14

creating the total brand experience

Ultimately, everything—products, services, retail environment, corporate culture, frontline employees, marketing, and online presence—must come together to create the total brand experience.

Starbucks

Starbucks does this well. Not only is its product extraordinarily different from and better than a normal cup of coffee, but everything else the company does also adds to the brand experience. The stores feature carefully crafted, aesthetically coordinated components: the smell of fresh-brewed coffee, a wide variety of unusual blends, exotic names (Venti Mocha Frappuccino), fresh pastries, piped-in jazz, comfortable wing chairs, a fireplace (some stores), live music (some stores), functional but stylish lighting, sophisticated sign graphics, stylish merchandising, and so on.

Starbucks store designers must first work behind the counter for a while to better understand the in-store experience. And their employees (called “partners”) receive extensive brand and customer service training and stock options to ensure the quality of the customer experience in the store. Each employee receives a document called the Green Apron Book, a booklet that fits into the pocket of a barista’s green apron, filled with tips and insights about how “to provide an uplifting experience that enriches people’s daily lives.”¹ The company’s website devotes space to the history and mystique of coffee brewing. Starbucks delivers an affordable indulgent experience. Everything is designed to make you feel sophisticated in a warm and inviting way.² (Buy a cup of Starbucks coffee, and you are swept away from the ordinary for a while!)

I wrote the previous paragraphs for the first edition of this book. Since then, Starbucks has experienced a long period of rapid growth through new store openings, geographic expansion, new product development, and selling Starbucks products through new channels (including five airlines) and retail formats (including Express, which caters to the “grab and go” customer). This demontrates the problem of growing successful brands. Starbucks products are now available in environments in which the company can no longer control the brand experience. On an airline, for example, a passenger may get a cup of Starbucks coffee, but its preparation probably does not follow the company’s brewing guidelines—and it is served to a passenger in a cramped seat on a crowded plane, one of the least comfortable places anyone can imagine. Does this experience fit with the Starbucks brand? Certainly not. To continue on the growth trajectory, decisions are often made that detract from the intended brand experience.³ Is Starbucks still about that special “third place” experience, or is it now just another ubiquitous brand with mass appeal?

To answer this question, let’s look at an example provided by customer experience expert Marc Gobé in his book Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People. At one point in Starbucks’ history, the company’s financial managers determined that switching from two-ply to one-ply toilet paper in Starbucks’ bathrooms would save the company a significant sum of money annually. Despite the potential cost savings, however, senior management rejected the idea. Why? According to Gobé, “Because Starbucks promises a great coffee experience. And in order to do that, it takes more than a barista and a menu of coffee drinks that will make your head spin. It takes satisfaction at all touch-points.”⁴

The question, then, is how Starbucks can continue to create the total customer/brand experience now that it has become the largest coffee shop company in the world. With competing brands like Peet’s, Caribou, and Boulder Coffee taking market share away from the coffee behemoth and independent coffee shops appearing in many markets, Starbucks has to work harder than ever to preserve the emotional connection with its customers that made the company the leader it is today.

Saturn

Saturn has not only lost its way; it has gone out of business. Saturn was a company where people carefully thought through the total brand experience. The carmaker extensively reengineered its operations to radically alter the consumer car purchase experience, calling itself a “different kind of (car) company.” To make the promise of “salespeople as friends” real, Saturn not only established a “no haggle” pricing policy; it also put in place certain practices to ensure that salespeople would adhere to that policy:⁵

• Restructured compensation packages that emphasized salary over sales commission

• Selling Saturn dealerships in groups by region to eliminate the incentive to use price discounting to pull business away from the Saturn dealership “down the road”

• Extensive salesperson training, with emphasis on commitment to customers’ needs and one another’s success

• Communicating the approach to external audiences

One of the brand managers who worked for me at Hallmark had previously worked on the Saturn brand. He confided in me that after Saturn had become successful, GM dismantled its separate structure and approach to manage it centrally, as GM did its other divisions. The brand was highly successful but the organization’s leadership and the United Automobile Workers ultimately did not allow it to live as a different kind of company and “a different kind of car.”

Ten Thousand Waves

Ten Thousand Waves, a spa in Santa Fe, is a case study in creating sensory experience. From its hillside setting, carefully designed layout, architecture, interior design, landscaping, use of water and gardens, fragrant trees, outdoor lanterns, shampoo (scented with real cedar), hand soap (scented with real coconut), in-room fireplaces, hot tubs, and massage sessions, it addresses every human sense in a very sensual and spiritual way.

Ritz-Carlton

Imagine telling your employees that they each had $2,000 to spend on making any customer service issue right—not $2,000 per year, but that much money per incident. For the employees of Ritz-Carlton, this liberty is more than company policy; it’s a way of life.

Ritz-Carlton built its reputation by choosing the most desirable locations and investing as much as $1 million per hotel room to create the most comfortable customer experience, but it maintains its position as one of the world’s most respected and admired hotel brands through its approach to customer service. The company states its philosophy in a single idea: “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” This brand promise instantly creates a sense of well-being and luxury as guests arrive at any Ritz-Carlton hotel—a knowledge that they will be treated not only with respect, but with attention to their needs as honored guests of a well-run establishment.

Every day, every department begins each shift with a fifteen-minute “lineup,” in which all employees participate. During the lineup, the manager shares a “wow” story, a tale of one or more of the great things the ladies and gentlemen have done for their guests. This gets every employee on the same page, working toward customer satisfaction by creating an exemplary experience for every guest.

“There are stories about hiring a carpenter to build a shoe tree for a guest; a laundry manager who couldn’t get the stain out of a dress after trying twice flying up from Puerto Rico to New York to return the dress personally; or when in Dubai a waiter overhead a gentleman musing with his wife, who was in a wheelchair, that it was a shame he couldn’t get her down to the beach. The waiter told maintenance, who passed word, and the next afternoon there was a wooden walkway down the beach to a tent that was set up for them to have dinner in,” said Simon Cooper, then CEO of Ritz-Carlton, in an interview with Forbes magazine. “That’s not out of the ordinary, and the general manager didn’t know about it until it was built.”⁶

It may seem that the hotel company’s growth would be limited by the number of hotels it can build in prime locations around the world, but Ritz-Carlton determined that it was not a hotel brand—it’s a lifestyle brand. “Whether you are spending a night, spending a week, buying five weeks of fractional ownership, or buying a lifetime in the Ritz-Carlton with Ritz-Carlton Residence, we feel that we represent lifestyle, that we have moved beyond being just a hotel company,” said Cooper.⁷ He went on to note that more than 3,000 people have bought into residences at the rate of several million dollars each, making an extraordinary demonstration of their loyalty to a brand that never disappoints them.

Automobile Manufacturers

Automobile manufacturers have gotten much better at creating the total brand experience, from the product to the purchase experience. Automobile designers now consider such factors as ergonomics; textures; the propensity of fabrics and other surfaces to maintain comfortable temperatures throughout the year; the “feel” of knobs, buttons, and other controls; the look of the car itself (consider the Kia Soul, the updated VW Beetle, or the FIAT 500); minimization of road noises; quality of stereo systems and radio reception; road handling; and responsiveness to controls. I test-drove a Tesla Motors Model S. Its advanced tecnology takes the driving experience to a whole new level with features such as remembering each driver’s mirror and seat adjustments and providing regenerative braking, steering, and suspension options to make the car feel more like a Mercedes-Benz, Range Rover, or BMW in its road handling, depending on the driver’s preference. The process of buying a car has changed significantly as well, in part because of the example set by Saturn and slowly adopted by many other manufacturers.

Musical Groups

Consider another example—musical groups as brands. Have you ever attended a concert that you will never forget? Was the music powerful? Did it speak to you in a way that is difficult to describe? Did the group establish a rapport with the audience that made everything feel completely in sync? Did you find that you could not help but move to the rhythm of the beat? Was the show multisensory? Did they use lights and other special effects? Did their music evoke strong emotions? Did their music make you think about things differently? Did you completely lose track of time? Did you not want the concert to end? What if your brand could accomplish some of these same ends?

Creating the Optimal Brand Experience

How do you create an optimal brand experience? First, ask the following questions:

• Will the experience impact all of the human senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch?

• How will the experience make people feel?

• Will people want to linger with your brand’s products and services?

• Will people want to use the brand often? Will they want to return frequently (for applicable product/service categories)? Will they look forward to using the brand’s products and services again?

• Does your brand reinforce something about who your customers are?

• Does your brand have a strong “point of view”? Does it stand for something? Is it clear what it cares about?

• Is your brand exciting, soothing, exhilarating, fun, comforting, relaxing, stimulating, centering, calming, rejuvenating?

• Will your brand conjure up images in your customers’ minds? Will it evoke memories?

• Will your brand have the power to take people to “a different place”? Can it put them “in a different state of mind”? Will it have the power to change their mood?

• Will your brand make people feel as though they belong to something important or good or newsworthy?

Use the process, shown in Figure 14–1, as a guide in designing a total brand experience.

Crisis Management

Although all organizations intend to create the best possible customer experiences, occasionally something real or perceived happens that produces just the opposite effect: a crisis. Every brand will experience a crisis at one time or another. The hallmark of a strong brand is how well it handles those crises.

The crisis could come as a result of something the company does (such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico—more on this in a moment) or something that is foisted upon it (rumors that McDonald’s hamburgers are made of worms). But, when a crisis occurs, it is time to enact a well-rehearsed crisis management plan.

So, think about a crisis management plan now (hopefully, long before any actual crisis), and begin with the following considerations:

• Steadily and consistently build brand goodwill over time.

• Identify and address potential problem areas ahead of any actual crises.

• Have a well-thought-through crisis (or emergency response) plan, including scenarios, step-by-step instructions on how to best address each scenario, approved spokespeople, contact information, and key communication documents (e.g., fact sheets, backgrounders, press releases, bios).

• Work with crisis management experts and your legal staff in developing those plans.

• Conduct crisis management drills at least once a year.

• Conduct a crisis vulnerability audit.

• During the crisis itself, follow these general rules:

- Follow your crisis plan.

- Identify your spokespeople.

- Respond quickly.

- Be honest. Don’t deny or cover up things; ultimately, they will be exposed.

- Accept responsibility as appropriate.

- Share as much information as is possible and prudent.

- Let people know what you are doing to manage the situation.

- Show concern for those affected.

- Let people know what you are doing to help people who are negatively impacted.

- Explain what you are doing to cooperate with the authorities.

- Let people know if neighbors or others are in danger and what they can do about it.

- Provide the media with telephone and Internet access and the other tools that they need to perform their jobs.

- Provide frequent updates to keep the communication lines open.

- Act with integrity, reinforcing the brand’s personality.

If not handled well, a crisis can undo years of brand equity building. According to Bob Roemer—who was then responsible for BP-Amoco’s public and government affairs worldwide emergency response capabilities—the key to effective crisis management is to offer maximum information with minimum delay. If you don’t have a well-rehearsed plan, you should work with your public affairs department and a PR agency to develop one.

When Russian authorities blocked USA Team sponsor Chobani from delivering 5,000 cups of Chobani Greek yogurt to U.S. Olympic athletes and newscasters in Sochi due to Russia’s 3-year-old embargo of U.S. dairy products, it became a significant news item in the global press. Chobani received more free publicity when Stephen Colbert mocked the “yogurt blockade” on his television show. As an alternative, Chobani donated the yogurt to food banks in New York and New Jersey, further transforming a minor crisis into a brand building opportunity.

Making and Keeping Brand Promises

Brands make promises and then they must keep those promises. Making the promise is easy. Keeping it is the hard part. One can make a promise with words. But it can only be kept through actions. Consider BP repositioning itself as an environmentally friendly brand with the “Beyond Petroleum” slogan and the bright yellow-and-green sunburst icon. BP supported this rebranding with a $200 million public relations advertising campaign designed by Ogilvy & Mather. It worked well until the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. Then other actions came to light, like the environmentally controversial oil sands project in Alberta, Canada, and a near-identical oil rig blow-out in BP’s Caspian Sea platform two years before the Gulf of Mexico blow-out, which BP had been able to successfully cover up. Both disasters were caused by the same cost-saving technique of plugging holes with quick-dry cement, among other factors that favored cost reduction over environmental safety.⁸

A brand’s marketing department, often assisted by marketing agencies, can help a brand craft its promise, but who is going to make sure the promise is believable and sustainable with real proof points? Who is going to make sure that the organization can authentically deliver against the promise?

This is why the brand’s promise must be crafted at the most senior level of its organization. Delivering on the promise requires alignment with the organization’s mission, vision, and business plans. It will affect the allocation of resources including capital expenditures. To deliver on the “Beyond Petroleum” promise, BP needed to invest significantly in alternative energy sources including R&D spending in that area, and it needed to implement tighter environmental standards and controls not only for its own operations, but also for all of its subcontractors. These are not marketing manager decisions. These are CEO decisions.

When we conduct brand positioning workshops for organization brands, we include the organization’s CEO (or equivalent) and the CEO’s staff, including the CMO. Why? Because this is a strategic exercise that will require total organizational alignment and support. A marketing manager cannot guarantee this alignment. And an external marketing agency certainly cannot guarantee it.

Remember, the most important part of a brand’s promise is not the making of the promise, but rather the keeping of the promise. Make sure your brand is able to do that.

Use the checklist in Figure 14–2 to assess the efficacy of your brand management practices in the area covered by this chapter. The more questions to which you can answer “yes,” the better you are doing. The checklist also provides a brief summary of the material covered in the chapter.