understanding of this, you might still be feeding what you were used to in the beginning and cause indigestion or malnutrition. Yes, relationships too do suffer from indigestion and malnutrition if they are not properly fed. As a relationship grows it needs more substantial food than was required in the beginning. This is exactly the same for a grownup customer relationship.

Misconception Nr. 3

Loyalty is an accurate indicator of a good relationship’

Right, in other words, if two people are together for 20 years, they have a great relationship? Is loyalty giving us any clue regarding the quality of the relationship? Could there be other reasons why these two people might stay together, like habit, fear of change, fear of rejection, insecurity, monotony, not knowing any better, etc…?

Is not commitment telling us a lot more about the quality of a relationship and is commitment not automatically generating loyalty? A couple cannot be committed because of habit, fear of change, etc… If in a relationship two people are loyal it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are committed; but if they are committed they will be loyal. By going for a committed customer relationship instead of just aiming for loyalty, loyalty will be an automatic consequence.

Misconception Nr. 5

‘The quality of the data determines the quality of the relationship’

Not exactly. What determines the quality of data: its accuracy or its relevance? You could say both, but ask yourself: is it possible to collect accurate but irrelevant data? Yes, absolutely. What is the value of this accurate, yet irrelevant data? The value is zero, because it is irrelevant to achieving your goals.

Most CRM systems excel as ‘Data Management’ tools, focusing on socio-demographic data and client history. What is the relevance of this kind of data to measure the quality of a relationship? Do you know what your customer is thinking about your brand based on socio-demographic data and historical behavior? If your data is not dealing with relationship principles, then your CRM tool is nothing more than a library. Also ask yourself, what is accurate and relevant data worth if you don’t know what to do with it? Does it make any sense to have a pricy CRM system and not to integrate these finding in your communication and brand plan? If your advertising agency is not able to convert relevant data into effective growth generating messages, why bother with the hassle of collecting all these data?

If your CRM program is not part of an integrated communication concept, then you are probably giving yourself and your customers a hard time for nothing. Also ask yourself, what is accurate and relevant data worth if you don’t know what to do with it? Does it make any sense to have a pricy CRM system and not to integrate these finding in your communication and brand plan? If your advertising agency is not able to convert relevant data into effective growth generating messages, why bother with the hassle of collecting all these data?

If your CRM program is not part of an integrated communication concept, then you are probably giving yourself and your customers a hard time for nothing.

Why does Brand Mutation mostly fail? Why do companies that copy successful concepts, ideas, even identities from competitors not harvest the same success as the original brand?

These experiments are costing huge amounts of money and weaken even more the perception of brands. Just for this reason alone they deserve our attention.

Mutations are changes in the genetic material during the cell copying process. According to ‘evolution’ a mutation improves and advances an organism. Alas, this is only an unproven hypothesis. Science is still looking for the missing link to prove this theory. However, what can be scientifically stated is that the overwhelming majority of mutations have no significant effect, since DNA repair is able to revert most changes before they become permanent mutations. The mutations that are not eliminated have a potential harmful effect on the organism.

The most disquieting thing about Brand Mutation is that CEOs ask for it. They like to work with consultants who have had experiences with competitors. Within the context of marketing, one can use past experiences and accredited benchmarks to develop strategies. However, brands are a completely different story. A brand is supposed to be unique and to stand out from its competitors. It cannot be stressed enough that a brand is a living entity with its own unique DNA. It is imperative to approach growth from a biotic point of view. Explained in simple terms the word ‘biotic’ means alive. Only living organisms grow, dead matter does not. Most companies don’t know their own DNA. Too often this lack of attention means that they don’t have a strong DNA. In moments of crisis they neglect their DNA altogether and simply act by looking at their competitors. They try to research what customers like about their competitors’ brands and then copy that. They call this ‘benchmarking’. Branding and benchmarking are a ‘contradictio in terminis’. Consumers strongly disapprove of ‘me too’ brands. Still a lot of brand owners approach their brands from a marketing angle, practicing Brand Mutation. Quite often without knowing it.  Their brands look like Frankenstein’s monster, bits and pieces of other brands combined into one.

Something wrong with the ‘perception’.

Lately I was reading an article about a Flemish commercial television network having problems with their ‘perceived identity’. The event that triggered that article was the fact that this TV network attracted a crowd-puller from the state television, responsible for mega successes. Somehow, at the commercial TV network this wonder boy did not deliver the results (growth) they had hoped for.

They were using the same format as another TV personality with the state television, however instead of appealing to over a million viewers as was accredited to this TV personality in the past, they now got little over 300.000 viewers. This previously successful format flopped and the commercial network finally admitted there was something wrong with their ‘ perceived identity’. Did the commercial TV network check, if the format and the TV personality fit with its brand values, visions and vocations? Did it develop guidelines to define how TV formats should be like, according to their brand? Did it exhaust the full potential from within its brand DNA? Does its audience know what the TV network stands for? Does   its brand result from   a a market survey or the visions, values and vocations of the brand owners? Does it know what makes it a competitor? Answering   these questions will unlock their growth potential.

Needless to say that in a current economical context, failures are severely  punished by consumers. In fact the affected brand needs to invest double the efforts to regain leadership. The talent of the brand is questioned and the desired target group starts having second thoughts about that brand.

Often I have seen managers taking their previous successful ideas and applying them to other companies. Generally, I witnessed two scenarios. In case a company was strong enough and the staff very conscious about their brand DNA, the managers never survived their attempt to mutate that company.

When a company was weak, the mutation harmed it. This phenomenon is happening more and more often. Successful managers are attracted from outside to ‘turn around’ a brand or a company. The manager adopts his ‘proven’ methods, changing the identity of the company, based upon his/her previous experiences. Interestingly, most of them fail. They get fired and leave with their head held high, their pockets full, and the standard excuse ‘I cannot be blamed since I have proven at XYZ company that my approach works’.

Rejection

When Steve Jobs left Apple, the company fell into the trap of brand mutation as they started leaning more towards the competitors. At Apple, two effects occurred: rejection and weakening. They lost market share and the existing customers opposed the new approach. Even price dropping could not satisfy the customers. After Steve Jobs returned, Apple has consistently been true again to its brand DNA and subsequently recorded the strongest one year growth ever on NASDAQ.

What are you to do if your brand is not performing satisfactorily? First, go back to your brand DNA. Check and review  your values, visions and vocations and make sure that the elements composing your brand DNA are coherent and thus strong. Second, make sure your brand is converting the needs, both rational and emotional, of your target group. Third, make sure your brand converts these needs in a way only your brand can do in a consistent and coherent way. Finally, establish a two-way relationship with your target group and ask regularly how they experience their relationship with your brand.

My advice for brand owners: don’t use marketing to strengthen your brand. Brand Mutations simply don’t work. Spend more time and energy into getting to know your own brand better and make sure your brand DNA can be experienced in everything your company does.

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 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.

Expansion contrarily is not based on multiplication. What happens with expansion is that the original structure is blown up to an exponent of its original size. Molecules can increase their mass, however they cannot multiply. The increase in size is achieved by reducing the cohesion of the molecules.

In case of indiscriminate expansion, we see a self-fulfilling prophecy in action. If expansion was calculated from a company’s start, chances are that the expansion will be stable. However, in most cases expansion was not part of the original setup, but a decision along the journey.

Let’s look at the downside of expansion. Everything – and I mean everything, has a weak spot by principle (also a strong spot). With expansion one benefits from the strength in order to expand, though in the same time concentrating all the pressure and stress on the weak spot. The expansion will continue until the weak spot can no longer hold and the whole system collapses.

Biotic growth only occurs when the insufficiencies are nourished and strengthen. One cannot benefit from the strength. In fact the insufficiencies are slowing down the whole process immediately. From the very beginning the insufficiencies will have their affect on the growth expansion. Opposite to expansion, only by increasing the resistance growth will occur.

With expansion this is different. The size will increase despite the weak point, not slowing it down. If you don’t know what the critical point is, the collapse will be abrupt and final. Many companies don’t know what the critical point of their expansion is. As long as the expansion increases their size, benefiting from their strengths, they will continue the expansion, and obviously concentrating more stress on the weak points until total and final collapse.

Companies who adopt biotic growth will see gradual increase in size, leaving enough time to intervene and to strengthen the company from within.

The current economy has collapsed because of the indiscriminate expansion fever, concentrating all the stress of the expansion on the weakest point. The weakest point were the “toxic mortgages”. The collapse was structurally present and it was just a matter of time before the actual collapse kicked in. However I believe that the crisis in this proportion has been engaged by a series of expansion models depended on each other. With a chain of expansion models, once one system collapses, the pressure and stress on the other systems increases and the breaking point will induce collapse even more rapidly, like a domino.

No economic model is indestructible, nor the expansion nor biotic model. All systems have their weaknesses and if not taken into account, they will ultimately collapse. The biotic business model requires a totally different mindset in order to generate results. You must be a cultivator in order to generate growth. Only cultivators are successful in growth. Always identifying and nourishing what the company is most lacking of. In fact the biotic system only works by releasing the pressure from the weak points over and over again.

The current crisis has the benefit of confronting us with what didn’t work. Now there will be enough openness to consider other paradigms like biotic business growth. Indiscriminate expansion has led to indiscriminate collapse.

When you come to think of all this, is not more than come sense, simple wisdom. Though when it comes down to making more and more money, wisdom and common sense take a vacation.

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.

Not because this has become an issue now. It has always been an issue, since the beginning of marketing and advertising. Yet in times of prosperity, no one bothers. The crisis has melted the snow on top of garbage and now the garbage is exposed. However,

the garbage was always there. The market has lived for decades the story of ‘The Emperor’s Clothes’, being the crowd and not the boy who exposed the absurdity of the whole charade.

These last years I have been raising awareness about the outdated way advertisers and advertising agencies are practicing marketing.

Though I was never contradicted, discredited or ridiculized, most marketing managers and directors were more concerned about the needed paradigm shift in their companies than the lack of results they were getting from their conventional ways. It came as quite a surprise to discover how conservative the marketing world is. Most marketing managers don’t last long enough in one position to find out for themselves how irrational and arbitrary marketing has become.

The current crisis is forcing managers to evaluate and examine the methods, tools and process they have been adopting until now.

Marketeers now admit that there is a lack of holistic process to integrate sales and marketing; that there is a lack of KPI’s to measure the performance of advertising agencies; that there is a lack of correlation between marketing effort and its measurable success.

Finally, the crisis has destroyed the masks where many managers could hide behind. If things go great, why questions one’s approach?

Now, things don’t go great, they go really bad – and there is not a lot to hide behind. The real face of marketing and advertising is now starting to show.

The first key learning: we don’t need new solutions. We need a paradigm shift – the one managers have been avoiding for years.

Marketing has become so complex and out of touch with the customer that it only makes sense within the universe of marketing.

In the real world, a lot of what marketing has become, is unreal. Marketing has strayed from its original purpose. Instead of understanding the customer better and talking the language of the customer, it has become an instrument of arrogance for a lot of businesses. More Marketing intelligence has made marketeers more afraid of making mistakes due to the numerous variables they now have to take into account, instead of helping them make rational and wise choices.

The second key learning: whether we like it or not, the current crisis has pushed our faces in the cake called ‘reality’. Whether we like it or not, one cannot remain indifferent when facing a crisis. One will turn out better or worse – no status quo. A crisis forces everyone to reconsider its ways.

The third learning: It’s time for marketing to go back to basics. Let marketing (again) help marketeers make accurate choices to stimulate turnover and build brand equity. It is about time that companies adopt authenticity and use marketing as a tool to help customers make a conscious and informed decision for their brands.

Fourth learning: Marketing will never be the same again. This is not a passing fad. C-level executives are more and more demanding reliable and actionable forecasts and simulations of overall and detailed return on investment figures for any marketing, sales or communication spending before approving any budgets and expenditures.

Fifth learning: Marketing will never be the same again as a discipline. Marketing will no longer operate as an independent kingdom reining over sales and communication departments that execute its strategies. Marketing will take a pivotal role as integrator and facilitator for the sales and communication departments. Marketing will take the lead to understand and integrate in its strategies the input and feedback from Sales with regards to their customers. After all, Customer centric means listening to one’s customers and how they rate their experience as a customer – and who does that better than Sales? Sales will deliver 2 fundamental answers to Marketing: What kpi’s are not performing? Why are they not performing?

Marketing will equally play a pivotal role in facilitating the communication department. Based on the feedback from Sales and a holistic view of the customer life cycle, Marketing can instruct Communication what messages and actions the customers require to increase their bonding (love affair!) with the brand to ultimately become its ambassadors.

I believe that due to the crisis, real solutions are needed and that smart marketing will benefit from this crisis tremendously.