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CHAPTER FOUR

Looks Do Count (Because People Really Do Judge a Book by Its Cover)

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Chapter Overview

When your customers look at you, what do they see? It might be the product on the shelf. It might be the smile (or grimace) of the salesperson in the store. It might be the time it takes to receive an online delivery. It might be the fabric you use in your clothes or the ingredients you use in your foods. It might be the way you respond to congratulations or complaints.

In other words, when your customers look at you, they might see almost anything. You need to understand this, and you need to take it seriously. Because, as we all know, first impressions last. Every encounter with your customers is an opportunity for you to be seen in the best possible light.

Don’t hide away. In this digital age, you will be found eventually. Be honest, open, and transparent. Be prepared to show your face, body, and soul.

Headline: Visual Appearance Matters—And So Do Core Values

What you look like really matters. But it’s not just the surface, the cover, that your customers see when they look your way. With one glance, they can read you. Your visual appearance—your face to the world—should precisely match your vision and your values. If your façade is fake, then you are doomed.

In this chapter, we look at two companies that have developed a distinctive style and a set of matching core values. The first is Brunello Cucinelli, an upmarket Italian apparel retailer that produces elegant, casual, handcrafted clothing that is reassuringly expensive. In certain circles, people “know” if you’re wearing a Cucinelli item. They don’t need to see a logo. And the brand says something about you: wealthy, dignified, thoughtful, and desirable.

The second company is Disney. It did, of course, invent the modern animated cartoon film. It knows everything there is to know about the power of the image. Here, however, we tell the story of its theme parks. They have to have all the hallmarks of a Disney film: entertaining, magical, and filled with family fun. And they do.

As we’ll show, this unity of the visuals and the values requires constant vigilance. It doesn’t just happen. It takes imagination and hard work. Develop a humanist approach, one that cherishes emotional connection. Devise a “magnetized” supply chain that links your customers, employees, and suppliers. Display a perfectionist’s attention to detail.

Brunello Cucinelli

When first-time visitors arrive at the headquarters of fashion house Brunello Cucinelli, they are met at the top of a meticulously renovated fourteenth-century castle. The castle is in Solomeo, in the province of Perugia, in central Italy’s Umbria region. The view from the top is spectacular: on a clear summer day, you can see for miles. In the distance, there are fields of cypress trees, sunflowers, grapevines, and olive trees. The castle contains the founding offices of the company, new classrooms for interns, a 200-seat theater, an outdoor amphitheater, and a commercial shop that sells goods to the public. It feels as if a modern-day Medici has created a stunning and painstaking renovation to celebrate history, culture, and spirit.

From the very first view, Cucinelli comes across as a company with a different alignment of values and priorities. Its founder, Brunello Cucinelli, is a philosopher, historian, and humanist. “What I do in life, I do for the dignity of humanity,” he told us, sitting in his pure white, modern office. He calls his company a humanistic enterprise, “a web of human relations woven not exclusively for profit but for man.”

He is a picture from central casting for a trendsetter. On the day of our visit, he was dressed in distinctive Cucinelli clothing: a white shirt with a skinny gray tie; short, hip-hugging cargo pants; and half boots. He had a perfectly grown two-day stubble on his face. He presented a living image of casual sartorial precision. For three hours, he gestured and smiled, laughed and held court, while talking about his favorite topic: his “dream for man—ethics, morality, dignity, the role of business in creating a better world.”

His office is decorated like the set of a movie. Light pours in through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. The temperature outside is in the high eighties, but the office is cool, and a pin could drop and be heard in the quiet. You can see his books, the pictures of his heroes, and his affinity for soccer. You can see the central importance of cashmere. There is colored cashmere in vases on his walls—reds, yellows, purples, and greens. It is an office that speaks; the books and the cashmere are the source materials that inspire him.

At age 17, Cucinelli met his wife, Federica, a beauty from Solomeo, a short distance from his home in Perugia. She worked at a clothing shop that sold sweaters. While they were dating, he read an article by Ted Levitt, a Harvard professor and marketing whiz. He took from Levitt four principles:¹

1. Focus on the customer.

2. Deliver quality, craftsmanship, creativity, and flair.

3. Concentrate and focus on category expertise.

4. Globalize.

He started his company when he was 25 years old. He was penniless. But he had 20 kilos of borrowed cashmere, friends and skilled artisans in his hometown, and a drive to create a humanistic enterprise. Following the lessons from Levitt, he focused on the consumer, targeting the most affluent and least price-sensitive customers. He gravitated toward Austrian and German customers who paid promptly, enabling him to grow quickly without taking on any debt. Also, he came to realize that goods sold on Italian high streets were often purchased by American and other tourists on holiday. At the same time, he imagined perfect-quality products based on better materials, better fabrication, and better display. He chose cashmere sweaters as his “best-at” category.

The late 1970s and early 1980s were the glory years for Benetton, the much larger Italian clothing company known for its vibrant wool sweaters. Cucinelli applied the same color principles to cashmere sweaters, dying the finished goods wild and vivid reds, oranges, purples, and many other shades. At the time, cashmere was in short supply and a very exclusive material.

Cucinelli converted the 20 kilos of cashmere into 70 sweaters and sold them for $180 each. Since then, the company has been on a roll. Its exclusive, casual-chic merchandise has appealed to wealthy customers in New York, Milan, Rome, Tokyo, Paris, London, and Munich. Repeat customers will sweep into one of the luxury boutiques and buy a single complete look, from head to toe, for up to $10,000 per outfit.

Sales through the company’s approximately 100 monobrand stores are humming, with like-for-like sales growing more than 5 percent per year. Also, the goods are sold in major high-end department stores, including Neiman Marcus, Saks, Barneys, Bergdorf, and Harrods. In 2015, the company will sell more than $450 million in merchandise, with almost equal amounts being sold in North America and Europe (not including Italy), followed by Italy and a smaller amount in Asia.

The goods are styled for everyday elegance. They are sporty and high-tech. Cardigan sweaters go for $1,785. Crewnecks are $1,215. Linen suits are $3,345. A simple dress is $1,350. The products are designed to be worn in layers—the fabrics are lightweight, and the colors are soft, with a fashion feel. For the man or woman with resources, it is a style of dress that provides appropriate attire in all circumstances. The products are two-thirds women’s and one-third men’s; 85 percent is apparel.

Cucinelli cashmere is very fine fiber—14 to 15 microns. It is obtained from goats at a rate of 250 grams of “under-down” per year per goat. The Mongolian shepherds remove the fiber by combing the goat. There are no razor cuts, and no harm is done to the animals. The fiber is processed in nearby independently owned workshops.

The cashmere thread is central to the look and the values of Cucinelli’s brand. The secrets of this brand consist of (1) better raw material, (2) exclusive design, (3) color coordination and outfit selection, (4) comfort, (5) a defined look and feel, (6) exclusivity, (7) authenticity, and (8) the backstory about the founder and the company’s origin.

Headline: Branding Doesn’t Mean a Logo on Every Item, but Rather a Distinctive Look

Cucinelli clothing has a definite look. It is identifiable without a logo. It has a distinctive slim, contemporary silhouette. It has a distinctive fabric.

It is created by Italy’s finest artisan craftsmen. Cucinelli’s hometown of Perugia is a hotbed of craft apparel, with thousands of small enterprises supporting elements of apparel production—fabric, cutting, fabrication, and quality control. From the start, Cucinelli took advantage of the natural supply chain and the skill of local craftsmen. By using them, he was capitalizing on 100 years of local know-how and design.

Designers merchandise the goods down to the last detail, laying out complete outfits—sweater, slacks, shoes, jacket, handbag, and display accessories. Visual merchandising is a prized skill at the company, and enormous amounts of resources are devoted to presentation. The result is more than a dressed mannequin; it is a lifestyle—aristocratic, casual, elegant Italian.

There is a long lead time for product development. The fall/winter collection is presented in January (men’s) and February (women’s), and work on the product begins a year earlier. Total elapsed time from “creation” to “sold to customer” is as much as six to eight months. The cashmere is sourced from Mongolia and China through Italian suppliers, notably Cariaggi Lanificio. Textiles come from Ermenegildo Zegna, Loro Piana, and other important Italian suppliers. Leather goods are provided exclusively by Italian tanners. Cucinelli uses 300 certified local artisanal laboratories, 80 percent of which are in Umbria, with the remainder being in the nearby Tuscany, Marche, and Veneto regions. The whole production process is subjected to a very intricate quality surveillance—from the yarn to the sewing, the finishing, the washing, the ironing, the final assembly, the delivery, and ultimately the “try-on.”

The associated advertising, which amounted to 5.5 percent of revenues in 2013, is subtle and focuses on dramatic print ads. These have often included the handsome Cucinelli, his beautiful wife, Federica, and their now adult daughters. At the company’s headquarters, there is a massive framed reproduction of an ad shot taken in a forest of cypress trees, with 100 tables set for 400 of the company workers. All the workers are dressed in Cucinelli clothing and accessories. It is a party that stretches far into the distance. It represents the infinity of the brand.

As well as through advertising, Cucinelli is careful to burnish his brand through newspapers and magazines. He is not media shy. In his office, there are reproductions of major articles that have appeared in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Le Monde, and other major business and popular outlets.

But if traditional marketing is important, customer advocacy is more important. The brand has really grown by word of mouth. Consumers see high-quality fabric and contemporary design and say that it’s a demonstration of their taste, affluence, and style.

We first became intrigued by the brand at a dinner party two years ago. A fellow guest leaned over and, with no real warning or introduction, commanded, “Touch my sleeve.” We had just met the woman. Her sleeve was certainly soft. We learned that her name was Joy, and she was a Cucinelli apostle. “I discovered the brand on a trip to Italy 10 years ago. It was my secret until very recently. My Cucinelli sweaters are my pride and joy. I have 10 of them. They are soft luxury. I love the way they feel on my skin. But I have come to appreciate the skirts, the jackets, and the accessories. They are perfect for me.”

Joy said that she had introduced her 10 best friends to the brand. She takes them to the Cucinelli boutique around the corner from Chicago’s tony Oak Street shopping mecca or the store within a store in Saks on Michigan Avenue. “I prefer the boutique. I know the manager. He’s a real Italian,” she whispered.

“When I was married, my husband thought I was a nut to spend $1,500 on a sweater. He is no longer with me. But since we split, I took ‘his’ drawers in our dresser for my Cucinelli additions,” she chuckled.

This 45-year-old marketing executive is not alone. Cucinelli says he receives letters and e-mails from many customers who want exclusivity and originality. Also, they don’t want him to change a thing. “Don’t grow, don’t wear me out,” they say.

The investors say this, too. In 2012, Cucinelli’s IPO was oversubscribed more than 17 times, and its list of investors is a Who’s Who, including Fidelity, Capital World Investors, BlackRock, and Zegna, an Italian luxury fashion house. The IPO was a source of capital for growth, but it did not signal a change in philosophy. Cucinelli says that his investors have told him “not to change anything about his strategy and to continue to seek a gracious growth in turnover and profit.” After the IPO, Cucinelli retained 61.1 percent of the equity, which is now in a family trust and worth about $1 billion.²

Headline: Create a Humanistic Organization—Your “Look” Is About Your Values as Well as Your Visuals

“Economic value is nothing without human value,” says Cucinelli. “I guide a humanistic enterprise.”

As he talks, he draws on sheets of paper. He speaks some English, but he prefers to tell his story in Italian “to get the words right and precise.” His face is animated, and he talks quickly. He fires off long phrases, and his interpreter can barely keep up. He pauses only between major thoughts and when he fumbles to put out a fresh sheet of paper to fully capture the story. It is like a fable, and he has certainly told it before.

In staccato, he tells his story of humanistic capitalism. It is built on an understanding of Marx, the socialist paralysis in Italy, and the harsh business world of the West. He likes to quote Marcus Aurelius, the last of the five “good” Roman emperors. In his meditations, Aurelius is the stoic philosopher who believes in service, duty, and everlasting trust. “We try to live by his words and acts every day,” Cucinelli says. “We are helping to create a new form of ethical capitalism, a celebration of human dignity. We strive to produce without harming mankind. We would like to produce products that our customers never throw away. They pass them on to their children.”

Cucinelli’s approach to business was formed during his childhood. He grew up the son of a poor farmer and in a family of hard workers and sharecroppers. Yet he describes his early childhood as “heaven on earth.” As he explains: “We had nothing, and yet we were so happy. I lived with 12 immediate family members, and with 14 other family members in nearby homes. There was no mechanization, no running water, and no electricity. But we had fresh food and love. You could smell the fruit of the earth. There was never a harsh word at home.”

He does not consider himself the owner of his company. “I feel like the guardian. I aim to leave the company in a strong position. My job is to safeguard and embellish this small part of the world. We built the theater at the top of the mountain, for example, to be usable in 300 years.” In financial terms, he is targeting “gracious,” predictable, steady growth at 10 percent per year, as well as a fair profit.

Cucinelli applied his “humanistic capital” principles to his operation from the very beginning. He says, “Treat workers with dignity; provide craftsmen with a work environment of light, beauty, and safety; pay a living wage; encourage creativity and inspiration.” Today, several people from the village (which has 500 inhabitants) work in the company and enjoy his €3.20 daily lunch, focused workday, investment in community art and sports projects, and investment in local renovation.

For employees, he is a dream employer, paying an estimated 20 percent higher wages and giving each craft worker a light-filled work space in which to design. His office complex, which has now expanded beyond the castle, has wall-sized windows, fountains, sculpted gardens, and visually stunning architecture. Also, he has established an Ethics Committee to “ensure that human values take first place in the life of the company.”

This does not mean that he is a soft touch. “Like my great teacher Saint Benedict said: try to be rigorous and kind, a demanding teacher and a loving father.” He is nicknamed “the German” because of his very structured, disciplined approach to work. The work schedule is the same for everyone: from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. No one works past this hour. The employee cafeteria is a bright, modern room, with long tables that comfortably seat 12 to 16 people family style. On each table is a bowl of fruit and flowers. Waiters and waitresses bring out an appetizer course—risotto and vegetables on the day of our visit, with fresh bread and the limited-quantity Brunello-branded olive oil. A mixed salad with tomatoes is also provided. This is followed by veal and mushrooms. A light apricot pastry is served as dessert. To finish, there is rich Italian coffee. Many of the employees cluster outside after lunch before returning to work.

Cucinelli has around 1,300 employees. He also has 3,500 artisan partners. He has established a network of local suppliers—fabric houses, fabricators, designers—who are loyal to him on the basis of personal relationships and the longevity of their commercial relationships.

Today, the humanist enterprise, founded on secure relationships with both employees and suppliers, allows Cucinelli to deliver superior goods, to be a first mover in innovation, and to produce “Made in Italy” clothing for the United States, Europe, Japan, China, and Russia.

Headline: The Apostle Interview: The Customer Who Spends $100,000 a Year on Clothing

Faye is a very affluent 57-year-old who lives in Toronto and maintains a pied-à-terre on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Her husband is a private-equity investor who has done a dozen transactions over the past 20 years. Faye used to work full time on computer outsourcing projects for major companies. Today, she lives the high life: lots of travel, time spent on the family foundation, and entertaining friends at either of their homes—a beautifully landscaped mansion in Rosedale and her three-bedroom terraced apartment in New York.³

She can afford to spend—and really does spend—$100,000 a year on her personal apparel.

Her favorite brand is Brunello Cucinelli. “I discovered Brunello during a trip to Italy. The fabrics are soft, the styling is fashionable and modest, and the service in the stores is superb. I never have to think twice about what to wear and how I will feel when I put on one of my Brunello outfits,” she says.

Faye has an extensive wardrobe in her 10-by-12-foot closet, where items are lined up by style, wearing occasion, and days of the week. The closet is not completely full, but the clothing is abundant. Her fall and winter wardrobe is 50 percent Cucinelli. No other retailer has more than two or three items in her closet. Her collection is split 30 percent casual, 30 percent wear-to-work, and 40 percent dressy evening clothing.

When we met her, her most recent purchases from Cucinelli were a dress, a coat, a pair of dressy slacks, and snow boots. The ticket was well over $5,000. “I love his clothing. I like the styling. It has a European edge. It is not matronly. And it lasts. I have things that I bought five years ago and still wear frequently,” Faye told us. When items go stale for her, she gives them to friends or places them in charity used-clothing stores.

She doesn’t just like the visuals. She likes the values, too. “I am very attracted to the story of how he takes care of his village, how he takes care of his workers. It is so different from the clothing companies that exploit workers in Bangladesh.”

“I’ve never met him. But last year there was a lunch in the New York store where Cucinelli Skyped in to talk to his ‘best customers,’” she enthused. “He was so impressive. He has such passion for what he does. It is not simply about making money. He is a community man, and so committed. It makes it easy to support him and them.”

In her view, Cucinelli products have many technical advantages. “They use the finest-quality cashmere and silk. [There’s] a feeling of luxury. [I like the] light fabrics. [They’re] always appropriate.” Also, she points to some emotional advantages. The clothing “gives a great deal of pleasure,” she says. She “always [feels] well dressed without being indulgent.”

She likes the fact that the clothing is exclusive. “Brunello is styled younger. But 28-year-olds can’t afford it.” But she’s not altogether uncritical. “The colors are muted, which is both a positive and a negative. For anything beige, navy, even white, Brunello can’t be beaten. But there is not enough bright, vibrant color.”

However, the emphasis on browns, grays, and black is a conscious choice, reflecting the fact that Cucinelli products have been transformed since their inception. He used to favor vivid pastel colors. But not anymore.

Faye has recommended the brand to many friends. “I don’t think the company does much advertising,” she says. “So I am their advertisement. I tell my friends the salespeople are amazing, so wonderful to work with. They make you feel comfortable. They are not like other luxury stores. They are very friendly and down to earth.”

Headline: Lessons from Brunello Cucinelli

Cucinelli started his company without capital and without a formal plan. For its first 12 years, the company was a specialist, concentrating on colored cashmere and creative products that were of top-notch quality. Now, the men’s and women’s collections offer a complete and total look. In 2013, to support the production of high-quality menswear garments, Cucinelli acquired the production assets of D’Avenza, the menswear business famous for tailored suits worn by Winston Churchill, Marcello Mastroianni, and Marlon Brando. Cucinelli considers tailored men’s clothing a growth business, requiring specialized production skills and experience. He vows to innovate in this category and bring a new sensibility to the world of the office.

Today, Cucinelli’s products are highly prized. The biannual collections, manufactured in limited quantities, are extremely sought after. A disproportionate percentage of the goods sells at the full retail markup. Cucinelli himself knows that he needs an increasingly global footprint in order to keep growing, as Ted Levitt’s article made clear all those years ago. But he is not worried. After 35 years, he believes that his enterprise has a bright future. “We live in a world with opportunity,” he says. “We are a specialist firm creating heritage products by craftsmen. Our customers appreciate the skill, the workmanship, the style, the innovation. No one has ever told me our products are too expensive. They have told me they wish they were less expensive so they could buy more. We offer the highest-quality creative product. We are a lifestyle Italian company. We make some of the world’s most beautiful goods. We are entering a golden century. We are moving to a world where high quality, craftsmanship, exclusivity, and recognition are valued. We can do this in an environment of dignity, trust, and respect.”

He sees his primary advantage as coming from brand identity, product quality, modern style, a “total look” product range, know-how on sourcing from Italian artisan firms, selective distribution, and geographical breadth. He vows to innovate on raw materials, sartorial skill, the expansion of sales, and the diversity of his products “as long as we remain who we are, inspire creativity, deliver luxury and elegance, satisfy the needs of our customer, and maintain exclusivity and elegance.”

In what Cucinelli calls a $300 billion luxury-global-apparel industry, his company stands out as a young aristocrat with a conscience. He inspires with design, reduces the time it takes customers to look great by providing full outfits, and delivers magical in-store presentations. He has set his sights on providing all kinds of goods—from clothing to accessories to home items. He has built a company on rules of conduct and interaction that inspire loyalty and aspiration. He, personally, is the brand.

The Walt Disney Company

Walt Disney was a Missouri farm boy who moved to Hollywood in 1923 and founded Disney Studios with his brother. He was the first imagineer and the creative force behind the company until his death in 1966. Disney introduced the first synchronized cartoon short; the first licensing of the Mickey Mouse image for a pencil case; and the first full-color, full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He developed the first amusement park that was “amusing, clean, and offered something even for Daddy.” Today Disney is a company with a market capitalization of $154 billion.⁴ His original business has been parlayed into a total entertainment-and-product company with a vast empire that includes television, movies, parks, consumer products, and services.

The house that Walt built was expanded by Michael Eisner, whose successor as chairman and CEO was Bob Iger, head of ABC. Iger added a new extension in the form of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucas films and brought about a global expansion, with billions of dollars invested around the world, particularly in Shanghai. We will not try to recount all the successes of this great company. What we want to focus on is how the core brand has maintained its vitality in the eyes of consumers. In a world that suffers from attention deficit disorder, Disney maintains its rank as a brand for youthfulness at all ages. It is a brand built around storytelling, smiles, shared experiences, and love. Walt planted the flag for Disneyland in 1955. Employees and investors viewed it as a bet-the-company move. Walt Disney believed that it was a sure bet. He knew it was the translation vehicle for immortality and high profitability.

Consumers are fanatical about the Disney brand. Disney does five things brilliantly. First, it pays extraordinary attention to detail—design, layout, cleanliness, training, and visual appeal. Second, it has multiple touchpoints through the media, parks, and merchandise. Third, it is engaging and has something for everyone, from toddler to grandmother. Fourth, it is a master storyteller—the narrative of fantasy helps consumers escape reality. Fifth, it is always at the forefront of experiential innovation. It polices the brand and defines the rules of behavior from the top.

No detail is left to chance. Workers at the parks are called cast members. They have extensive training and rehearsals. “The set,” or the park, delivers the action, mood lighting, stimulating colors, and a cacophony of sound and feel. The operating teams at the Magic Kingdom are the directors and producers who measure, design, and reinvent. At the entrance to Disneyland, you see these words: “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.” This Magic Kingdom is created around eight themed “lands”: Main Street USA, Tomorrowland, Mickey’s Toontown, Frontierland, Critter Country, New Orleans Square, Adventureland, and Fantasyland.⁵ As we have observed, guests are excited, enraptured, and enthralled. Each themed land uses stage sets and lines of trees to keep guests in the fantasy, blocking out reality. The ubiquitous cast members are there to help guests and to answer any and all questions about the park and the characters.

Disney clones all the salient elements of a brand. It is distinctive, innovative, and emotionally compelling. It delivers a harmony of history and aspiration for consumers and “cast members.” The company works as hard as any to achieve perfection at the moment of truth.

When you enter the park, you see the Magic Kingdom, with its wide streets and distinctive appearance. From the Main Street candy store, you smell the aroma of vanilla. From the popcorn vendors, you smell the popcorn. You hear the themed music from speakers hidden in the trees. And you can taste food customized for each of the eight themed lands.

For employees, learning the “Disney Way” takes three to five full days of training. That training has become so ubiquitous that the Disney Institute offers companies a training course. The “10 principles” emphasize warmth, teamwork, connections, and creativity. You can see all this in the results. Disney’s theme parks in Florida, Japan, California, and France account for 92 percent of annual attendance for top parks in the world.⁶ The company has eight “billion-dollar” consumer products franchises: Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Monsters, Star Wars, Spiderman, Cars, Disney Junior, and Princess.⁷

Headline: Be an Imagineer: Create Your Corporate Narrative and Bring It to Life

There is nothing imaginary about the imagineers who bring all this to life. They are for real. They are gifted artists, engineers, designers, architects, and inventors. They think big. A full new addition to a Disney theme park starts at $1 billion. A major ride, with motion, sound, story, staging, and waiting area, can easily carry a $100 million to $200 million price tag. These installations take five years or more to invent, design, build, test, and refine.

“I am … awed by the tremendous creativity and commitment of the men and women who make up The Walt Disney Company. As always, our thousands of cast members and employees around the world continued to go beyond the expected to achieve the extraordinary for our consumer, our guests,” wrote Iger in his 2014 letter to shareholders.⁸

Disney World is built on 25,000 acres. It contains the theme parks, 18 resort hotels with 24,000 rooms, and camping and recreational areas. The parks—Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom—capture consumers. The Orlando property opened in 1971. Epcot was added in 1982. Hollywood Studios came in 1989, ESPN Wide World of Sports in 1997, and Animal Kingdom in 1998.

A Shanghai Disney resort on 1,000 prime acres is planned for 2016. Also, there is speculation that the Star Wars enterprise, bought from George Lucas for $4 billion, will result in a new major addition to the theme parks—and possibly a park of its own. Mickey Mouse and the other Disney characters will be joined by Darth Vader, Yoda, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca, and Han Solo.

This park will probably take its story line from the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, and so will not evoke haunting memories in baby boomers. It will attempt to captivate millennial consumers with new characters like Rey. And it will certainly go beyond the simulator ride and Jedi Training Academy at the Disney parks today. Also, Disney is rumored to be planning a Star Wars–themed hotel.

The Star Wars venture is all part of the Disney approach to staying current and looking fresh. Disney makes older characters come alive in new venues and creates new characters with a multitude of licensing potential. And, of course, if the Star Wars concept does land at Disney World, it will lead to an incremental rise in the number of visitors paying for day admissions, lodging, food, and souvenirs. And that translates into an annuity valued in the billions of dollars. It makes the $4 billion price Disney paid Lucas look like a bargain.

Headline: How Consumers See the Disney Brand

In our brand-ranking survey, Disney is ranked highest on “wholesomeness,” “family favorites,” “always [having] something new,” “clean,” “exciting,” “quality,” and “tradition.” Adult advocates say that Disney makes them happy—they feel like a great mom or dad. They feel that the experience is easy and worry-free, and fills them with a sense of youth, comfort, and calm. As one survey participant put it, Disney delivers “amazing customer service.” This customer added: “They really do everything right. From the parks to the hotel rooms, from the vacation packages and other merchandise—Disney does it best.”⁹

“I love everything the brand stands for and its rich history. It is everything that is good in the world,” said another consumer. “It makes sure your every need is met to make your Disney experience as magical as can be. It brings back childhood memories and continues to create magical content.”

“Disney means the world to me,” yet another consumer said. “It is a huge part of my life. It represents love and family. Disney means family fun times that are memorable. Wholesome, rated-G entertainment that is good for the whole family with nothing embarrassing popping up. Families can bond over Disney.”

The consumer Wordle for Disney consists of “family entertainment,” “love,” “magic,” “quality,” “everything childhood,” “happy,” and “happiness.”

Headline: The Apostle Interview

When we met Hope, a beautiful, driven 23-year-old, she was about to have her life dream come true. She had grown up in what she calls a “Disney family” that would either drive or fly to Disneyland in Anaheim from their home in a San Francisco suburb every year. Now her dream come true is a Disney wedding: a marriage ceremony in the chapel, a reception at EPCOT, and a honeymoon at the theme park.¹⁰

Hope’s home and her parents’ family home each have a wall of Disney photos celebrating those trips when all of them were younger. “It’s the good old days. Swimming on July 4 at the water parks, fireworks. A picture of my mom after she got the maximum 999,999 points at the Buzz Lightyear shooting range. Pictures from our first trip when I was three, eating ice cream with the Ferris wheels behind us.” As a child, when Hope or her brother got a good report card, the family celebrated by going to Disneyland. She is the third generation of Disney apostles. “My mom’s parents went to Disneyland when it opened in 1955,” she said.

Hope said that she is “grown up now, but is still in love with Disney.” She works in operations management and is on the fast track at a Chicago-based industrial-supply company that recruited Hope to that city. As part of her management training program, she has 20 people reporting to her.

She was preparing to marry Brian, her “true love and soul mate.” He is two years older than she. At that point, they had dated for four years. They met at Boston College, where they took classes together, found friendship, and ultimately dated and fell in love. He is an IT consultant. They live in a one-bedroom apartment on the nineteenth floor of a Chicago high-rise with their dog, an Australian shepherd named Buzz after Buzz Lightyear, the astronaut toy character in the Disney movie Toy Story.

That’s how central Disney is in Hope’s life.

She loves Disney, and she loves her fiancé. “My fiancé is a good person—very caring and loyal. He’s easy to talk to … a wonderful person. We have very similar personalities. Not overly social. We’re good just hanging out with each other. Really good friends,” she says. “And, of course, we both love Disney and Disneyland and Disney World.”

Brian proposed without a hint, presenting her with “a beautiful one-carat flawless solitaire diamond from Tiffany.” The proposal was made on a blustery Chicago morning in April on the waterfront with the dog as witness. Wedding plans were quickly in the works. Hope’s father is a chef, and he wanted to prepare the meal himself at the family home in San Francisco. But, in unison, Hope and Brian said, “Disney World.”

Hope and Brian are fitness fanatics. She weighs about 100 pounds and stands 5 feet 5 inches. She runs 5-k mini-marathons at seven-minute miles and has completed six marathons. Also, she and Brian swim and cycle. She says that Disney vacations are active—swimming, running, and 12 miles of walking around the park each day. She loves the variety of healthy, moderately priced restaurants at EPCOT. Hope and her fiancé hold annual passes for the Disney parks, which she says break even at 15 days’ attendance.

She explained that a Disney wedding is easy to organize remotely. “On the company’s website, you pick a venue, you name a party size, and then you get assigned a counselor.” Hope and her fiancé ended up spending a day with their counselor on-site, budgeting, looking at venues, and taking a tour. She says there was no sales pressure. “He did give us buttons saying ‘Just Engaged,’ and we have a ton of pictures in front of the castles in the Magic Kingdom.” They applied online for a Florida marriage license.

“We didn’t have a set budget. We chose a relatively expensive venue, including the Wedding Pavilion for the ceremony and a reception at the Living Sea Salon in EPCOT. We will be in the Aquarium Room, which is all glass, and we will be surrounded by stingrays and turtles,” Hope gushes. The tables will be named after Disney movies.

Hope and Brian invited 64 people, and they expect that 50 will come. The ceremony begins at 5 p.m. and will last a mere 30 minutes. It will be Christian themed but not religious. Then all the guests will go to the EPCOT facility in a bus. They will have cocktails at 6 p.m. and dinner from 7 to 11, with a DJ selecting their favorite music. Hope and Brian have booked three levels of hotels for the guests—all Disney properties at value, moderate, and deluxe prices. Some of the guests were quizzical about a Disney wedding. But Hope just said, “This is our dream.”

Weddings are very lucrative for Disney. Hope and Brian expected the total cost of the wedding ceremony and reception to be about $30,000—including accommodations, the salon, the DJ, the minister, and all the food and drink. Then, those in the wedding group were likely to spend an additional $30,000 to $40,000 at Disney during their stay. Hope and her husband will stay at the Beach Club, their favorite hotel, which has a sand-bottom pool. The menu is beef filet, rosemary chicken, or black bean steak for vegetarians. There will be sliders, fries, and milk shakes at 10 p.m. so that the “heavy drinkers” don’t leave inebriated. Hope, Brian, and her parents are going to split the costs.

“They make it really easy. It’s personal, and we put our touches on everything. It’s my dream come true,” Hope says, not for the first time. “I’m looking forward to having children, so we can bring them to both Disney World and Disneyland. They will be the fourth generation.”

Few companies have brand portfolios that look like Disney’s. Few companies have nearly 100 years of heritage, history, memories, and power. But there are many lessons from Disney and many elements of the Disney magic that can be imitated.

Headline: Lessons from Disney Theme Parks: Map, Measure, Create, and Capture

Disney is now the owner of Marvel, Star Wars, ESPN, the Disney Channel, ABC, resorts around the world, and the Disney Cruise Line, and is one of the largest producers of consumer products through its extensive licensing division. Worldwide revenues were $45 billion in 2013, with net income at $6.6 billion. The theme parks provide 20 percent of operating profits. The rest of the profits are provided by the media networks, which account for two-thirds, the consumers, and the studios.¹¹

We put Disney in the “experience your brand” category. For businesses of this type, mapping your consumers’ experience is imperative. You need to fully understand their dissatisfactions, hopes, and dreams. Also, you need to understand your fulfillment record from order to delivery, your emotional touchpoints, and your failings.

Take a stopwatch, a calculator, and a blank sheet of paper to understand the underlying economics by measuring the impact of change. Then, you should create a fresh approach to provide a more flawless and seamless experience.

Finally, you should capture the new service approach. It sounds simple, but creating a consistent “theme park” experience in a store, restaurant, or service requires an enormous amount of clever, deep research, a real understanding of the consumer context, a ranking of alternatives, detailed design, the recruiting and training of the right people, and change management.

Is your company in the “experience your brand” category? Ask yourself these questions:

Do you understand the entire experience from your consumer’s point of view? Can you map each point of contact? Do you know the points of defection and why they occur? Do you manage each interaction for satisfaction, repurchase, and bonding?

Can you identify the areas for improvement and specify the process, system, and training changes that are required?

Have you quantified the financial impact of improving the experience? Can you quantify the first-, second-, and third-order impacts?

Can you measure the performance consumer by consumer and segment by segment? Do you know how you stack up competitively?

Does everyone in the company completely understand the vision of the consumer experience? Is success tied to hard measures, compensation, and status?

Talented, capable marketing teams often find it impossible to take a fresh approach. The level of detail and specificity surrounding the brand experience is cross-functional. There is no license to play. Operations, supply chain, HR—these functions are often stumbling blocks. The marketing function alone cannot tie the economics of change back to the core business. As a result, companies become stuck with the status quo.

Rigor across the entire organization, from the front line to the CEO, requires the broadest perspective. Nothing less than the net present value of your consumers’ purchases and the purchases of all their friends and colleagues is at stake. Successful implementation transforms the organization.

Inside your customer file, are there many apostles like Hope? She will force 50 of her friends and family to experience the Disney brand. They will each have a fresh experience. At the theme park, cast members will be with them every step of the way to control and define the experience. You can be sure that in at least 25 homes in America, Hope’s wedding-day photos at Disney World will be on display till death do us part.

*****

One Conclusion

When Walt Disney founded Disney Studios, he had no idea that he was creating what would become one of the most successful entertainment companies in the world. When Brunello Cucinelli acquired his first 20 kilos of cashmere, he had no idea that he would create a modern-day luxury success story. Inventors open the door. Their successors need to take the history of the brand and make it come alive every day. Great brands are a canvas that can stretch forever.

Three Takeaways

Be visually stunning in every way. A Cucinelli store or a Disneyland set creates postcard effects in the memories of the company’s core consumers. Consumers can describe in rich detail, and in color, the placement of products and their surroundings that create a fantasy. In the case of Cucinelli, it’s about an aristocratic lifestyle. In the case of Disney, it’s about a childhood fantasy of fun and security. If you can’t create the postcard imagery that your core consumers will send to their friends, then you’re not visually stunning.

2. Your apostle consumers drive the economics. Apostles for Cucinelli and Disney drive profits. They think about their favorite brands every day. They dream about their next experience and smile about their last one. How are you creating a lasting memory that entwines you into the lives of your apostle consumers?

3. A good look doesn’t come cheap. Cucinelli and Disney spend more than their competitors on visual merchandising and presentation. You should, too, if you want to replicate their success. Visual merchandising becomes a core skill and a point of differentiation. Disney has its army of engineers, architects, and sound and lighting specialists—its imagineers. Cucinelli’s live set at headquarters presents, for its stores and its customers, the full line as a lifestyle. How do you bring your brand to life? How do you tell your story in rich, complete detail?