BJ Bueno

The news came from Paris earlier this year. Scientists have discovered the existence of a group of six distant planets that may have Earth-like qualities. The discovery is touted as a major accomplishment in itself. If the planets are comparable to Earth, the news becomes even more amazing.  The impact these observations have on humanity’s possible potential futures could be tremendous.  It will take time, of course, before those potentials can be realized, but it is from the seeds sown by such discoveries that civilization-changing dreams are reaped.

More pragmatically, and more relevant to our purposes, space exploration provides us with a great illustration of modeling in action.  Scientists, astronomers, and space explorers alike face an absolute unknown. No one knows, with any degree of certainty, what occupies the inky black depths of space. We have some ideas about what might be there, based on observations made within the relatively cozy confines of our own solar system.  But what actually exists out there, and precisely where those objects might be located, is a question without answers.

Modeling as a Tool of Discovery

Space may be infinite.  No one knows for sure.  What we do know is that space is enormous. The distances involved boggle the mind, hundreds of millions of light years in every direction. Which way, then, should astronomers point their telescopes?  Absent any guidance, one quadrant of night sky might be as promising as any other.

Yet experience has shown that proposition to be manifestly untrue.  Humanity has been observing the  night sky since the dawn of time, yet with the discovery of the most recent planets, we’ve only found 54 with potentially Earth-like qualities.  Given the size of the universe, that’s a remarkably small supply.

Modeling is one of the the tools scientists use to determine the location of promising planets, emerging stars, comets, and asteroids. Using data drawn from observation of known and familiar objects, and how they behave, it becomes possible to create a statistical model that predicts where similar objects might be located in space.

The result? Discoveries happen faster because scientists know where to look for what they’re seeking.

Modeling To Discover Ultimate Profitability

Dominant organizations, in every industry, occupy positions of ultimate profitability.  They do this by providing their customers with what their customers want, even before their customers know they want it.  Whenever Apple unveils their latest iGadget, they already have legions of excited customers eager to buy.

How do they do that?  Those points of ultimate profitability are clearly out there. Apple, Harley Davidson, and Ikea have all found them. They pointed their telescopes into the night sky of customer behavior and found their habitable planets, those consumer communities where their brands can live and thrive.

The tools and techniques that connect astronomers and astronauts with the final frontier can be used to connect our organizations with tomorrow’s Brand Lovers.

The result? Organizations that use modeling to identify who their most profitable customers are, what they want to buy, how they want to buy it, and more enjoy increased, even dominant, market share, greater customer loyalty, and enhanced profitability. Knowing which way to point your telescope is the single most critical step in ensuring business success.

Can you smell the Febreze? Don’t be fooled into thinking that’s a lovely bunch of flowers or the smell of freshly folded laundry that’s delighting your nostrils.  That might seem to be the case, but what your nose is really detecting is the sweet smell of success.

The Febreze family of products contains air fresheners, fabric restorers, and more, all designed to make customer’s homes, workplaces, gym bags, and cars smell better than they did.  The brand recently passed the billion dollar mark, great news for parent company Proctor and Gamble.

Many industry analysts consider Febreze a category creator: a uniquely profitable spot in the marketplace. The brand began with a humble fabric restorer product, designed to “freshen up” items that couldn’t be laundered. From there, Febreze’s growth has been exponential.

Brand Modeling as a Tool for Growth

Febreze has done an exceptional job of understanding their best customers—the highly profitable, extremely loyal and very vocal customers we call Brand Lovers.  Dominant organizations win when they understand their Brand Lovers, especially the physical and psychological factors that motivate the customer to buy.

One of the reasons customers choose to make a purchase is to resolve internal tensions.  Internal tensions arise when there’s a disconnect between the situation that is actually occurring in the customer’s life and what the customer would like to have happening in their life. In other words, customer tensions are really unresolved problems.

Identifying these unresolved problems is a critical aspect of the Brand Modeling process. Our goal is to understand not only the tensions our customer face, but the way they’d best like them solved. Febreze has done an exceptional job of identifying customer tensions: they have developed products for customers who have stinky new puppies, adorable but messy children, and kitchens ripe with odors that will put anyone off their feed.

Febreze’s latest marketing initiative is a bold experiment in demonstrating how Febreze’s Brand Lovers would like their smelliest problems solved.  These commercials are a vast departure from the usual approach to marketing air fresheners, a route the NY Times describes thusly:

Typically, an actress realizes that her immaculate suburban home has been fouled by the smell of cooked fish, her husband’s cigars or her teenage son’s gym bag. After she sprays air freshener, however, odors disappear, as evidenced by her ecstatic inhalations and, occasionally, by her being instantly transported to a flower garden or orange grove.

In the new campaign, there are no immaculate settings.  Blindfolded people are led into foul settings—nasty hotel rooms piled high with stinky clothes, broken down thrift shops with irrevocably soiled merchandise, restaurants piled high with fresh fish—and invited to sniff deeply, reporting what their “nose knows.”

Each of the scenes had been sprayed prodigiously with Febreze. The blindfolded people reported smelling nothing unpleasant—only the pleasant scents Febreze is known for. When the blindfolds are removed, the people are beyond shocked.  They are obviously astonished at the disconnect between their olfactory perception and what they can see with their own eyes.

This is how Febreze’s Brand Lovers want their problems solved.  Results that overcome the  stinkiest reality are exactly what they’re searching for—despite the fact that few, if any, of Febreze’s Brand Lovers are likely to live in squalor themselves. Understanding customer tensions is what got Febreze to the top, and this campaign shows that the brand is using that knowledge to stay there.

Is it a better decision to hire one super talented person or to spend your time, energy, and resources creating a strong team of moderately talented people? Facebook’s recent hire of George Holz, reputed to be one of the computer programming’s world’s super talented people, has sparked a lot of conversation on this very question.

We thought it might be interesting to consider the issue from the Brand Modeling perspective.  Our goal is to understand and meet the needs of our Brand Lovers better than any other organization. With that in mind, there’s no aspect of our business that’s more critical to our organizational success than the quality of the people who work with us.

Every single person has an impact—direct or otherwise—on our customer’s experience with the brand. Every single person’s performance must be in alignment with our Brand Lover’s expectations.

Brand Modeling: Choosing the Right Team

What makes IKEA great? Look at the people who cheer and clap as customers come into the store—they’re a huge part of the answer.  Wal-Mart, undoubtedly one of the world’s most dominant organizations, credits much of its success to the people they hire: friendliness and approachability are key traits looked for in every employee. Disney has an intense hiring and training process to ensure that every person who works at the Magic Kingdom is capable of delivering a magical experience.

These companies are thriving because they’re satisfying the expectations of their Brand Lovers.  They know and understand what their best customers expect at every engagement point and they deliver.  Netflix is another great example: even though Netflix’s best customers might never meet a Netflix employee in person, they are confident that the nation’s dominant streaming entertainment organization has their interests in mind. This is demonstrated by Netflix’s commitment to innovation and customer service: problems are resolved promptly, often even before the customers are aware of them.

Superstars on Both Sides

Where are the superstars in all of this? Do dominant organizations need exceptional talent in order to survive and thrive?

Let’s ask Apple. Many people consider Steve Jobs to be an exceptional talent. There’s no arguing that Apple is stronger with Jobs than without him. How much of Apple’s Brand Lover’s fanaticism is contingent upon his presence? Taking the question further, does Apple dominate based upon fulfilling their Brand Lover’s expectations of breathtaking innovation—and is that innovation dependent upon a few super talented behind the scenes computer engineers and programmers?

The answer is Yes, but not exclusively.  For every super-talented Apple employee that works in product development (and we’re confident that they are legion) there’s an equally critical super-talented Apple employee that shines at meeting customer needs.  They might be working at the Genius Bar, explaining how to get the most out of the latest iGadget, or providing tech support in the middle of the night—nothing exceptional, perhaps, but absolutely essential.

We think Facebook is in the same position. It needs the super-talented developers and programmers in order to meet their Brand Lovers expectations of continuing product evolution and innovation.  It needs the super-talented front line employees to solidify the customer’s everyday experience of the brand.  The combination is a powerhouse, destined to keep Facebook on the top of the social media mountain.

On July 1st, the NBA lockout began.  Team owners and players were unable to reach common ground on several matters. The primary issue is revenue distribution. Player’s salaries are also a major factor.  The cost of recruiting and retaining star talent is a significant expense—particularly when anywhere between 10-22 of the 30 NBA teams aren’t turning a profit.

This isn’t the first time the NBA has had a lockout.  It’s actually the fourth time.  And the lockout phenomenon isn’t limited to basketball.  The NFL is currently embroiled in a tangled web of contract negotiations, and no one is certain if there will be football this fall.  Baseball has gone on strike 8 times; most recently in 1995.

How does the lockout phenomenon look from a Brand Modeling perspective?

Brand Modeling As A Tool For Decision Making

Brand Modeling has, as its core concept, that organizations grow and thrive when they focus on fulfilling the wants and needs of their best customers.  These best customers—who buy from the organization both frequently and in quantity, who are active cheerleaders for the organization, and who recommend the organization to their family and friends, sometimes with intense enthusiasm—are called Brand Lovers.

Who are the NBA’s Brand Lovers? We could begin by considering the game’s biggest fans: the people who hold season tickets, who purchase exhaustive cable packages so they never miss a game, who wear team apparel and plan their lives around playoff season.

The next step is to identify what the NBA’s Brand Lovers love most about the game. What do they consider important about their relationship with professional basketball? What is the most meaningful aspect of basketball to them? Why do they shell out thousands of dollars for season tickets, year after year after year?

Many of these people will tell you it’s love of the game.  They love seeing star athletes in action; they value the feeling of community and camaraderie that comes from being a fan. There’s more, of course, and a proper analysis would delve into the conscious and unconscious motivations underlying brand loyalty, but this is a good starting point.

Brand Modeling tells us that the route to organizational dominance is to give Brand Lovers what they want the most.  The NBA’s Brand Lovers want to see great basketball.  The lockout process gives us the polar opposite: the NBA’s Brand Lovers are losing what they value most while the latest labor dispute is being hashed out.

Will Brand Lovers Stay Patiently On The Sidelines?

It’s perilous to assume that they will.  The NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball do enjoy an enviable place in the marketplace: within their categories, they have no viable competition.  That doesn’t mean they’re the only game in town.  Brand Lovers who have specific needs—the need for exciting entertainment, the need to belong to a fan community, the need to identify with the victorious (or not so victorious!) athlete—can and will have that need met somewhere else.  There are countless viable alternatives that meet those needs without demanding that fans suffer in silence while financial arrangements are hammered out.  There’s NASCAR, there’s hockey, there’s extreme sports, there’s golf … the list is literally endless.

Making a decision that is so out of alignment with the Brand Lover’s wants and needs is bad business. No organization is immune from labor disputes. Every company has challenges. Brand Modeling provides the framework to guide organizations through these challenges: solutions need to be found that keep meeting the wants and needs of the Brand Lovers paramount. Fail to do that for too long, and it’s worse than a last minute missed free throw: it’s the ultimate airball that could spell the end of your brand.

When is a suitcase not a suitcase?  It turns out that not all luggage is created equal—something that Delta learned the hard way, when they charged returning active duty American soldiers nearly $3,000 to bring their gear home from war.

Here are some of the comments from Delta’s blog:

“SHAME ON YOU DELTA! I do not care what your stupid contract says. THOSE 4TH BAGS SHOULD HAVE BEEN COVERED! They have been bought with blood and sweat and tears!”

“It is very sad and sooooo wrong that it took our soldiers doing a video to expose what Delta did to them and bring awareness of this situation to the entire world. It is even more sad that it is only now that Delta realizes how wrong they are and will address this situation. I realize there are rules and contracts but these should “go out the window” when our military is returning from the horrors they experience fighting for our freedom.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself. these brave soldiers are fighting for your freedom and safety. What is wrong with this country and its ungrateful attitude. What has happened to integrity and character in corporations?”

These are only fragments of hundreds of comments, each of which say much the same thing.  Even after a policy change (Delta has announced it will no longer charge for a fourth checked bag for active duty military personnel) the problem has not been solved.  This isn’t about suitcases and carry on bags. This is about Delta’s performance not being in alignment with what their customers (and the public at large) expect from them.

Brand Modeling Means Knowing Your Customers

Who knew there was a third rail in the air? Delta certainly found it by failing to give the American soldier—a group held in high regard by their customer base—what was perceived to be an adequate amount of respect.  Asking more of people who have already given so much turned out to be directly counter to how Delta’s Brand Lovers (and check the blog comments to see how many people there are Skymiles members!) expected the airline to behave.

This disconnect sparked feelings of rage and betrayal. Many are claiming that they’ll never fly Delta again.  Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen. However, there is no question that this entire situation, including the negative media attention, was completely avoidable.

Dominant organizations understand, with a precise clarity that only Brand Modeling can afford, how their Brand Lovers see the world.  They use this knowledge to guide decision making at every point in the organization, and empower their employees to “do the right thing.” Had Delta’s staff had the knowledge and insight of how their actions would have been seen by the airline’s best customers, chances are they would have waived the fees for this group of soldiers. The entire debacle never would have left the ground.

Perhaps Delta’s team even would have taken the initiative to let people further up the chain know that policies on the ground where out of whack with the sentiment in their Brand Lover’s heart.  That type of responsiveness enables good companies to become great companies. AirTran seems to have gotten the message, loud and clear.

The world had never seen a hurricane like Katrina. The massive storm overwhelmed Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, swamping New Orleans and causing jaw dropping levels of devastation throughout the region. In the storm’s aftermath, many wondered if the area’s economy, heavily dependent upon tourism, would ever recover. Who would come to the Big Easy when the Big Easy was gone?

Bringing the tourists back was a challenge worthy of the most skilled Brand Managers. No one envied the task given the region’s leadership. There was a very real fear that the images of Katrina’s aftermath would be forever linked in the public’s mind with the region. Could they be convinced to come back to a city struggling to get back on its feet, where picturesque beauty had been replaced by heaps of storm debris and the once friendly, welcoming populace had been displaced to higher ground—perhaps permanently?

No one had done this before. Leading a region’s transformation from a natural disaster strike zone back to a vacation paradise has been a slow and laborious process. We’ve seen amazing partnerships develop between the people who live in the affected area and the people who love visiting there. There have been setbacks, but progress is happening. After an unimaginable catastrophe, Big Easy and the Gulf region are seeing the tourists come back.

Brand Modeling & The Big Easy: What We Can Learn

There are several lessons we can learn from the region’s recovery. After the storm had passed, New Orleans and the surrounding area wasted no time in reaching out to their customers. Simply connecting was a very big deal in many cases, especially when news was still at a premium.

When one person heard that a beloved business has survived, whether it was a legendary hotel or favorite restaurant, they’d joyously pass the news. Communities came together to celebrate, or when the news wasn’t so good, to mourn. These connections happened online and in person. They gave area leaders a place to turn with their messaging: We’re still here. We need you. Come on down!

The response was tremendous. One of the tenets of Brand Modeling tells us that it is our best, most loyal and enthusiastic customers that determine the strength of our organization. When we have significant numbers of customers who love our brand, we can achieve a dominant position in the marketplace. At that point, there’s really no viable competition. There’s only one Rolex, for example, and only one Ikea. And of course, there’s only one New Orleans.

Many people were eager to help but not sure at all what they could do to help the community they’d cherished for so long recover. Having messaging that reached them explicitly and specifically was the most effective and efficient tool that the people marketing tourism in the region had at their disposal.

Understanding what the tourists valued most about their time in the area made it easier to connect. Showing images of couples dining in Creole restaurants, the requisite colorful Mardi Gras parades, and slow sunsets over the bayou reminded tourists of their experiences and made the promise: All of this will be again. It’ll get here faster if you help us. Come on down.

Leaders could draw on marketing approaches that worked well in less dramatic times, coupling them with an understanding of the emotional experiences their best customers were feeling right now. It was a powerhouse combination, generating a tremendous initial response. There are still signs of the storm if you know where to look for them, but there’s just as many signs of recovery.

Recently, BrandZ released their annual report listing the world’s most valuable brands. This year, the list was topped by Apple, followed by Google. Google had held the top ranking for four years. You’ll recognize the other  names on the list. In order, they’re IBM, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Marlboro, China Mobile, and GE.

Once you know who’s on the list, the next question is obvious: how do they get there?

Give Your Best Customers a Way to Become Their Ideal Self

We’re not surprised by Apple’s position on the list. We’ve had our eyes on them for a long time, admiring the way that they take their message of self-empowerment and individual fulfillment to build an empire. Apple understands, perhaps more deeply than any other tech company, what people want from their technology. They may manufacture lap tops and iPads, but what they sell is the promise of transformation. If you choose Apple, you’re choosing the opportunity to create your ideal self. It’s a heady promise, and one that many cannot resist.

Cultivate Emotional Attachments

A NPR story discussing the list made a great point about Coca-Cola’s position in the marketplace. If every Coca-Cola factory in the world burned down, we’re told, the company would be back in business in a month. But if everyone in the world contracted a soda-specific amnesia simultaneously, Coca-Cola would be bankrupt in a month. The driving impetus behind any customer’s decision to have a Coke has far more to do with the emotional attachment they have with the brand than what’s actually in the soda bottle. In a similar vein, the newest online casinos are striving to establish strong emotional connections with their players. Understanding the emotional experience your customer expects to have and deliver it is only the beginning. Coca-Cola is continually seeking ways to deepen that connection. An example of this is Coke’s many Christmas-themed promotions: by aligning themselves with what is many people’s favorite time of year, many positive associations are created for the brand.

Don’t Worry About Being the New Kid on the Block

It’s true: longevity does have its advantages. Four of the ten brands on the list have been in existence for over 50 years. Of course, that means that six of the ten brands haven’t been around quite as long. Many of the brands that are moving rapidly up the list are located in emerging markets, where there’s still a tremendous amount of untapped customer loyalty available. Other brands are making strategic use of social networks to connect with their customers in more immediate ways, resulting in increased brand visibility and value.

What is a Brand Worth?

Every time this list is released, we hear the stories of people struggling to understand how you value something as intangible as a brand.  What we’re measuring, after all, is the attachment the public has with an organization’s identity. The situation becomes more complex when you realize that brands are created as much by the customer as they are by the organization itself. Try as we might as brand managers to craft and steer our image, it’s only when we are aware of and responsive to our best customer’s wants and needs that we can truly create a valuable brand.  Can you put a price on that? Maybe not.  But there are worse things in this world than having an asset that’s priceless!

Every year, there are hurricanes. Every year, there are floods. Every year, there are weather events that disrupt everyday normal life. Every year, someone in this nation will find their community facing hardship. It could be a long-term power outage or impassable roads. It might be difficult to get food, fresh drinking water, or a way to stay warm when the night gets cold. Every year, the CDC tries to educate the public about the best way to deal with these inevitable events.

They’ve just had one of their most successful campaigns ever by urging people to get ready for the unlikeliest event ever.

Bring on the Zombies!

Part of the CDC’s job is to provide hurricane preparedness education to the public. David Daigle had the idea of using a Zombie Attack Preparedness theme to raise interest levels in the group’s regular (and relatively regularly ignored) communications.

It worked. A typical CDC blog posting centered on hurricane preparedness usually gets 1,000 hits. The Zombie post got 40,000 hits in two days.  Why was this missive so much more appealing to the CDC’s audience? We think it’s because the agency used one of the tenets of Brand Modeling: Understanding the power of cultural narratives.

The Power of Cultural Narrativeas

If you want to know a people, you need to understand the stories that shape and define that culture’s worldview.  Stories are incredibly powerful tools of social engineering. Over time, people have used stories to teach morality, model expected behavior, and inspire greatness in each other.  There’s a natural human tendency to look to the stories we’ve been told for guidance about how we should live our own lives.

There are many classic stories. The details might change with time—the name and appearance of a character, the details of a conflict—but the same plots recur time and time again.  The CDC selected an oldie but a goodie; the resourceful, prepared hero who is not only brave enough to face down an enemy but prepared to triumph over it.

If you can stretch your imagination in one direction, you can easily see the impending winds and pounding waves as an enemy to face down and defeat.  The battle dynamic is built in. Man’s struggle against the elements is a classic interpretation of this tale. The CDC has been flogging this tale for decades.

And then they tried zombies. It may be the most brilliant thing they’ve ever done. Zombies play a large part in the current American cultural mythos.  The undead have escaped their traditional haunts of horror movies and creepy novels to be read in the dead of night.  Now they’re shambling through video games and populating internet memes. Why has this happened?

The Zombie Mythos

Every story needs a hero. Every story also needs an adversary.  There must be someone or something that the hero must fight against in order to triumph. In medieval times, stories would feature heroes facing down dragons and great giants—creatures who symbolized the collective fears of the people of the time; the unknown, the foe too big to be defeated.

Other times we thought we knew our enemies, and our stories reflected that.  Cowboys fought Indians, the Allies took on the Nazis, and Rambo punched out all the Russians. Now we don’t name our enemies anymore. Leaders, politicians, and media figures perform linguistic backflips to articulate that we are not fighting a country, a people, or an ideology—it is the extremist element of any group that refuses to abide by the rules of a civilized society. It is not evil we abhor; it is excess. And what could be more over the top than zombies?

Zombies are thus far free from any ideological associations. There’s no pro-zombie movement.  No one has deep, meaningful cultural alignments with zombies.  You are free to impugn zombies to your heart’s content without fear of offending anyone. They are complication-free enemies—open for obliteration without a flicker of conscience, remorse, or guilt. It’s an opportunity not many people even bother trying to resist.

The CDC’s campaign gives people a chance to cast themselves as the hero in an action movie. If they learn something about hurricane preparedness along the way, the CDC’s mission has been accomplished.

Will you complain when you have batteries in the flashlight and extra prescription medications available when you need them and it’s just a garden variety hurricane and not the end of the world?  Probably not … and that’s proof someone at the CDC is using their brrraaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnsss!