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

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

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

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

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

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

Knowing What Your Best Customers Value Most

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s Not About The Food

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

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

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

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

Brand Vision: Characteristics and Values

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brand Modeling Identifies Opportunities For Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this a good decision?

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

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

Brand Lovers in Action

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man, Mythos, and Meaning

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

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

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

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

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

CEO Andrew Mason is not having the best week of his career. Groupon, the rapidly growing web phenomenon that delivers localized deal of the day coupons to its membership, ran a series of ads during the Superbowl. They paid top dollar to be in front of millions of viewers.

In the most controversial of the ads run that evening, images of the Tibetian people and the troubled country flash of the screen. Timothy Hutton tells the audience, “the people of Tibet are in trouble. Their very culture is in jeopardy. But they still whip up an amazing fish curry.” His Groupon purchase allows him to save big in a nearby Chicago restaurant.

Other ads in the series included Cuba Gooding Jr. talking about the plight of whales, followed immediately by the joy of saving money on whale watching excursions, and Elizabeth Hurley coming razor-close to the edge of decency with a spot that began in Brazil and ended with discount waxing.

In a blog post Mason posted on Monday Mason tried to explain the reasoning behind the ads. They were intended to be ironic and humorous.

Any comedian will tell you that if you find yourself explaining your joke, the joke wasn’t funny. The public perception was that the ads mocked serious situations and trivialized the very real, very important causes that they care about. The ad has been called offensive and misguided.

Why didn’t anyone notice this before the ads played on one the most high profile venues imaginable?

Knowing Your Customers = Knowing Your Brand

Groupon failed a critical test when they approved this ad campaign.  Dominant organizations achieve their position by, among other things, making sure that every element of their operations remains in alignment with their Brand Lover’s values and beliefs. Customers want to do business with organizations that are like themselves. They want to find that common ground, a place where they are among friends and peers.

Groupon is building its brand overtly on the appeal of community and connection: individuals purchasing en masse enjoy discounts at restaurants, clubs, adventure excursions, and more.

By running ads that appeared in direct conflict with values held by their most loyal customers and those who had the potential to become loyal customers, Groupon introduced an element of doubt into the relationship.  Maybe, those best customers could find themselves thinking, I don’t belong here after all.

There are so many things that could damage the customer’s relationship with a brand.  Poor customer service, sub-standard products, negative reviews; the list is endless. Yet none of these are as powerful a deterrent as alienation.  Nothing will drive a consumer from a brand as a sense of betrayed ideals.

The hostile consumer reaction to the Groupon campaign comes from many levels. In a way, we see these intensely affected consumers reacting to a case of mistaken identity. We don’t like it when people turn out to be very different from what we were led to believe about them. Groupon had built a friendly, affable, we’re-all-in-this-together persona and shattered it with three minutes of snarky humor that screamed “What you care about is stupid!”

Can Groupon Recover?

Groupon has a difficult challenge ahead of it. Mason’s taken some strong initial steps by coming out and addressing the issue promptly. Acknowledging the problem is a good first step. Now it becomes critical for Groupon to connect in a more meaningful, engaged way with their best customers.

Developing a deeper understanding of what their best customers value most helps you pick marketing campaigns that will leave your customers laughing and skip the ones that will make your customers leave you!

Sportwear company Athleta built its reputation on yoga wear and gym apparel. Customers found the company online, and soon the fledgling firm had a strong following. Strong enough, in fact, to attract the attention of the Gap. Gap purchased the Athleta brand in 2008, hoping to become more competitive in a field they once dominated.

From all indicators, it appears to have been a good decision. The Athleta line has performed well for Gap, who saw sales in the relevant division increase $100 million dollars the following year. Athleta clothing was only available online and via catalog. Now Gap is taking the brand into the brick and mortar environment, opening a store in San Francisco in January.

This is a move that’s counter to a lot of the prevailing wisdom in retailing, which advocates leaving physical stores behind entirely.  The Athleta brand has been doing well already, which leaves the question to be asked: What went into the decision to commit the time, energy, and resources into opening a brick and mortar store for this brand? What makes the leadership at Gap confident that the risk is worth the reward?

Brand Modeling as a Decision Making Tool

The leadership at the Gap are no more capable of seeing into the future than the rest of us are.  They don’t know, with absolute certainty, that making the investment in a brick and mortar storefront (especially in pricey San Francisco!) will pay off.  But they’re not making the gamble blindly, either.

The Problem of Uncertainty

The largest problem business leaders have is the lack of certainty that confronts us each and every day.  There are very few decisions that we can make with absolute confidence. We don’t know the outcome of any decision until we make and implement the decision.

Consider the Gap’s position: there are so many factors that go into the success or failure of a brick and mortar store—and that’s before you factor in the impact of an established brand. While the success or failure of any one storefront may have very little impact on the Gap organization as a whole, it matters to the Athleta brand.  It’s critical to give the new venture the best chance for success.  The trick is knowing exactly what “the best chance” consists of.

Brand Modeling Identifies The Criteria For Success

At its essence, Brand Modeling is the systematic examination of what your best customers value most about your organization and understanding how to deliver more of that experience.  Additionally, you need to know what your best customers value in general, and in your category.

Gap is confident that they know what female apparel shoppers want. Toby Lenk, president of Gap Direct, Inc, which oversees the Athleta brand, said, “With this type of product, women’s active athletic product, it is really important to be able to feel it, touch it, try it on.”

Is the ability to engage tangibly with a company’s offerings enough of a draw to bring customers into the store? Is the point of a brick and mortar store to provide another sales outlet—or to drive more sales in an existing venue? Lenk reports customers spending four dollars on apparel in the brick and mortar setting for every dollar they spend online. It’s compelling information.

Brand Modeling allows us to take compelling information and determine the best way to make use of it. The Brand Modeling process delivers quantifiable, objective data that can be used to examine that conclusion and determine its validity. The richer and more complete the understanding of our best customer’s behavior and motivations is, the more we can introduce a number of variables into our engagement with them and project, with reasonable confidence, how our best, most profitable customers will react. That’s a powerful tool to have, especially when you’re trying to decide whether to open your next location in San Francisco, San Diego, or in “the real world” at all.

Do business leaders have a lesson to learn from Lady Gaga? At first glance, it might not appear so, but that’s until you learn that the 25 year old singer is well on her way to earning over $100 million in 2011.

Forbes Magazine recently ran a piece detailing Gaga’s multiple revenue streams. Praised for being as shrewd and decisive as she is fashion-forward and creative, Lady Gaga has done some things exceptionally well. There’s wisdom in her approach that can be emulated by business leaders across the board.

Besides, she’s a snappy dresser.

Loving Her Little Monsters

Lady Gaga has, throughout the course of her career, made an explicit point of reaching out to and celebrating her fans.  Calling them her little monsters, Gaga connects with her fan base regularly, via Twitter and other social media platforms. There’s a continual emphasis on community, and when Lady Gaga talks to her fans, she makes a point of addressing them en masse.

This same sense of community, of belonging, of being part of a larger whole, is echoed in the success of some of the world’s most dominant brands.  Harley Davidson, through gatherings and events of the Harley Owners Group, takes much the same approach, albeit with marginally more chrome.

Apple aficionados revel in their sense of community, defining themselves as much by their choice of technology as their worldview, personal philosophy, or profession.

Let Your Best Customers Know They’re Your Best Customers

Lady Gaga uses every touch point to let her fans know she values and appreciates them.  She shouts it from the stage, she says it when she’s accepting awards, it’s written in the liner notes to her CD, and her website is loaded with messages of appreciation and gratitude. Fans are told that coming albums are polished versions of what they got to see first at live shows and concerts, before the world was watching every note. There’s an overt message of inclusiveness and celebration.

More than that, Lady Gaga’s messages are crafted and delivered in a way to resonate uniquely for her very best fans, many of whom think she’s speaking directly to them.  This connection underlies their fanatical loyalty. Business leaders who want to duplicate the same type of connection with their best customers need a way to find the same point of emotional resonance, delivering the messaging that buyers will find not only compelling, but meant exclusively for them.

“I am doing this all for you,” Lady Gaga pronounces, and her fans cheer with total abandon—because they believe it.

Can your organization say the same thing to its customers? Would it be believable? Can you, right now, point to three things that your organization has done to let your best customers know not only that they’re appreciated but that they’re the core, driving force behind every aspect of what your company does?

If you’re committed to growing your business and growing your profitability, all of your marketing and branding efforts must be discovering why your best customers love you. Like Lady Gaga, you must use constant, overt appreciation and celebration of your best customers. If for no other reason, treating your best customers better than anyone else creates more people who want to be your best customers.  And that’s music to anyone’s ears!

2010 was not a great year for many car manufacturers. The phrase underperforming analysist expectations has been bandied about quite a bit. Projections for the auto industry’s growth invariably include the words slow and steady.

Except, of course, for Subaru. Sales of Subaru’s offerings, which includes the Legacy, Outback, and Forester, are up over 22% in 2010. Look back two years, and it’s a staggering 50% increase in sales.

While this has been happening, the US economy has been in rough shape. People who don’t have jobs or who no longer have easy access to credit aren’t shopping for cars right now. Consumer confidence may be returning – but it’s taking its sweet time getting here.

And Subaru has their best year ever.

Not only are they having their best year ever, they’re having their best year ever while running the Share the Love campaign. In this wildly popular incentive (now on its third year) Subaru gives away $250 to one of five pre-selected charities when someone buys a new car.

Subaru’s doing extremely well with a campaign that urges people to give away money during one of the toughest recessions this nation has ever seen. In a world that seems overrun with anxiety and financial stress, Subaru is making significant strides finding people who have a need to share what wealth they have.

Most companies will tell you they’re after companies who want to save money. Subaru chose to focus on the ones who want to give it away. And look – it seems like they’re winning!

How Did They Know To Do That?

Subaru is doing what successful, dominant companies do. They’ve learned who their customer is – and not just on that easy, surface level. Demographic data provides valuable insights, to be sure – but there’s no ready way to enumerate the ranks of people who would be moved to purchase one model of car over another when the differentiating factor between the two is the chance to donate $250 to help homeless cats find new families. To get that, you have to go deeper. You have to understand on a profound and fundamental level what makes your customers tick.

Brand Modeling begins with the premise that we have to know who our customers think they are. How do they see themselves in the world? What type of person are they – and what type of person are they when they like themselves the best?

Subaru hit it out of the park when they hit upon the concept of almost effortless altruism. Even a cursory examination of their target market – or a quick conversation with one of the growing legions of Subaru loyalists, who are happy to ‘share the love’ with you – reveals a strong tendency toward social and environmental activism. These are people who like to give, who like to contribute to the world around them and leave the place better than they found it. These are traits they value highly – and when they see a car manufacturer espousing those same values?

They’ve been given a reason to buy that no other car manufacturer has given them.

That’s why Subaru has had the best sales year ever, pure and simple. They’re giving their customers what their customers value most – and a pretty good car, besides.