Marketing

What was your last job interview like?

Did you dance?

Did you sing?

Were you ready to be silly, playful, outgoing, and engaging?

If you answered “No” to any of these questions, chances are you weren’t interviewing with Six Flags. More than 1,000 people showed up for a recent job fair, hoping to be hired as ride attendants, ride operators, and support staff at the theme park. The interview experience wasn’t “business as usual.”  Interviewees were given the chance to perform in 60-second showcases, where they had to do something—anything—to entertain.

Julia Filz, the park’s spokeswoman, explained why. “We want people who aren’t shy.  In this business, you can’t be shy.”

Finding Your Way To The Top: Six Flag’s Approach

Six Flags is the largest regional theme park operator and second largest amusement park operator in the world. They lag behind Disney, the established industry leader. The recession hit all theme parks and amusement venues particularly hard, and Six Flags entered bankruptcy last May.  A recently announced $60 million dollar stock buy back can be taken as one sign that Six Flags intends to step up its efforts to achieve a more dominant market position and greater profitability. The innovative interview style is another.

To be successful, Six Flags cannot echo Disney’s efforts. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it does little if anything to inspire enduring customer loyalty, brand strength, or enduring market share. No vacation destination wants to be known as “This is where you go when you can’t afford the best.”

Instead, Six Flags is busy establishing its own unique, appealing identity in the market. One important differentiator is Six Flag’s decision to market heavily to local residents; Disney, by contrast, markets to people around the world. Exclusive licensing agreements with Warner Brothers and DC allows Six Flag parks to feature Bugs Bunny, Batman, and other popular characters that are outside of the Disney pantheon. These characters walk the park, and serve as the theme for any park’s main attraction: rides.

Finally, the spontaneous, free, spur-of-the-moment entertainment that successful interviewees demonstrated would never fly at Disney, where cast members are supposed to stay on script, no matter what. It may seem a subtle point, but for many of Six Flag’s biggest fans, the interaction with park staffers and crew feels more authentic and less forced than the experience they have at Disney.

Brand Modeling provides the tools and insights that any company, even those facing Disney-sized competition, can use to identify those points of difference where they can forge a distinct, profitable opportunity.

Everyone wants to have fun, but not everyone wants to go to Disney. Six Flags shouldn’t be wasting their time or energy going after the Disney fanatic: there is nothing that they can do that will compete head to head in that arena. The point instead is to go after the legions of people who still want to have a great time in a theme park. Understanding what these customers want, and what they value most, is the key Six Flags needs to ensure this summer will be its best season yet.

And if that means interacting with friendly, engaging people, that means hiring people who will Dance the Dougie on command. It looks like Six Flags is on the right track … good news in the roller coaster business!

Here’s a marketing quandary you never hear about: what happens when it turns out your tag line turns out to be true? The Heart Attack Grill claims its offerings, which include triple bypass burgers and lard-fried flatliner fries, are a taste worth dying for.

And now Blair River, the 570-pound spokesman for the chain, has died. He was 29 years old, and the official cause of death was complications from pneumonia Rivers contracted after coming down with the flu. Morbid obesity is indicated as a cause of complications in recovering from the flu. Even if River’s fat didn’t kill him, it surely didn’t help him get better. Every item on the Heart Attack Grill menu can be considered a contributing factor to morbid obesity.

Will this be the end of the Heart Attack Grill’s operations? Or will Rivers have a place of honor on a morbid Wall of Fame, his passage marked by an annual ritualized consumption of Butterfat Shakes?

It could go either way. Jon Basso, owner of the Heart Attack Grill, has a unique understanding of a normally marginalized segment of the dining market. In many places, customers who weigh more than 350 pounds are hardly welcomed with open arms. At the Heart Attack Grill, after a celebratory, ceremonial weigh-in, these customers eat for free.

He’s the first to say nothing will change. “I hired him to promote my food. We are absolutely guilty of glorifying obesity. That’s what I do for a living: I make a mockery of heart-related issues in order to sell hamburgers,” Basso said in a recent interview with ABC.

Will that confidence continue? Basso has to know who his customers are. Is the loyalist, most profitable contingent of his market the super-sized?

Every business needs to have a concrete understanding of who their Brand Lovers, their most profitable, loyal, enthusiastic customers are. It’s not safe to assume. Examining the demographics of Basso’s customer base may reveal that the lion’s share of business comes from smaller diners. The appeal of indulgence and unabashed gluttony knows no weight limit, but there are far more people who enjoy the menu who tip the scales at under 350 pounds than over it.

The Heart Attack Grill’s Brand Lovers may have king sized appetites, but not necessarily for Triple Bypass burgers. Customers are seeking a specific emotional experience when they came to the Heart Attack Grill. Basso is selling rebellion. A non-stop litany of the warnings of cholesterol, alcohol, and nicotine have a certain segment of the public fed up. They’ve had enough of hearing about what they should eat. Every item on the Heart Attack Grill is a chance to thumb your nose in the face of nutritional authority, to say, “I’m going to do what I want to do, no matter what!”

The appeal of the guilty (yet, River’s death nonwithstanding, relatively harmless) indulgence is strong. Basso has already tried business from the other side of the fence: having hawked Jenny Craig and run a fitness franchise, he hasn’t been able to connect with the customers who place a high value on healthy eating and enduring health. Self-abnegation does nothing for his bottom line. Gluttony may be knocking them dead, but Basso knows he’s on to a formula his Brand Lovers can’t resist—even when they know they should.

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.