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BJ Bueno

Meet Mr. Maslow: The Father of Cult Branding

Why are certain brands so important and meaningful to some customers that they feel compelled to tell the world about them? What makes them go that extra mile?

Understanding human behavior—what motivates people to do certain things and act certain ways—is at the very core of successful marketing.

This is where the work of the late, great psychologist Abraham Maslow comes in.

Maslow postulated that we humans have an ascending order of needs and used a hierarchy of needs to prioritize them. At the bottom levels of the pyramid are our physiological needs, which include basic things like food, shelter, and clothing that we all need to survive.

At progressively higher levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy are the needs for safety and security, social interaction, and self-esteem. At the very top is self-actualization, a term Maslow coined to describe the ultimate human need to learn, grow, and reach one’s full potential as a person.

We all desire on some level to self-actualize, both to be at peace with ourselves and to try to be the best we can be. As humans, we are drawn to people, places, groups, causes, companies, and, ultimately, brands that we believe can help us towards our ultimate goal of self-actualization and total fulfillment.

Why the Hierarchy of Needs Is a Crucial Tool for Branding?

Perhaps the most important thing to take away from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs is his theory that all human beings start fulfilling their needs at the bottom levels of the pyramid.

In short, we fill our low physiological needs first. Higher needs like safety, social interaction, and esteem basically do not exist at this point. Logically, survival comes first.

However, once an individual has satisfied his or her lower level needs, the higher level needs become influential in motivating behavior.

As Maslow notes time and time again in his work, “Man is a perpetually wanting animal.”

Maslow’s writings break down the underlying drivers of human behavior and decision making. Maslow never mentions the phrase “brand loyalty” in his books, but his Hierarchy of Human Needs and concepts like self-actualization are key to understanding why consumers consistently choose one brand over another and enjoy such strong relationships with them.

So, why is fulfilling higher level needs so integral to building strong customer loyalty? What’s the connection, you ask? The answer is, higher level needs influence future human behavior much greater than lower level needs. It is the brands that can fulfill human needs on the higher levels of the hierarchy that become irreplaceable in the mind of the consumer.

That’s what customer loyalty is really all about: being irreplaceable.

True customer loyalty is not only about getting a customer to consistently choose your brand over another. It’s for that same customer to always believe (and then go tell the world) that your company’s brand has no equal!

This article is an excerpt from The Power of Cult Branding.

March 15, 2012 by

The Sweet Smell of Success: How Understanding Your Customer’s Unconscious Motivations Can Help Build Your Brand

There is a great article in Forbes discussing how P&G revived the Febreze brand, bringing it back from near-death status to one of the company’s leading money makers.  It illustrates very well how critical it is to understand the unconscious factors that motivate customer behavior.

Febreze, if you’re not familiar, is a specific kind of air freshener that can be used to treat upholstery, carpeting, and other items that can’t be washed.  P&G tried to market Febreze as an odor eliminator. That effort failed, in part because there were not many customers who thought that their lives were all that smelly.

When P&G changed their efforts and marketed using Febreze as a rewarding experience after you’d cleaned a room, sales went through the roof.  When we stop to think about it, this makes a lot of sense.  Who are P&G’s best customers? (The people we call Brand Lovers?)  By and large, they’re people who do a lot of cleaning. A clean, tidy home is important to them. They’re not people who are going to eagerly proclaim  that they have bad smells in their home—in fact, many would find that type of admission very shameful.

Positioning Febreze as a reward for something that P&G’s best customer’s were already doing (cleaning the room) was a transformative exercise.  No longer was using Febreze a tacit admission that your housekeeping efforts just didn’t cut the mustard.  Instead, using Febreze was a sign of a job well done; a pleasant sensory experience that you could enjoy as a reward for your efforts.

Unconscious Factors That Guide Customer Behavior

If we were going to reduce the Febreze situation to it’s simplest terms, we have this: in one mode, using Febreze made the customer feel like a failure. In the other situation, the customer feels good about using Febreze—it’s a treat to be enjoyed and savored. The emotional impact of the two scenarios are very different.

We gravitate toward emotional experiences that make us feel good.  We want to be happy. We like to be rewarded. To be told we’re doing a good job—especially in scent form, for olfactory cues are some of the strongest emotional triggers—is a powerful thing.

Identifying the Emotional Experience

It’s essential to identify the emotional experience that your customers are seeking. P&G initially marketed Febreze in a way that provoked a negative emotional reaction: no one enjoys feeling shamed and inadequate. By leveraging this crash guide, they were able to shift their strategy to identify a different emotional reaction that aligns with what P&G customers were seeking—a feeling of pride, satisfaction in a job well done, and the sense of being rewarded. This approach made it possible for the customer to enthusiastically embrace the brand.

Up to 90% of customer behavior is unconsciously motivated. Many times, customers are oblivious to what leads them to choose one product over another.

You’re not going to see people standing in the cleaning product aisle saying, “Hmm, this provokes deep, uncomfortable feelings of shame in me, while this one makes me feel good about myself, virtuous, and hard-working.”  But that conversation is happening on some level in your customer’s mind.  Companies that understand that can position their products to occupy the more desirable position, and that’s why they win.

March 6, 2012 by

Success by the Slice: Does Being “Flawsome” Work For Domino’s?

PhotobucketPerfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Just ask the folks at Domino’s Pizza.  In 2009, the company’s pizza came in last in a national taste test—tying with Chuck E. Cheese, an eatery known more for the presence of video games and children’s amusements than anything on the menu.  At that point, (and after bringing on a new CEO, Patrick Doyle) Domino’s launched a new marketing campaign, admitting that they weren’t perfect.

In fact, they were pretty far from perfect.  This campaign featured images of horrendous looking pizzas and consumer panels admitting, on camera, that they didn’t think there was any actual real cheese to be found on a Domino’s pie.  The company vowed to improve, and made a very public spectacle of their efforts to fix things.  They even posted a live feed of customer Tweets in Times Square: a highly visible, real-time response to their improvements for all the world to see.

As a result, Domino’s has seen their sales numbers improving steadily. Investor confidence in the brand has skyrocketed. In 2011, Domino’s stock prices rose 110%. Being “Flawsome” appears to be a smart strategic decision for Domino’s.  But why did it work?

Understanding the Brand Lover

The relationship between a consumer and a brand is a complex and nuanced one.  There are many, many factors that lead a person to order pizza from one restaurant rather than another. When we start delving into what the underlying appeal of what a marketing message of “We weren’t very good, really, but we’re trying to get better!” might be, we have to examine not only how the customer views the pizza restaurant in question, but how they view the world in general, and their place in it.

We are dealing right now with a consumer base that has been trained to be skeptical about everything. Having faith or trust in an institution is viewed as a nostalgic form of naivete; we’re sure that there’s going to be a fly in our bowl of soup. Reaching this market with a message of perfection or idealism isn’t going to work. This audience is not capable of believing such things. They know nothing in this world is perfect and they prefer to do business with a company that is honest about their imperfections.

Organizations that can acknowledge their own shortcomings, while putting forward a reasonable plan to remedy the solution with a sense of humor and maturity, appeal to these customers. The customer can identify with the brand—after all, they know they’re not perfect people. They’ve screwed up themselves, once or twice, over the years.  They may have had to go through their own process of rebuilding. There are common points of experience between Domino’s and the legions of customers driving the brand’s turnaround. The brands that are the easiest for customers to bond with are the brands that are most human—and haven’t we been told that to err is human?

There’s a lot to learn from Domino’s. Organizations that move in a more humanistic fashion, understanding and embracing those traits that bring them closer into alignment with their Brand Lover’s experiences and world view, are those that are going to dominate, even in a crowded marketplace. There is value in being “flawsome.”

February 27, 2012 by

Rotten at the Core? Apple’s Alignment Problem

Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow.

That isn’t the message most of Apple’s Brand Lovers would expect to find hanging on the wall of their favorite tech company’s manufacturing facility. It seems a little too Dickensian in sentiment, a world removed from the sleek gadgets tailor made to empower and encourage the creative spirit.

But there it is, right in the middle of a NY Times investigative report: In China, Human Costs are Built into an iPad.  Reading this, we learn how Apple’s supply chain is fraught with difficulties. Safety and environmental concerns top the list. People have died. There have been multiple explosions at manufacturing facilities—blasts, experts say, that were completely avoidable. Toxic materials were used in the production of iPhones, driven by what Supply Chain Digest calls “aggressive procurement practices.” Allegations of child labor, punitive practices in the workplace, and high rates of suicide round out the list.

There is a culture of secrecy and silence around Apple’s manufacturing practices; vendors sign confidentially agreements so sweeping that they’re barred from disclosing they’re working for Apple at all.

Customers First: Understanding the Pillars of Belief

Of all of the challenges that Apple has faced over the years, this situation holds the most potential to break the brand.  There is an obvious and fundamental disconnect between the way Apple is conducting business and the way that Apple’s Brand Lovers would expect Apple to do business.

Now, until this point, it’s probably fair to say that the vast majority of people who use and enjoy Apple products never once thought about how all of that iTech was actually made.  But if those same people were asked asked about how they thought their iPhone or iPad was made, we’d hear a range of responses based on the beliefs and assumptions that those customers have about Apple as an organization.

The Pillars of Belief articulate the beliefs that our best customers have about our company. This can be a simple but all important question, such as “Are they honest and fair? Are they the type of company I want to do business with?” Questions like these can help uncover the beliefs customers hold about your company that influences their buying decisions.

Brand Lovers strongly prefer to do business with companies whom they believe reflect their own personal belief system. They’re seeking those points of familiarity, of personal resonance, where their perception of your brand meshes closely with the cultural stories they hold most dear.

Problems arise when an organization’s performance, in any sphere of operations, gets out of alignment with the Pillars of Belief.  The Apple Brand Lover has expectations based upon their belief that Apple is a company that empowers and elevates people’s existence. The discovery that this product is made in a nightmarish sweatshop environment is out of alignment with that belief.  This disconnect introduces a tension into the customer-brand relationship; a tension that customers may resolve by abandoning their once-beloved iGear.

Apple has been making moves to remedy the supply chain issue, but as both the NY Times and Supply Chain Journal have noted, those efforts have been perceived as lacking and entirely secondary to the need to produce the new iGear as quickly and profitably as possible. Bringing Apple back into alignment with their Brand Lover’s expectations will require greater efforts to remedy existing problems, as well as increased visibility and transparency.  Only then will Apple be acting in a fashion that their Brand Lovers expect. That’s what it means to put Customers First.

February 15, 2012 by

Driving Into the Future: Rolls Royce, China, and Brand Lover Expectations

The Rolls Royce Special Edition Year of the Dragon Phantom comes in a distinct maroon color.  There are ornate golden dragon details. You can, if you can foot the bill, have your Phantom fully customized, with special embroidery on the upholstery, drinks cabinet, and on an optional picnic basket.

The price for the Year of the Dragon Phantom? $1.2 million.

Don’t bother saving your pennies, though. You can’t get one of these beautiful cars to park in your driveway.  They’ve all been sold—Rolls Royce’s entire production run—in less than 2 months.

Connecting with the Chinese Market: The Rolls Royce Approach

The success of the ultra-luxe Rolls Royce is only one of the many signs that the Chinese market should no longer be considered emerging.  It has emerged, flush with the power that relative economic stability conveys in this turbulent world.  Luxury brands are actively pursuing this market. We see Estee Lauder, Harrods, British Airways, and Hilton going to tremendous lengths to court the Chinese consumer.

What are the determinants of success here? Is there a way to tell which brands will be welcomed with open arms by the Chinese? We’re going to see these questions dominating our national discourse now, and for years to come.  To find the answers, we must begin by deconstructing the myth that there is a monolithic Chinese market.

The Chinese market is vast.  There’s no doubting that. We’re talking about 1.3 billion people, who have recently transitioned from a largely rural existence to a more urban way of life.  This has been a significant period of cultural change within China, with a tremendous impact on how individual Chinese people view themselves, each other, and the world beyond their borders.

With this change comes a great curiosity.  The Chinese, it seems, are fantastic travelers.  In the first six months of 2011, Chinese people made over 30 million overseas trips—approximately twice the number Americans are likely to make. While on these trips, the Chinese tourist is spending.  Research tells us that a Chinese tourist will spend up to 8% of their annual disposable income while on a vacation. It’s important to note what types of products, and more importantly, what types of experiences, the Chinese are buying.

This data will reveal that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the Chinese market. Instead, the companies that will be most successful in China are those that do what dominant organizations have always done: identify the pivotal emotional and psychological factors that choose the brand’s best customers (Brand Lovers)  to favor one brand over all others, and deliver products, services, and especially experiences that satisfy the consumer’s emotional and psychological needs. Doing this allows an organization to connect quickly and meaningfully with their customer base, enhancing overall profitability and increasing market share.

This is a challenging endeavor when we attempt it with consumers who have a common cultural background with ourselves.  When you consider a consumer base that has been raised with markedly different experiences, iconography, cultural narratives, values, and mores, it becomes more complex.

Context matters.  Rolls Royce did an admirable job connecting with the Chinese marketplace, but that doesn’t mean that Toyota can start painting golden dragons on all of their Highlanders and see sales go through the roof. We need more than a surface level understanding if we’re going to reach and compete in China effectively. This will be one of the greatest challenges—and the greatest opportunities—that we ever face.

Are you ready?

February 8, 2012 by

The Sound of One Hand Clapping: Applause and Your Brand Lovers

During the Florida Republican Primary Debate, moderator Brian Williams asked the audience to refrain from applauding or booing anything they hear the candidates say. While this is the norm for presidential debates, the request drew mixed reaction in this instance.

There are those who praised the silent format, claiming that it reduces the theatrical aspect of the debate, forcing the focus onto the actual content of the discussion. There are those who criticized the move, claiming that the audience’s free speech was being stifled.  Additionally, these critics asked, isn’t the theatrical aspect of the debate part of the point?

This conversation raises larger questions. They transcend politics. The question of applause is relevant to every sphere of life, but most especially in the area of the relationship we have with our customers. We need to talk about the power of applause, the many roles applause can take, and the impact applause has on several parties: the person (or organization) being applauded, the person clapping their hands, and perhaps most important of all, those who observe the applause.

Why We Talk: Applause As Social Currency

To understand why applause is powerful, we have to take a look at the underlying psychological motivation forces that guide our behavior.  We’re all influenced by these forces whether we’re aware of them or not.  The need to belong to a group is very strong. Just belonging isn’t enough, however; we need to have a comfortable position in the group, one in which we understand our role, feel we receive an acceptable amount of support and validation, a place where we’re respected.

Part of the way we gain position in a group is by the exchange of what social scientists call social currency. Applause is a form of social currency.  When you clap for someone, you’re signalling your approval and admiration.

This has benefits for the person being applauded. They feel better, obviously, fulfilling the esteem needs. Applause attracts attention: other people want to see what’s so interesting. Increased attention boosts social status, which can result in an extension of influence.

Clapping has its own reward. Applause can be used to declare elements of identity: you can tell who a man is by paying attention to what he claps for. To find people who like the same things you do, follow the clapping.  You can gain social status by being among the first to applaud: there’s always been a special cachet associated with being in the know.

Applause strengthens the relationship between both parties. There are many benefits and expectations woven into the nuanced dance of the celebrated and the celebrator. It’s only when those expectations are understood and met that you see the applause continuing on an ongoing basis. Do a superlative job, and the applause grows in volume and intensity. It’s a cyclical pattern that begins with that first tentative clap.

Applause takes many forms. There’s hand clapping, but there’s also reviews and ratings. Any grading system is a specialized form of applause: if you meet these standards, we’re going to applaud your performance with an “A.” (Good to know if you’re in the restaurant business!) It’s important to be aware of how your best customers are likely to applaud you, as well as what type of applause they pay attention to.  That awareness is fundamental to forming deep, meaningful connections with your customers.

And that’s a fact no one will debate!

February 1, 2012 by

Beyond Question: Are There Things Your Brand Should Never Ask?

Arthur Brisbane has been having a rough week. On January 12th, the NY Times‘ public editor (a position created, you may remember, in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal) used his high-profile soap box to ask the most amazing question: Should the Times be a truth vigilante? Was it incumbent on reporters, he went on to ask, to challenge public figures when their statements were less than accurate?

In itself, it’s not a particularly difficult question.  Most NY Times readers answered it quickly and succinctly. No duh, the collective wisdom went.  Of course it’s the NY Times‘ job to verify that the facts they print are actually facts—not politically-motivated spin, egregious falsehoods, or just plain old nonsense.

NY Times executive editor Jill Abramson joined the conversation, pointing out that fact checking is central to what journalists—and by extension, the NY Times—do.

The conversation quickly moved from there into a more complicated inquiry.  NY Times readers wanted to know why Brisbane was asking the question at all. It’s impossible to get even approximately accurate numbers on reader response, as the paper closed comments within hours of the editorial posting, but it’s not hard to discern the emotional tone of the conversation. Extremely high levels of anger, hostility, and frustration are easy to see.

Where is this emotion coming from?

It’s important to note that Brisbane did more than write an uncomfortable editorial.  That in itself would not have been so noteworthy.  Instead, he did something far more disruptive: he questioned a fundamental aspect of the NY Times‘ mythos.  The mythos is the shared cultural narrative, composed of beliefs held often unconsciously, in common by the NY Times, the NY Times readership, and the community at large.

The Mythos of the NY Times

As a legacy brand, the NY Times has a long and storied history.  The “Old Gray Lady” built a reputation as the paper of record. The NY Times brand was more than credible; it was strong enough to serve an editorial role in the national conversation simply by deciding what was included in “All the news that’s fit to print.”

The NY Times has a personality, a history, a known editorial slant and, despite some very well publicized mishaps, a reputation for adhering to rigorous journalistic standards. All of these elements combine in the brand’s mythos, and all of these elements are essential. For any organization, the mythos plays a strong role in defining the brand’s appeal. When an organization’s mythos is as strong and robust as the NY Times, you play with it at your peril.

So Mr. Brisbane has learned. By questioning one of the fundamental aspects of the paper’s mythos—the story that the NY Times is a dependable source of reliable information—he has introduced a tension into the customer/brand relationship. Doubts have crept into a space reserved for certainty.

This isn’t the first time there’s been mayhem in the NY Times‘ mythos, but it’s one of the most troubling.  If the leadership at the NY Times can’t believe in and articulate the fundamental aspects that define the paper as something different, special, and remarkable in the media, why should anyone else?

January 25, 2012 by

Ringing in the New: Champagne, Brand Modeling, and Looking Ahead to 2012

There’s never a bad time to be a winemaker—or so we have been assured by vineyard owners—but some years are better than others. Champagne, in particular, has been enjoying a great year, with sales up a reported 5.2% over the first half of 2011.

That’s an awful lot of bubbly! Champagne is the beverage of choice for festive events, essential for wedding toasts and, of course, New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Now that the ball has officially dropped, and we’ve embarked, for better or worse, into 2012. It’s a good time to look at this CNN Fortune story about legacy Champagne brand Piper-Heidsieck and their efforts to remain relevant in a crowded, confusing marketplace.

We have to admit that our curiosity was piqued by new CEO Cecile Bonneford’s comment, “Market research tells me what the average consumer wants and I’m not interested in the average consumer.”  Bonneford’s reported plans center on positioning Piper-Heidsieck as a luxury brand for younger, affluent drinkers.

Before these plans can be implemented, however, it’s essential that Piper-Heidsieck has a deep, nuanced understanding of how her prospective market views luxury.  What are the essential traits that a brand must embody in order to qualify as a luxury brand in her customer’s eyes?

Brand Modeling: Finding A Path Forward

There are tangible and intangible answers to that question. We can talk about the physical qualities of the product. Piper-Heidsieck is actually produced in the Champagne region of France; a meaningful distinction for oenophiles.

What iconography and imagery comes to mind when her audience hears the word “luxury”?  Does Piper-Heidsieck look like, smell like, and most importantly taste like a luxury Champagne? It’s essential that the customer expectations are understood, met, and whenever possible, surpassed.

The conversation goes on from there. The intangible qualities that define luxury are in many ways more critical than the tangible. Piper-Heidsieck has several great cards in their hand. They’ve been in existence for more than 100 years; longevity is the hallmark of a luxury brand. It’s hard to beat a celebrity endorsement list that boasts both Marie Antoinette and Marilyn Monroe.

Identifying these and other similar factors begins the exploration of the values and narratives that this audience associates with luxury. This process lies at the heart of discovering a Brand’s DNA, one of the key steps in Brand Modeling. Through this discovery, dominant organizations learn the best ways to connect with their existing customer base, attract new customer interest, and convert the casual fan into a devoted afficionado.

Bonnefeld’s definition of luxury is fascinating. “Luxury is about tension,” she said in the article, “tension about history and tension about today.” There’s certainly a lot of room for interpretation there, but if Bonnefeld’s interpretation is in alignment with her market’s, she’s in a good position to succeed.  Understanding what critical points of tension a customer faces and providing a proven, reliable, enjoyable way to resolve those tensions is how dominant organizations put customers first.

We’ll be keeping an eye on Piper-Heidsieck. We think that they may find themselves with something to celebrate!

January 3, 2012 by

Is Wendy’s Winning or Burger King Losing?

All of a sudden, everyone is talking about the Burger Wars again.  Nothing’s actually changed yet—McDonald’s is still the undisputed leader of the pack, with Burger King in the number two spot.  But things are about to change.

The Wall Street Journal revealed that Wendy’s is poised to knock the King off his throne. This is big news, and lots of people have theories about how it happened. A lot has been said about menu revamps: Wendy’s was both timely and well-executed, while Burger King’s lacks both cohesion and relevance, especially in terms of healthier offerings.

While Wendy’s has gone after the upscale end of the fast food market, Burger King is routinely slammed for the poor quality of their food.  Wendy’s has capitalized on its legacy relationship with their Brand Lovers by running campaigns featuring the chain’s namesake, Wendy Thomas. Burger King, on the other hand, only recently stopped an off-putting and unsettling campaign featuring a creepy cartoon version of the King that alienated more customers than it attracted.

There’s a lot of wisdom here.  Every theory captures part of the reason Wendy’s star is on the rise, while Burger King is declining. If we want more than a partial understanding, we need to combine these theories with the type of deeper understanding that Brand Modeling provides.

Connecting With Your Customer

To achieve and maintain the number two position in the massive fast food market is a huge challenge. Brand Modeling teaches us that the only way an organization could be successful in such an endeavor is to develop a deep understanding of who their best customers are. Armed with this understanding, companies can then successfully anticipate their customer’s needs and meet them in a way that surpasses expectations.  This process strengthens the relationship between the customer and the brand.

From the Wall Street Journal, we hear how Wendy’s has tried to deepen its understanding of its customer base. Wendy’s spent 18 months interviewing 10,000 consumers. “They told us they liked the idea of fresh foods with as little processing as possible and ingredients they were familiar with,” said Denny Lynch, Wendy’s spokesman. This understanding prompted Wendy’s to change their trademark square burger shape, rounding the corners to create a less-processed look.  Understanding the value of freshness and familiarity certainly influenced the creation of a familiar tagline: You know when it’s real.

The chain clearly understands that the public is hungry for more than a burger. They have deeper needs to be met, emotional and subconscious needs. We see Wendy’s meeting the need for reassurance and tradition. The emphasis on fresh and familiar ingredients is more than a food-wish-list; the deeper message is about safety and home.

In a time when its best customers are facing economic upheaval and financial uncertainty (albeit to a lesser degree than Burger King’s best customers, the young men who are suffering disproportionate rates of unemployment), Wendy’s is telling a story of family and continuity, honoring tradition while embracing innovation. Wendy’s is winning because it’s telling its Brand Lovers the story they want to hear.  There’s sea salt on the fries, and it comes with a side order of hope and optimism.

For Burger King, this is another in a string of wake-up calls.  Will it work? If BK can reconnect with their Brand Lovers successfully, hope remains. But time is of the essence. The fast food giant will have to move quickly indeed.

December 28, 2011 by

Trouble at the Top: The Leader’s Challenge

If there’s trouble, look to the top.

Brand Modeling teaches us that the force most responsible for a dominant organization’s success is the enthusiastic support of its best customers. So what force is most responsible for an organization’s failure? A not-insignificant portion of the time, the answer resides at the top. The Daily Beast recently ran a feature entitled 10 Worst Corporate Boards of the Decade that highlighted some monumental leadership challenges.

It’s not an in-depth piece, but as you flip through it, you’ll see that there are certain traits exhibited by the worst leadership teams that seem to keep cropping up.  Board members are over-committed, inexperienced, and have interests and agendas in conflict with their organization’s health and success.

Sometimes Boards are asleep at the wheel.  Tyco was included on this list because they allowed their CEO, Dennis Kozlowski, and CFO, Mark Swartz to steal over $150 million from the company. Insufficient oversight is perhaps the most generous way to describe what happened there.

GM made the list for other reasons.  A lack of strategic planning and failure to adapt to market changes kept GM from hitting the highway to success. Throw in significant accounting errors that put potholes into GM’s already rocky road, and it’s not surprising that the company went off track.

One common trait unites all of these examples.  There is a fundamental disconnect between the leadership and the companies they were supposed to be directing.  It’s a pattern of behavior as old as time itself; a cultural narrative that has a deep and profound place in our collective unconscious.  Today, we speak about Boards of Directors and pillaged corporate funds.  Two thousand years ago, the story would be that the shepherd has laid down his staff, yet still he cries when the sheep are lost.

Brand Modeling: The Role of Leadership and Brand Vision

What we see happening instead in dominant organizations, time and time again, is the opposite situations. These are companies that are thriving because they exist in a state of alignment. There is what we call Brand Vision, a shared vision of success that motivates and guides decision making. This vision is shared at every level: it’s as familiar to front-line employees as it is to your C-level executives and yes, Board of Directors.

It’s especially important that an organization’s leadership understand and be invested in the company’s Brand Vision. Directors, after all, are there to direct and guide the company in a more successful direction. They are pathfinders, charged with leading the charge up the mountainside. The journey becomes infinitely easier when they know what the summit looks like.

The more dominant an organization is, the more thorough and involved their Brand Vision is likely to be. Knowing what success looks like means understanding how the company is positioned in many spheres: in the relationship with the Brand Lover, as a force or presence in a given market, as an employer or investment possibility. A unity of vision keeps the organization on track. Decisions are made to realize that vision, keeping the leadership, company, and Brand Lover aligned throughout the process.  That’s putting customers first, and that’s how dominant organizations win.

December 12, 2011 by