BJ Bueno

From the world of high fashion comes the news that Bernard Arnault, the force behind the Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton empire has his eyes on his next big acquisition: the world renowned luxury brand Hermès.

Hermès is reportedly not thrilled with Mr. Arnault’s attention. Hermès describes itself as a company that focuses on refinement and creating beautiful things: a vision that they believe is counter to the approach seen at other companies under Arnault’s control.

“We don’t want to be a part of this financial world which is ruining companies and dealing with people like they are goods or raw materials,” said Mr. Thomas, a Hermes chief executive quoted in the New York Times article earlier this month. “It’s not a financial fight, because we would lose that. It’s a cultural fight.”

Hermes’ leadership has expressed worries that while Arnault’s leadership could indeed make the company more profitable, his proposed changes would alter Hermes’ identity in the marketplace. Once that happens, Mr. Thomas said, “People will say that Hermes is not what it used to be.”

A sentence like that can indeed be the death knell for a successful established brand. Companies such as Volkswagen and Apple invest significant resources into ensuring that the public perception of their brand is one of continual improvement.

Harley Davidson, now a dominant organization, was once in peril of going out of business when the bikes they were delivering failed to meet their best customers’ expectations. The effort to cut costs and corners in order to ensure greater profitability is one that Hermes fears that Arnault—who is now a significant investor, but does not have majority control—will try to impose on the company, with the same result.

At the heart of this battle, we see a great conflict: traditional values and aesthetics going head to head with a more modern, financially-aware approach to the world of fashion. Hermes has thrived and achieved their respected position by focusing their efforts on those customers—and only those customers—who value and can afford the extravagant wonderfulness of their offerings. They’ve never tried to produce bags for everyone; after all, as a particularly catty fashionista was heard to say, that’s why there’s Coach.

Knowing who you are, as an organization, is critically important. That importance is matched by the essential imperative that your customers share that same vision of who you are. If Hermes’ perception of themselves as a purveyor of luxury goods to the most well-heeled customers is in alignment with their customer’s perception of the brand, everything’s good. Those customers will continue to support the brand in the accustomed fashion, and Hermes will be able to keep Arnault at arm’s length.

If, however, the two sets of vision aren’t in alignment, whether through Mr. Arnaults’ machinations or a shift in consumer tastes, then Hermes has a problem. In a world of luxury, no organization can afford to become divorced from the reality of what their best customers want and value the most.

Understanding the psychological drivers of consumer behavior is the only way we’ll be able to tell who has a better handle on the handbag situation: Hermes, which wants to stick with a proven formula of success, or Arnault, who insists you can offer the best to more buyers without impacting quality.

“Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” That’s the pithy and pointed tag line of Homeboy Industries, a LA-based organization determined to give gang members an alternative to life on the streets.  Founded in 1992, Homeboy Industries has grown and evolved over the years.  Now their most recent offerings, Homeboy Industries has entered the chips and salsa business.

Touted as a way to bring much needed revenue to the organization, there are several factors to indicate that the chips might just have a chance to make it big, even in the extremely competitive salty snack category.

What Do Your Brand Lovers Want Most?

Homeboy Industries has a powerful message: there’s an alternative to life on the streets.  Reducing the number of people involved in gang activities and the associated violence on the streets is a message that resonates with the people who live and work in those neighborhoods.  Homeboy Industries’ founder, Father Greg Boyle, has tapped into the deep, pervasive need his customers have to see meaningful change, and more importantly, to participate in that change themselves. This experience is incredibly important.

More than chips, more than salsa, more than bread or silkscreened shirts (some of the other business initiatives the group has participated in over the past two decades), Homeboy Industries’ customers want to make a difference.

Understanding what motivates a company’s best customers to bond with an organization is integral to its success.  The more dimensional and personally relevant the reasons a consumer has to ally themselves with a given brand, the stronger and more enduring that bond will be.

Homeboy Industries is offering shoppers (currently in the Los Angeles area; the brand hopes to join forces with the 3,600+ store Kroger chain) the chance to help fix a problem that affects their lives.  This is a powerful point of connection.  Beyond the snack, consumers are purchasing engagement, involvement, and concrete, real world solutions to complex social problems.  This is a tremendous emotional payoff.

How does that compare with the emotional payoff of breaking into a bag of Doritos or SunChips? It’s impossible to compare the brands on an apples-to-apples basis.  Homeboy Industries doesn’t have the size or resources to compete on equal footing. Their presence in the 256 store chain Ralph’s is due in large part to the grocer’s willingness to waive slotting fees. $50,000 for shelf space can be an insurmountable barrier to entry.

But Homeboy Industries has a compelling story that speaks to a real need, not only in the marketplace, but in the world.  Identifying those points of need and presenting a solution in a form that existing retailing outlets are equipped to handle was a smart strategic decision on Homeboy Industry’s part.

Socially aware marketing is not a new phenomenon.  We’ve been bombarded with be-ribboned products in every category.  Homeboy Industries stands apart in part due to their overt cause-and-effect approach to the problem of gang violence.  “Jobs not Jails” is emblazoned on every marketing touch point, from signage and packaging through the group’s website.  The relationship between behavior and result is immediate and clear.  This is one of the strategies dominant organizations use to achieve a dominant market position.

Understanding what your best customers want most is essential. Homeboy Industries gets that. People want gang-free streets, and buying chips and salsa allows them to achieve it.  Watch the bags fly off the shelves!

Meat matters! That’s the message you’ll clearly come away with if you’ve been reading the business headlines lately.

Chain restaurant Taco Bell has come under fire after researchers discovered that the chain’s tacos contain very little in the way of actual beef. Consumer advocacy groups claim the actual percentage of beef involved is less than 35%. Taco Bell puts the number closer to 88%.

When the taco in question occupies a place of pride on a 99 cent value menu, one is forced to ask how much meat Taco Bell’s customers were really expecting?

On the other hand, it’s the expectation of meat that Alpo is counting on to revitalize its brand.  The legacy brand hopes to recapture lost market share with its latest campaign, which touts itself as the voice of “real dogs.”  Real dogs, it is clear, want meat.  Lots of meat.

We’re guessing that Taco Bell will come through this latest PR crisis relatively unscathed. Alpo may very well recapture the “top dog” position in the pet food industry.  The reason why has nothing to do with the meat (or lack thereof!) in question.  It has everything to do with Brand Values.

Brand Values

Brand Values can be defined as those characteristics or qualities that your best customers say define your organization. These definitions are formed almost entirely by organizational behavior. Strong, positive Brand Values will attract customers who value those qualities. Zappos, for example, built their brand largely on the friendliness and integrity with which they provided their service.

Taco Bell’s best customers can be defined as that group of diners who eat at the restaurant frequently, who purchase many items while they’re there, and who encourage friends to join them on outings to the Bell. These customers are between the ages of 16 and 24, and value what the chain has termed abundant value.  These are not diners who savor each bite of their dinner.  One taco is not going to cut it.  They want two, three, six, or a dozen tacos, preferably priced so that a few minutes searching under the couch cushions can pay for dinner.   The amount or quality of the beef in Taco Bell offerings is not really of primary importance to their best customers.  The chain might make improvements (or at a minimum, change their labeling) but based upon their knowledge of their best, and most profitable, customers, they can predict with a relatively high degree of certainty that in this case, the meat really doesn’t matter.

Alpo is in a different position. Drawing on their knowledge of their best customers, specifically their relationship with their dogs, Alpo has come to some startling conclusions.  They’re embracing a position completely counter to the trend of increasingly complex lives of decorator collars, doggie daycares, and canine playdates.  “It’s time for dogs to get back to the business of being dogs,” an ad proclaims.

The business of dogs, as Alpo sees it, has everything to do with eating meat.  Is this an insightful analysis of a consumer base over-stretched and longing for simplicity or a clever way to accent one of Alpo’s Brand Values? For over 74 years Alpo has acquired a lengthy list of Brand Values: authenticity, substantial, meaty.  Emphasizing these qualities will reinforce the relationship Alpo’s best customers have with the brand, and will attract more dog owners who share the same outlook on what’s best for their dog.

For Alpo, meat matters quite a bit.  For Taco Bell, not so much.  As long as organizations understand their Brand Values and act in a way that’s in alignment with those values, they’ll enjoy success no matter what’s on the menu!

Napoleon, having conquered a considerable portion of Europe, once said, “The human race is governed by its imagination.” He knew the power of a compelling story, perhaps better than any of his contemporaries, and leveraged that into Empire.

On today’s business battlefield, is imagination less compelling? Or do the stories we tell, about our heroes, about ourselves, still play a critical role in who we are, in what we do, in how we act? Mankind has not changed so tremendously in the days since Napoleon ruled: we are still affected by stories.

Particularly powerful are the stories we use to define ourselves. Napoleon (and every successful general before and since) wanted his troops to think of themselves as triumphant, conquering heroes. That was the mindset that led to victories.

Enter the Archetype

The image of the victorious warrior has become equivalent to success. It is a strong, powerful, appealing motif.  The entire concept has tremendous consumer appeal. People want to be considered strong and successful, and they align themselves with brands that present as strong and successful.  Nike, the world’s largest designer and purveyor of athletic footwear, has named itself  after the goddess of victory.

As society changes, the stories we tell ourselves appear to change.  The tales that Napoleon’s soldiers laughed over would be very different than those troops on the ground today would tell. Yet when we examine those tales, some truths emerge.  There are certain character types (called archetypes) that appear time and time again; there are classic stories that appear with every generation.

Successful leaders and marketers have to change their stories to meet the needs of the current populace while retaining those archetypes and essential narratives that deliver proven results. Francesca Saieva writes about what this means from a psychological perspective, while Chrysler is trying to tell a similar story with their latest minivan.

How Do Chrysler’s Best Customers See Themselves?

Chrysler has embraced a specific definition of masculinity to help them recapture market share. The company is counting on the power of imagination, archetype, and story to help them reposition their latest minivan offering, the Dodge Caravan R/T. Christened the Man Van, the minivan is being wrapped in overt symbols of masculinity—black leather interior, an absence of a roof rack, and, from the driver’s point of view, the look and feel of a sports car. Commercials feature Judas Priest, a heavy metal homage not often seen in minivan commercials.

“When you sit behind the steering wheel you will feel you are driving a sports car. You completely forget, as long as you don’t look behind you, you forget you are driving a minivan,” Dodge Chief Executive Ralph Gilles was quoted as saying. The message is clear: this vehicle is meant for those men who identify strongly with the image of the rough and rugged open road. The fact that that rough and rugged road includes a few stops for day care and soccer practice is completely secondary; it’s hardly worth mentioning.

It is not the archetype of the responsible, nurturing father that Chrysler thinks will resonate with their best customers. That’s not what they’re looking for; that’s not who they want to be when they tell the story of their lives.  Practical, reliable, and boring are not the adjectives Chrysler’s customers want to identify with.

Understanding customer loyalty begins with knowing what story your best customers want to tell about themselves. Chrysler has identified and embraced the archetype they think will get their base excited about the Caravan.  Will the change work? The minivan market has been virtually flat for years, making this a market to watch. Positive changes means that Napoleon was right. Imagination is critical, whether you’re battling the Prussians or consumer apathy.

For an excellent presentation the application of archetypes, see Archetypal Branding: Cult Branding 2.0.

There were 5,127 prototypes. James Dyson spent years of his life and accumulated a mountain of debt before introducing the G-Force cleaner in 1983. By the mid-nineties, Dyson had revolutionized the British vacuum market.

What Built Dyson?

Dyson’s success can be laid squarely at the feet of the legions of British homeowners who purchased the innovative vacuum and raved about it to their friends. The Dyson was more than another cleaner.  The innovation went beyond being bagless. Dyson’s vacuums looked different, felt different, and performed differently than anything the British consumer had experienced before.

Dyson had changed the vacuum into “an aesthetic lifestyle product, a status symbol,” according to Nick Platt, a vacuum expert with the GfK group.

Dyson’s best customers were realizing more than one benefit from their new vacuums. Their floors were cleaner than ever before, certainly, but they also had a neat new possession to show off.  They were eager to discuss how well the Dyson worked, how easy it made cleaning, and how much they enjoyed using the cleaner.

The audience for this conversation? Almost limitless: everyone who has a place to live needs a way to keep it clean. The ability to have and participate in this conversation is, in and of itself, a benefit that Dyson’s best customers appreciated.  Along with their vacuum, they’re getting a valuable type of social currency.

Understanding Dyson’s Powerful Appeal

Another reason that Dyson has become such a dominant brand is their almost intuitive understanding of what a person really wants from the cleaning experience.  They’ve moved beyond the clean all the carpets level into more nebulous, but ultimately critically important, psychological territory.

The pressure to do a great job keeping house is deeply and profoundly tied to many people’s—particularly women’s—feelings of self-worth and identity. Heavy societal pressures reinforce the idea that being a good person means providing a clean, pleasant living space for your family. This combination of internal beliefs and societal pressures forms what we call a biological driver: an unconscious motivator that guides and directs purchasing decisions.

The impact of a biological driver on an individual consumer is greater than almost any other force: it outweighs logic, price, and other rational considerations we’ve been told are so important in consumer behavior.  Time and time again, consumers have proved that when they are presented with a way to feel better about themselves in such a fundamental, if often unarticulated, level they’ll respond with unprecedented levels of brand loyalty.

Brand Lovers Build Businesses

The loyal customers we’ve referenced are called Brand Lovers, and they play an integral role in building your business.  A Brand Lover can be defined by many criteria, including the amount of business they do with you.  Your Brand Lover will return to your business time and time again, rewarding your organization with higher frequency of business and greater wallet share per engagement and over the long term.

The cultivation of this growth is a great untapped opportunity for many businesses. Dyson has leveraged the power of Brand Lovers effectively to become the dominant vacuum cleaner company not only in Britain, but in Japan and Australia as well.  Introduced to the US market in 2002, Dyson now controls 23% of the US vacuum market.

It’s a testament to the power of innovation. Dyson connected with what their Brand Lovers valued most, and delivered it consistently.  And now?  They’re cleaning up.

Football is a dynamic game. The situation is always changing. It takes two minutes and a handful of plays to determine the triumph of a team—or its defeat. The pace and drama inherent in the game contribute directly to the NFL’s success—for even when the league’s finances are complicated, to say the least, there is no viable competition for the hardcore football audience, which is sizable.

That celebration of change fades away when you get off the gridiron and start talking about how the game is played.  Over the past few years, the NFL has introduced some controversial rules in order to make the sport safer for the athletes who play it.  These changes include a ban on helmet-to-helmet hits and requiring a player to leave the game entirely after they’ve suffered a concussion.

Those rules aren’t enough to prevent every injury. During the play-off games, Seattle Seahawks player John Carlson suffered a terrifying injury—an injury that resulted from perfectly legal game play.

What should the NFL do? Is it the right decision to adjust the way the league plays football to further protect the safety of their players? Or is the risk and eventual realization of injury not only part of the game, but a bloody bonus that makes the experience better for the football fans?

Brand Modeling provides the tools business leaders need when faced with complex decisions such as these. Making changes to an established, storied business such as the NFL is not something to undertake lightly.

On the other hand, failing to make changes can have expensive ramifications for the league and the players. Either way, the fans will be impacted. There’s no doubt that the NFL would like to know, ahead of time, what that impact will be.

Knowing What Your Best Customers Value Most

Part of the challenge the NFL is facing is determining, with a high degree of specificity, what aspects of the football game matter the most to their best customers.

Every change will impact the fan’s experience, and the situation is complex enough that there are no black and white answers. Eliminate the aspect of the game that “makes football football” and run the risk of alienating your fans, perhaps forever. The trick is in identifying what that aspect is.

Some fans have argued for a version of the game with less rules and more brutality. On the other hand, that model has been tried, by Vince McMahon, who has significant experience building a dominant brand (WWE) in the sports world. He started the XFL as a rougher, tougher alternate to the NFL. The overt focus on brutal, physically risky play drew a lot of media attention—but few fans. The league never gained traction and lasted only a single season.

What went wrong? McMahon had tapped into an element of the game that surely resonates with football’s fan base. The question to ask is is that element compelling enough for the NFL’s best customers that a change in the level of aggression and physical injury experienced by the players would fundamentally alter their experience of the game?

Doing research with the NFL’s best fans could reveal a host of other reasons that fans commit every weekend to watching their favorite team—not to mention shelling out hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for season tickets and team gear. A love of the game’s tradition, an appreciation of a quarterback’s strategic decisions, the feeling of community that comes from being a fan, and dozens of other reasons to love the NFL can all impact fan behavior. All of these criteria must be taken into account as the NFL makes their decisions regarding new rules.

It’s a lesson for those of us who have nuanced, complex decisions to make regarding our own businesses to watch carefully. Maintaining a dominant position in the marketplace is no less challenging than achieving that spot in the first place.

It takes more than a lucky field goal to make it to the Super Bowl, and it takes more than one decision to grow a great business. Brand Modeling provides us with the tools and insights to consistently make great decisions—through pre-season right through the Super Bowl and beyond.

America’s diner is always open the tagline reads, but who is America’s diner? Denny’s, with its 58 year history and iconic Grand Slam breakfast, is stepping up to claim the title. Embracing a term that was once anathema among foodies, Denny’s is changing its brand positioning.

It’s Not About The Food

Denny’s may be taking a page from other dominant brands, such as Netflix and Apple, who realize that they’re purveying more than a product. They’re selling an experience.

“There’s a soul to a diner that is very authentic, very warm, very accepting,” said Frances Allen, CMO of Denny’s, in a recent NY Times article.

Identifying and emphasizing those aspects of the customer experience that Denny’s Brand Lovers—the considerable and profitable contingent of loyal customers who eat at Denny’s regularly, bring their family and friends to the restaurant, and pass along news of the latest meal deal—value most is a smart, strategic decision. Denny’s may fill the plate with pancakes, sausage and eggs, but they’re banking on the fact it’s the homey, everyone’s-got-a-place-at-the-table atmosphere that keeps customers coming back.

Is this appeal strong enough to save Denny’s, which has seen market share evaporate with the advent of family restaurants Applebee’s and Olive Garden?

Brand Vision: Characteristics and Values

One of the key concepts in Brand Modeling is that our brands are not what we, as an organization, think they are. Instead, our brands are what our best, most loyal customers think they are.

In the case of Denny’s, customers weren’t thinking of the eatery as a family restaurant. Focus groups weren’t using that phrase to describe Denny’s. Not using a phrase is a pretty clear indicator that that’s not how your customers see you.

We need to know how our customers see us. Their perception of what role we fill—in the marketplace, in their lives—constitutes an essential part of a brand’s vision. A Brand Vision is a synthesis of many components. Chief among these are, what we call, Brand Lover Characteristics, a collection of adjectives you use to describe your best customers, and Brand Values, an articulation of how the most loyal customers perceive the organization.

Ultimate profitability lies in bringing an organization’s offerings, operation, and especially messaging into alignment with what the brand’s loyal customers value most. For an organization like Denny’s, which has struggled to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive and fragmented marketplace, that means identifying with a high degree of specificity and certainty what their customers value about the Denny’s experience.

“We’re talking about a diner not in the physical sense per se but in a much larger sense, more as a symbol and metaphor,” Peter McGuiness, CEO of Gotham, the ad agency working with Denny’s on the reposition, said in the same NY Times interview.

Symbols and metaphor can serve as powerful connection points, giving a brand’s best customers a way to strengthen their attachment to the brand. Understanding where those connections already exist in the customer’s mind, and taking steps to reinforce the bond, is a route to success dominant organizations know well. If Denny’s can capitalize on the positive associations their base already has with the diner experience, they’ll be serving up bacon, eggs, and coffee for another fifty years.

Sleep. For some people, it’s the drug of choice. For others, it’s a concession of weakness.

Everyone reading these words needs to sleep, regularly and comfortably. Mattress companies are well aware of this. The mattress industry is both crowded and competitive—and far more dynamic than you may have ever imagined.

Sealy, perhaps the most dominant brand in the mattress world, recently made headlines by adopting a technology that arch-rival competitor Simmons has been using for nearly one hundred years. Sealy has announced that they will manufacture mattresses with pocketed coils. Pocketed coils resemble the open coils that currently inhabit the center of every Sealy mattress, with the addition of a fabric sleeve surrounding each coiled wire. Purportedly, this will mean a better sleep experience for Sealy’s customers.

Simmons is crying foul, despite the fact that other mattress manufacturers have used similar technology for years. Gary Fazio, the chief executive of Simmons, asked of Sealy’s change, “Do you not have faith in the brand promise you’re making?”

Sealy doesn’t see the situation quite the same way. “Consumers could, really, to be honest, care less,” Jodi Allen, CMO of Sealy, said.

One of these people is right. The question is which one.

Brand Modeling Identifies Opportunities For Change

Sealy’s change does not, to all outside appearances, appear to be that ground-shaking.  Yet history has proven, time and time again, that customers do not always welcome change.  Even changes that appear to have no impact on the customer experience can not be received well.  Changing a CEO, for example, would seem to mean little to the final customer—yet Apple‘s decision to let Steve Jobs go in favor of John Scully played out badly indeed. Apple loyalists rejoiced—and their numbers grew exponentially—after Jobs returned to the company.

On the other hand, failure to change can have catastrophic consequences as well.  Henry Ford’s notorious reluctance to mess with the success of the Model A put Ford in a position where it was forced to catch up with the competition—who’d been happily experimenting, innovating, and profiting while Ford stood still.

What businesses need, more than anything, is a way to predict with a high degree of certainty, what aspects of their business are open to change. Equally important is the imperative to leave alone those elements of the business that the organization’s best customers hold in highest regard.

Harley Davidson, for example, knows full well that they can’t strip away the chrome, black leather, and the freedom of the open road from their brand.  It would be brand suicide. Does that mean that the brand is locked in place, static and unable to evolve?  Certainly not—but all forward motion must include, at its heart, those core elements—the Brand DNA—that attracts their best, most loyal customers in the first place.

What defines a Sealy mattress in the mind of the customer? We’d have to say we’re with Jodi Allen on this one.  The qualities that a customer values the most when they’re selecting a mattress have little, if anything, to do with the actual construction or technology used and everything to do with the sleep experience they’re hoping to achieve.  Whether the coils within the mattress have fabric wrapped around them is simply not something the vast majority of their best customers are likely to lose any sleep over.

Wal-Mart has recently announced plans to make its house brands healthier. Responding to pressures to address the nation’s obesity crisis, the nation’s largest retailer is changing some of their merchandise. Reportedly, the formulas for Wal-Mart’s Great Value brand will now contain less salt, sugar, and trans fats. Additionally, Wal-Mart will be working closely with their supply chain to get healthier products on the shelves.

Is this a good decision?

Early responses have been mixed.  Many people have applauded the change, noting that Wal-Mart is the grocery store of choice for shoppers on a budget.  They believe that if healthier alternatives are available at the same price point, consumers will opt for those alternatives.  Others worry that Wal-Mart may make these changes at the expense of the farmers and food producers who can least afford the hit to already razor-thin profit margins.

Wal-Mart knows that it will always have a cheering section and it will always have detractors. While these groups obviously have some impact on how the company operates, at the end of the day, only one group has an opinion on the healthier that matters: Wal-Mart’s best customers.

Brand Lovers in Action

Wal-Mart is planning to implement its healthier approach over a five-year period. Significant organizational change takes time, and when an organization is as large as Wal-Mart, the investment is substantial. As they navigate this shift, they’ll likely look to insights from other industries—just as Singapore Casino guides us through adapting to evolving customer preferences, especially in highly regulated markets. Wal-Mart will be closely monitoring the reaction to healthier products, particularly from their best customers. It’s their response that matters most, as it will ultimately determine whether Wal-Mart stays committed to whole wheat pasta and discounted broccoli.

Wal-Mart has achieved its dominant position in the marketplace by knowing who—with a frightening degree of precision—their customers are, and who their customers are not.  Folk wisdom tells us that appearances can be deceiving, and we have to admit that in Wal-Mart’s case, this is especially true.

It may look like the mega-retailer is trying to capture every free dollar in the world’s marketplace, but the fact is that they’ve captured ongoing profitability by identifying and focusing on the needs of their very best customers—people we call Brand Lovers.  If other people want to shop at their stores, that’s fine with Wal-Mart—but at the end of the day, they’re all about satisfying their core group of customers.

There are a lot of misconceptions about who Wal-Mart’s core customers are. There’s certainly the stereotypical Wal-Mart shopper. If you want to understand why Wal-Mart is so dominant, you need to do as Wal-Mart has done and move beyond that stereotype. It’s by delving into a brand’s best customer’s psyche and examining their motivations and values that the place of ultimate profitability can be identified. It doesn’t matter who we think Wal-Mart’s customers are: it matters who Wal-Mart’s customers think they are.

Wal-Mart’s best customers self-identify as hard-working and honest. They are family-focused and great lovers of brand names, yet are very aware of their limited purchasing power. They want to do the best they can for their loved ones, but frequently run into the fact that there’s just not enough money in the paycheck to make that happen.

Understanding this allows Wal-Mart to make changes in their offerings to that will be highly valued and appreciated by their best customers. Wal-Mart can predict, fairly accurately, what will resonate and appeal to their best customers. The decision to go healthy was not motivated by altruism nor a desire for a healthier nation as much as it was a concrete understanding that this is another way to provide their best customers with something they value but feel unable to access previously.

Will the move be a winner? Time will tell—but the safe money says that Wal-Mart is likely to sell far more whole wheat pasta than they ever did before.

As these words are being written, Egypt is burning.  Political upheaval, the likes of which have not been seen for over thirty years, is tearing the country apart.  Protesters fill the streets.  Americans are being advised to avoid the country, and if they’re in Egypt now, do everything within their power to leave. The police force is nowhere to be seen; the role the army will play is entirely uncertain. Fighter jets are flying low over the streets of Cairo, in an attempt to disperse the crowds.

Across the ocean, the public is struggling to understand exactly what is happening.  The mainstream media and blogosphere alike are trying to explain the situation to people who, more likely than not, don’t think about Egyptian politics regularly, if at all.  How are they doing this?

Events are moving faster than they can be explained.  What we’re seeing is a scramble for narrative; the professional pundits and opinion makers know that the best way to connect with their audience and convey information appropriately is to find a way to frame the events of the day in a form that will be familiar. From Les Miserables rhetoric of revolution to street scenes said to resemble The Lord of The Ring’s hellish land of Mordor, we embrace fantastical visions to better understand reality.

Relevant historical accounts have their place, of course. It’s impossible to see tanks maneuvering among throngs of protesters without remembering Tiananmen Square. The US diplomatic corps has already iterated its desire to not see that particular story play out again. A narrative from the past can serve as a guide for future events, but it can also be a cautionary tale.

We must, if we want to achieve full understanding, move beyond our perception of events and embrace instead the Egyptian’s own perspective. We must have a solid grasp on how the parties involved see themselves in terms of a larger cultural narrative.

Man, Mythos, and Meaning

In Why We Talk , we examine the underlying psychological motivations that determine what makes customers discuss the companies they enjoy doing business with with their friends and peers.

The events in Egypt parallel, on a much more dramatic level, some of the challenges business owners have. The media is scrambling to find the appropriate story and images to communicate to the public exactly what is happening on the ground, and what all of the chaos is about. Without that narrative, the essential meaning won’t get through.

Consider then the challenge of communicating your brand essence, your organizational identity, to a public that knows little, if anything of who you are. In much the same way that journalists are reaching for well-known, relevant allusions, we must find the stories that resonate with our customers. More than that, we must find the tales that our best customers see themselves within, playing the hero role.

It’s not clear yet what the Egyptian narrative for this change is or will be. In the business world, we can look to the Marlboro man, icon symbol of rugged independence, and see the role of narrative at play. The loyalist Marlboro customer may not know one end of a horse from the other, but that doesn’t matter: they can see themselves as that cowboy, resourceful, independent, and strong.

Know the story that your audience values the most, and you’ll know how to connect in a meaningful, effective way. Egypt’s leadership has lost track of that narrative. Dominant companies can not afford to do the same.