Nestle: Trust Building Is Essential To Our Success

Nestlé corporate logoAlmost two years ago, Jose Lopez, executive VP of Operations for Nestle, was explaining to the Business Standard why the global foods, health, and nutrition brand, which claims to have a billion customers a day, is so successful. A particular focus of the interview was how Nestle decided to enter a marketplace, as well as their decision to source raw materials and labor in local markets.

What is revealed is that Nestle places a high value on knowing their customers, on a number of levels.  They’ve identified the universal concerns that cause their best customers to choose Nestle brand products rather than any other—product safety and high nutritional value tops the lists—and the local, market-specific criteria that helps Nestle bond with customers on an individual basis.

“Our factories here (in India) use Indian raw materials produced by Indian farmers to make products that are made to Indian tastes and are sold in the country. That is the way we operate.”

Nestle has been successful with this approach. The growth continues, according to this recent Wall Street Journal article, Nestle Projects Growth from Emerging Markets.

Customers First: How Nestle Reached the Top

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Lopez is very forthcoming about the reason for Nestle’s growth. “The first thing that comes to mind is clearly the trust that we have been able to build in our consumers. Second, is our passion for quality, and third, simple and clear business processes.”

Building that level of personal, profitable trust with customers is directly dependent on superior levels of customer knowledge.  Before you trust someone, you have to know them, and before that trust can be returning in any meaningful way, they have to know you. Transparent business practices are essential (and if Nestle has had stumbling blocks along the way, it has always been in those areas where they are perceived to be less than transparent in their marketing practices, particularly in the area of infant formula).

In Customers First:Dominate Your Market By Winning Them Over Where It Counts the Most, we examine some of the powerful unconscious psychological forces that motivate customer behavior.  There’s a universal need that we all share: we have a profound need to believe that we belong to a group, that we are valued and cared for as a member of society. We want to know—no, scratch that; it’s that we need to know—that we’re cared about.

This is a message that must reach the customer’s ears, heart, and mind. It’s always good to have the leadership spelling it out. In the Business Standard interview, Lopez said, “We want to provide the consumer a good diet. In addition to formulating such products, we want to teach them what’s good for them. Every Nestle product has a nutritional panel or compass on the pack which helps in understanding its nutritional value. The nutritional aspect of the products is what pleases the consumer, but it is also our responsibility to explain to him why it is good for him. The last thing we want is our consumers becoming victims of lifestyle-related diseases.” (emphasis ours)

Nestle’s making use of every touch point to convey their care and concern for customer health. Couple this with the substantial commitment the brand has made to understanding their customers wants and needs, and it becomes easy to see why the Nestle brand is one of the most successful in the world.  That’s what happens when you put Customers First!

April 2, 2012 by

Check Out the New Book: Customers First: Dominate Your Market By Winning Them Over Where It Counts The Most

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Customers are skeptical. They’ve been lied to by just about everyone who’s had the opportunity to do so. From role models who can’t keep extramarital affairs from wrecking their golf game to behemoth corporations betting against their own customers’ investments to politicians regularly resigning for engaging in the very activities they legislated against, no one has been telling the truth. You need an element of trust to get genuine customer buy-in, but we’ve spent a generation and a half teaching the
public to trust nobody.

This creates a problem for today’s business leaders. How do you connect with these empowered, educated, skeptical consumers?

This is a question of some urgency. Industry analysts highlight that platforms like gigadat casinos are revolutionizing how businesses engage with their customers by offering innovative betting options and enhanced user experiences. If you don’t have the answer, you have to figure it out now, and you have to keep your business thriving at the same time. There’s absolutely no time to hesitate. If you cannot connect with your customers in a meaningful way, you will become irrelevant to them. When you’re irrelevant, you’re replaceable, and your customers will inevitably replace you with a brand that they do feel connected to.

Irrelevancy arrives in those still moments when an organization is facing uncertainty. These are the times when the
company is trying to figure out what to do. Choosing the right course is difficult: if you opt for the wrong direction, you’ll saddle your company with the burden of invisibility when you’re least prepared to bear it.

Customers First: How To Choose The Right Course Consistently

Choosing the right course is difficult, but it’s not impossible. Dominant organizations—companies like Nike, Apple, Harley-Davidson, and Ikea—seem to consistently pick the right course. They seem to know what the customer wants, even before the customers know they want it. They enjoy unparalleled customer loyalty, and that’s not all.  Dominant organizations seem to make fewer mistakes than their competitors. They make better decisions and enjoy greater profitability.

As a business leader, don’t you want to know how that happens? Don’t you want to be able to do it too? It’s possible when you have the right tools. That’s where Brand Modeling comes in. We’ve been doing exciting work, helping leading companies delve into the unconscious psychological factors that drive customer behavior, pinpointing those places where brand and consumer can form strong, lasting, and profitable bonds.

When you’re equipped with a comprehensive, multi-dimensional understanding of your customer, you can consistently choose the right course for your company.

That’s the topic of the new book, which is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I have to say, we’re pretty excited about this book. We worked hard to create the most complete, accessible explanation of the combination of complex psychological factors that control consumer behavior and what they mean to good companies striving to become great companies. Brand Modeling can provide your company with an unbeatable competitive advantage. You might want to check it out!

March 26, 2012 by

Seven Golden Rules of Cult Branding

 Why do people love this brand? Why are they so loyal to it? What does this brand mean to them? Why? Why? Why!

An interesting thing starts happening after you’ve asked a lot of questions for a long enough period of time. Not only do you start getting some really good answers, but you begin to see patterns and similarities between the responses that you receive.

This was exactly what happened in the dozens of interviews conducted. Clear patterns emerged. Although each of the nine brands was clearly different, their individual formulas for Cult-Branding success shared many of the same core ingredients.

These seven points won’t tell you everything there is to know about Cult Branding, but they will give you a nice overview and practical framework to utilize in your own marketing endeavors. Think of this list as your indispensable “Cult Branding Cliff Notes.” Here they are. Read them. Use them!

#1 – The Rule of Social Groups
Consumers want to be part of a group that’s different.

#2 – The Rule of Courage
Cult-Brand inventors show daring and determination.

#3 – The Rule of Fun
Cult Brands sell lifestyles.

#4 – The Rule of Human Needs
Listen to the choir and create Cult-Brand evangelists.

#5 – The Rule of Contribution
Cult Brands always create customer communities.

#6 – The Rule of Openness
Cult Brands are inclusive.

#7 – The Rule of Freedom
Cult Brands promote personal freedom and draw power from their enemies.

Learn more about each of the The Seven Rules of Cult Brands.

March 22, 2012 by

10 Strategies for Creating a Magnetic Brand that Attracts Loyal Customers

Brand loyalty doesn’t happen by accident. Brands that cultivate loyalty find ways to emotionally connect with their customers; these brands stand for something meaningful in their customers’ eyes.

How do you create and establish a successful brand that brings loyal, profitable customers to your door?

1) Build your business around your best customers instead of trying to aimlessly drive sales. Over time, your return on marketing and innovation efforts will rise. Apple is masterful at creating products especially for customers who love style, creativity, and simplicity.

2) Listen to what your best customers are telling you. Don’t be a transaction-making machine. Be a real person and build a business to serve real people. This is the key to cultivating customer loyalty. Southwest Airlines isn’t just another airline to its loyal customers who perceive Southwest as the “heart of the sky.”

3) Focus on what your brand does best. If you try to be all things to all people you’ll end up being nothing to everyone. Be bold. Be unique. Differentiate your brand around your strengths. Ritz Carlton is a hotel of ladies and gentleman serving ladies and gentleman. Volkswagen Beetle has built a distinctive brand around a special little car.

4) Understand what makes your customers tick. Learn how they think, feel, and behave towards your brand. This isn’t easy, but if you can decode these drivers, you’ll be better positioned to create long-term customers. Talk to your customers. Read their comments about you and your products on the web. Read blog posts related to your brand. Most of all, truly listen to what your customers are saying.

5) Identify your customers’ drivers of choice. Why are your current customers buying from you instead of your competitors? Knowing the answer to this question can define the future of your enterprise. Understanding drivers of choice isn’t easy because you need to decode the conscious and unconscious motivators influencing your customers’ buying decisions.

6) Be relentless in serving your best customers better than anyone else. Give them plenty of reasons to stay with you and no reasons to leave. Push your business to continually find ways to make your customers’ lives easier and better. Brands like Amazon.com and Netflix are constantly finding ways to enhance the customer experience by refining algorithms to recommend products and movies the customer will enjoy.

7) Find ways to wow and surprise your best customers. Do something extraordinary and unexpected for them. Instead of playing with “word-of-mouth marketing” programs, focus on better serving your customers and word of mouth will happen naturally. Online retailer Zappos is masterful at producing the wow factor by providing free, surprise upgrades to overnight delivery, random gifts, and hand-written notes to their customers.

8) Determine what your brand stands for and deliver on your promise. You must become relentless in your dedication to deliver on your brand promise each and every day. Harley-Davidson customers love the freedom of the open road and the brand promises that freedom. Oprah stands for empowerment, hope, and the promise of a better tomorrow.

9) Build a brand model that identifies the psychological motivators, key characteristics, and emotional connections your customers have with you. An effective brand model will describe your customers’ mindsets, attitudes, and behaviors toward your brand. Every successful brand has some form of a brand model. Major brands go through formal processes to construct their brand models.

10) Use your brand model to make all business decisions. An effective brand model accurately predicts customer behavior because the model takes into account the psychological drivers of your customers. If your new ad doesn’t hit on what’s important to your customers, don’t run it. If you’re innovating in a direction that isn’t relevant to your brand lovers, change directions. An effective brand model removes the guesswork in building a magnetic brand that attracts more loyal customers.

Most businesses struggle because they don’t identify whom their business is especially for. Market research and focus groups don’t provide the answers because ninety percent of consumer behavior is unconscious. Customers rarely articulate their true motivations even when directly questioned—people simply cannot describe why they really do what they do. Your job as an entrepreneur, brand manager or chief marketing executive is to figure out what motivates your best customers. You need psychological insights into the motivations behind your customers’ behaviors—how they think and feel about your brand. These consumer insights will provide the business lens needed to evaluate marketing strategies, advertising campaigns, and product innovations.

Where to go from here
March 22, 2012 by

Do you know why customers buy from you?

Why spend millions on research that doesn’t help grow your business?

Market research provides the wrong answers to the right questions. Over 90% of customer behavior is unconscious. Customers rarely articulate their true motivations even when directly questioned—people simply cannot describe why they really do what they do.

From our experience, the majority of market research and customer focus groups become irrelevant once you figure out what motivates your best customers.

Predicting customer Behavior

Most successful brands understand the value of a brand model: To predict customer behavior.

The Brand Lover Model® provides the right answers to the questions that drive growth.

Our unique approach to brand modeling provides accurate predictions of customer behavior. BLM unlocks customer loyalty and helps you attract profitable customers who create new customers for you through word of mouth.

BLM gives you the psychological insights into the motivations behind your customer’s behavior—how they think and feel about your brand. The Model uses humanistic psychology, archetypal imagery and cultural mythology to identify the patterns your best customers share.

We employ in-depth customer interviews with your best customers, customized psychological assessments, market surveys, and quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Why Build a Brand Model

But how we get to the answers isn’t as important as the answers themselves. Your completed Brand Lover Model offers insights you can use right away:

  • Drivers of Choice: Why your best customers buy from you instead of your competitors. BLM uncovers the conscious and unconscious psychological motivators driving your customer’s relationship with your brand.
  • Drivers of Differentiation: What makes your brand stand out in the eyes of your customers. BLM tells you how to differentiate and be chosen more often than your competitors.

Brand Lover Model® 2.0 provides critical customer insights that can help you better evaluate marketing strategies, advertising campaigns, and product innovations.

Marketing executives often make up what they want to hear. The Brand Lover Model helps you determine if what you’re doing is actually working. Instead of going exclusively with gut emotions—or with just doing what you’ve always done—our effective model can more accurately tell you what’s really going on with your business, with your customers, and in your industry.

Hire the leaders in Branding Research

Many consulting research firms and advertising agencies are trying to mimic what we do, but this process isn’t just about interviews, polls, and statistics.

Led by Cult Branding expert BJ Bueno, our team of thought leaders, brand strategists, psychologists, writers, biologists, photographers, technologists, and business philosophers brings fresh perspective to our creative process. To predict customer behavior and create your Brand Lover Model®, we combine analytical prowess with intuitive finesse.

Our clients include Kohl’s Department Stores, Turner Classic Movies, Scheels, Thomas Nelson Publishers and LA Lakers.

After completing our Brand Lover Model and learning who our best customers are, BJ Bueno and his team helped us construct an entirely new, innovative merchandising system based on the needs of the customer. Sales rose 26% over the previous year after book retailers installed the new system.
— Wayne Hastings, Sr. Vice President at Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Let us help you build a powerful Brand Lover Model® for your business. Review our frequently asked questions or fill out the form below for more information.

Ready to create your ultimate marketing plan?

Let’s get the conversation started >>

 

March 22, 2012 by

What is Cult Branding?

Brands fail for one primary reason: instead of building a brand some people love, companies build brands no one hates.

Most marketers live in a world where they are constantly searching for the flashy, the instant—in short, the trivial.

We must recognize that brands don’t belong to marketers. Brands belong to the customer. The customer’s embrace is the only vote that counts, yet it is constantly ignored by strategies that place our products and services as the “goal” rather than the means to satisfy our customer’s needs, wishes, and fantasies.

Successful brands embrace their customers by anticipating basic and spiritual human needs.

Success creates magnetic brands—Cult Brands.

Why Cult Branding Works

Cult Brands aren’t just companies with products or services to sell. To many of their followers, they are a living, breathing surrogate family filled with like-minded individuals. They are a support group that just happens to sell products and services. Picture a Cult Brand in this context, and you’ll have a much better understanding of why these brands all have such high customer loyalty and devoted followers.

That’s how Cult Branding works.

Society only helps to accelerate the drivers behind its success.

March 19, 2012 by

Ace Hardware: Putting Customers First in a Quest to Double Market Share

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Normally, when we talk about watching paint dry, we’re referring to something tedious or boring. But for the leadership at Ace Hardware, paint is pretty exciting.  According to this New York Times article, a new product line (coupled with an insightful marketing approach) may be what it takes to allow the 4,300+ hardware and home improvement store chain to double their share of the domestic paint market.

Brand Modeling and the Search for a New Growth Strategy

Dominant organizations are engaged in a continual search for growth opportunities. What are the best ways to increase market share, raise a brand’s visibility, and connect more effectively with their customers? Many companies, particularly those in the gaming sector, are targeting international markets by adapting to local preferences. For instance, identifying the beste online casino for norske spillere has become essential for casinos aiming to attract Norwegian players, as catering to specific preferences and regulations can significantly boost engagement. While it’s easy to generate potential strategies that should create growth, it’s remarkably difficult to assess ahead of time which strategies will succeed, especially in a competitive landscape.

Which brings us to Ace Hardware.  This well-established brand has numerous options available to it. Ace Hardware has the resources and ability to pursue growth in any of several directions.  We think that Ace’s leadership team has made a smart decision by focusing on the paint portion of their business. Their approach shows that there’s been a concerted effort to understand and better serve their customer.

Know Your Customer To Build Your Brand

What is the power of paint? Some analysts have compared painting the house to the famous lipstick effect—a quick and affordable way to lift the spirits when it’s not economically feasible to make larger, more indulgent purchases.  Ace Hardware’s customers may not be in a position to renovate the entire kitchen or do over the bathroom. Yet they’re still driven by the need to make positive changes in their environment.

Painting a room delivers a powerful visual and emotional impact for a relatively small financial investment. Ace is demonstrating superior customer knowledge by providing a way to fill a significant emotional need while being sensitive to the current economic tensions and challenges their customer base is facing.

At the same time, Ace has used a very gender-specific, romance-oriented approach to marketing their new line of paint. Color choices are overwhelmingly made by women, according to Dana Larsen, an Ace Brand manager. The new campaign is based around the need for strong, satisfying, loving relationships—finding the perfect shade, color, or hue is referred to as finding your “soul paint.”

This recognizes and capitalizes on the biological driver that urges us to form lasting bonds. Couple it with some visual humor (after all, there’s something inherently funny about a line-up of 8 purple people) and you have a message that appeals to Ace’s customers on a number of levels.

Will Ace be able to meet their goal of doubling their market share by 2015? Appealing to their customers through multiple psychologically-appealing channels is not a bad start.  Understanding the tensions and pressures facing their customer base, providing an economical means to satisfying compelling emotional needs, and honoring the underlying unconscious drivers of customer behavior are all steps dominant organizations use when they want to grow.  That’s the value of putting customers first.

March 19, 2012 by