A case for brands and business to be more ‘visible’?

Visible not in the conventional sense of the term. Visible here means the value that can be derived by keeping your processes and efforts(emotional labour included) being made clear and visible to your customer universe. Seeing is believing the saying goes.

Imagine you are at your favourite restaurant. And ordered their to die for stake. 30 minutes (with nothing at stake and meaningless multiple up and down scrolling on the smartphone later), you see the restaurant attendant bring your order swinging in through the kitchen doors and sashaying to your table and placing it on your table. Voila! You are a sizzling hot stakeholder now.

Now, lets visit the same situation wherein once you have placed your order for your favourite stake, you get to see what is happening in the kitchen and the team of chefs and kitchen staff doing what they need to get your stake ready. You see the intensity, the passion, the precision, the effort and the collaborative energy that is being invested to get your order to the table. You recognise the emotional labour that has gone into the making and delivering of your order.

So what is the prognosis from the above two scenarios. In situation one, you the customer has no idea of what is happening behind the scenes. Your order comes in and there is almost a sense of deja vu- ” I expected this “. You are not according any additional value to the experience. On the contrary, the opaqueness of the experience, takes away the true potential value proposition.

What happens in situation two? As you see what is happening behind the scenes, the labour , the effort, the commitment that is going into your order being processed, subliminally you begin to value the experience far better. Respect for the brand grows. Not just that. In the context of the team that put the order together, they begin to take greater pride in what they are doing as their effort is being showcased to the end user and the chain reaction of getting better continues.

When CEO Teruo Yabe came aboard Tessei( the Facilities Management company that cleans Japan’s Bullet Trains), the perception of the company was at an all time low. The work was considered 3D: dirty, difficult, dangerous. Yabe wanted to change this into the 3K : it stands for “kansha,” “kangeki” and “kando” (gratitude, drama and strong impressions). How did he do it? Read on..

Firstly, he changed the colours of the workers uniforms from a pale blue to flaming red. Attract attention, yes! On any day, in Tokyo Central Station, a work unit clad in the red uniforms of Tessei Co line up with military precision. A bullet train on the Tohoku shinkansen pulls in, and the workers, at the given signal, step aboard and hastily go about their work. They have a total of 12 minutes(gap between train pulling in and departing) of which 5 minutes must be set aside for passengers disembarking. So, effectively time available to them is just 7 minutes to complete their tasks.

Normally (to quote the  Shukan Post), two to three workers are assigned to a first-class car, as opposed to one to clean up a regular car. In addition to checking for items left behind on the overhead racks and seats, they must flip the 100 seat backs in each car to make them face the front of the train, and while doing this, they scan the aisles and floor for any refuse, a task generally performed in roughly one minute, 30 seconds.

They then proceed to wipe off the table tops in front of each seat and adjust the window blinds. If any of the white covers on seat backs appear begrimed, these are exchanged for clean ones.

At the two-minute warning, they turn their attention to emptying the waste receptacles between cars. They also team up with other staff, whose task is to tend to the lavatories and washrooms. After a final check of all assigned jobs on their list, they assemble outside on the platform and bow in unison toward the passengers awaiting boarding.

1000 seat train, 22 team members, 7 minutes turnaround. Visible : Very. The CNN Crew called it the ‘ 7 Minute Miracle ‘. Their efforts have even inspired a bestselling book, “Shinkansen osoji no tenshi-tachi” (Shinkansen’s cleanup angels) by Isao Endo (published by Asa Shuppan).

Now, lets move onto another brand that hopped onto the visibility bandwagaon. Domino’s Pizza. About 10 or so years ago, Domino’s decided that they will throw open to their customers an interface(Dominos Tracker) wherein they are able to track what is happening to their order right from order received, dough prepared, toppings gathered, gone inside the oven, packed and on the way to delivered. The image quotient for the brand skyrocketed. Not surprising that this has become case studies in many business schools.

As I write this, I am tempted to share what we should have done when at ISD Global(the Dubai based branding agency where I work) delivered the ExceLENS Awards for Photography( sponsored by Toshiba) a couple of weeks ago. Over 10 weeks, a talented, passionate, committed ISD Global team of more than 10 members(apart from a number of equally committed external partners) clocked really long hours to make the event a resounding success. Am trying to make a case for visibility which helps improve and transform experiences, outcomes and business objectives for all stakeholders.

Till the next, VISIBLY Yours!

ENDS

groupisd.com/story

brandknewmag.com

weeklileaks.com

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​Have the Crisis Management folks at Boeing flown away?

​Boeing, Boeing, Gone!

Have the Crisis Management folks at Boeing flown away?

346 people killed in 2 crashes. One involving Lion Air in October 2018 and the more recent Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019.Both involving the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircrafts.​​ That amidst only 1 fatal crash in over 3 million flights last year. Which is a stupendous track record. So, in the light of this, something seems terribly awry, isn’t it?

It’s exactly for situations like this that ‘ Crisis Management ‘ cells or savvy PR departments or Corporate Communications team are constituted by brands, or so we thought.

Ever since the first crash, it has been a series of muddled, fuzzy obfuscation​ and nothing else. Blaming the pilots, software glitch, we are investigating and offering all support, lot of cock(pit) and bull…​

Take a look at the ‘ Enduring Values ‘ section on the Boeing website and this is what it reads like:

​” ​Safety 

We value human life and well-being above all else and take action accordingly. We believe all incidents, injuries and workplace illnesses are preventable. We are personally accountable for our own safety and collectively responsible for each other’s safety. By committing to safety first, we advance our goals for quality, cost, and schedule​ “​.

​Are we missing something here? Is it difficult to walk(or fly) the talk?​

For an organisation like Boeing, with almost 12 Billion US Dollars in cash reserves, was this too much to handle better? We wouldn’t want to think so. More than 50 countries have banned the Boeing 737 Max 8 series to be flown(with US being the last of the nations to do it). Brand allegiance, but at what cost?

Silence is golden but only when appropriate. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg have been conveniently missing in action when most needed except for comments of late saying “the company is “humbled” and “learning.”

Genuine empathy communicated at the right time would definitely have not brought back lost lives but would have surely built a humane face for the brand. It is said that ‘ crisis brings out character ‘ and Boeing seems to have missed the flight.

The reticence could be attributed to the fact this aircraft model contributes almost 30% to the Boeing coffers.After many lives in the coffin unfortunately.(The stock has declined by almost 21% in the first quarter of this year).

Boeing is expected to roll out a software update meant to give pilots more control over MCAS​(Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System software​)​​ and make it less likely to malfunction.​  Scary!!

On a wing and a prayer? Some flight of fancy!

​ENDS

groupisd.com/story

brandknewmag.com

brandknew.groupisd.com

 

DREAMKETING

DREAMKETING
We are under prepared. The rant is, that we are still mired in Old Economy, Old Product Thinking. But, we must, in fact all of us, take a cue from the likes of the Virgin Group or Tesla and the likes- and come to grips, strategically, with the fact that Winners in the New Age Economy will be …Masters of the Dream Business.
What would that entail; Totally ‘ insane ‘ schools, hospitals, enterprises, retail..going way way beyond the normal suite of services to be in the realm of impossible made possible dreams.
The stakes are high. In fact billions and billions of dollars. So, lets stretch the narrative here.
Digging back on a presentation that Ferrari North America CEO Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni some years ago in Mexico City. Dreams are his mojo. To quote him from the presentation ” A dream is a complete moment in the life of a client. Important experiences that tempt the client to commit substantial resources. The essence of the desires of the customer. The opportunity to help clients become what they want to be. “
Longinotti-Buitoni preaches the  ” marketing of dreams ” – an idea that he compressed into a word of his own coinage: Dreamketing

​

To guarantee anything in a world gone nuts is well..nuts. So, suggest we take the leap.

Dear Mr CMO, Dear Finance Head, Dear Ms Retail Store Owner. Get an extended lease on your professional life. I will tell you how. Expunge, excise, remove​​ the terms ‘ product ‘ and ‘ service ‘ from your vocabulary. When either of these two words come to your lips, substitute them with ‘ experience ‘ or ‘ dream ‘. That’s all.

This is not a pie in the sky spiel.​ This is a strong business message being sent out by someone, a very practical businessman who has created and enhanced some extraordinary franchises. So, its worth listening to his argument if you are in sync with the fundamental argument that the call of the hour is Totally New Sources of Value Added..in a Totally New Economy.

To ratify, lets put out a grid of ‘ Common Product V/s Dream Product ‘

Common Product     V/s          Dream Product

​Maxwell House                            Starbucks​

Hyundai                                         Ferrari

Suzuki                                            Harley Davidson

Carter                                             Kennedy

​Connors                                        Pele

New Jersey                                  California​

CNN                                               Game of Thrones

​Nothing wrong with the brands on the left of the grid. Each offers regular, solid, every day​ response to some need or another. On the right though are brands with a dreamlike power that go beyond the realm of mere ‘ need fulfillment ‘.

So, dramatically alter perspective. Do not rest until that project passes the test of imagination(or Dreamketing). Raise the bar. WAY, WAY UP! To become what you or your client wants.

ENDS

groupisd.com/story

brandknewmag.com

weeklileaks.com

Decibel V/S Gospel

We have all done our bit of time management drills. Segregate the routine from the urgent from the important. What is urgent need not be important and even the other way around.

Distill the wheat from the chaff. The signal from the noise. Indulge in ‘ Essentialism ‘- separate the trivial many from the vital few.

Hearing and listening are not synonymous.

Given the surfeit of digital and social media options today, the noises that you hear can be overwhelming. It’s easy for anyone to be loud and consistently at that. The Big Bold all uppercase attention seeking subject line for example. Falling innocent prey to these high decibel badgering is a strong possibility.

What would be vital to understand is who are these loudest noise makers to whom you are lending your ears to ? And are you overlooking the more important constituents in your customer universe as you do that? Well worth an introspection.

The once in a blue moon random customer with Cartier expectations and Naif Road budgets might be the noisiest for sure but do not confuse them with the silent, committed, long term customer who delivers you over 90% of your business.

It’s not about the Paleto Principle. Neither is it about profitability and revenues but identifying, respecting and understanding whom we have set out to serve. And serving them the way they ought to be.

A loud noise will not be important and an important voice need not be loud. If they are well heard, they can be well healed. And leave you well heeled! And then it’s business as usual.

Distinguish the decibel from the gospel. Then all would be well.

ENDS

www.groupisd.com/story

www.brandknewmag.com

 

 

Tango with a Few; Create the Phew!

Small is beautiful. Address the few. It’s worth the phew. And it can be big!

So select few!

If we pay maximum attention to creating and appealing to a minimum audience( popularly referred to as ‘ niche ‘), the only momentum that you get is forward, upward and onward. Excellence comes annexed with such an approach. Customer delight is a natural corollary in such instance.

Also, on the way you discover that:

a) the minimum size is beyond a decent quorum, much more than you envisaged &

b) they create a ruckus and spread your word– brand advocacy comes in built.

As compared to conforming to the ‘ mediocre ‘ when appealing to a mass. And still struggle for viability. So, don’t miss the point.

So take your pick! We are in an era of many possibilities. And delighting an ‘ audience of one ‘ is one of many.

ENDS

www.groupisd.com/story

www.brandknew.groupisd.com

 

Marketing is having a Listening Problem!

Is Marketing having a Listening Problem?
Yes, you heard that right. Marketing has a listening problem…definitely looks like- but the problem isn’t a matter of not hearing the voice of the customer. The problem is understanding what all the noise actually means.
An unintentional tone-deafness has led marketers to realise that they are not just struggling to aggregate the right data or struggling to identify the moments of opportunity to deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. Marketers admit that the biggest challenge the organisation faces while working to develop lasting customer relationships is actually remembering the relationship itself and not solely focusing on getting campaigns out the door.
 
Organisations have settled for passive hearing instead of active listening.
When it comes to aggregating the true voice of the customer, many marketers continue to rely on passive channels bringing in reactionary signals intentionally sent to the organisation. This leaves little opportunity to aggregate, let alone understand, real-time behaviours and cues being left behind by the customer across the omni-channel landscape. Consider where marketers believe insights, cues and indicators are being left: Email, Social, Sales Rep Interactions, Forms, Service & Support. While this list seems reasonable and an appropriate collection of customer signal sources, when sorted into categories of active, realtime, customer-driven signals versus post-engagement, reactionary or company-controlled environments, the picture of where marketers listen for signals begins to point to channels of known, structured comfort.
Where do customers actually leave cues?
Not in the known, structured comfort but in places like Social Media, User Generated Content, IoT Sensors, Chatbot sessions, Mobile Device detection etc
Data doubts are holding back advancement of the omni-channel experience. 
Without question, marketing has spent the past decade (or more) actively investing in expanding the omni-channel toolkit, identifying new ways to reach and engage with the connected customer. Each experience advancement heightens the need for actionable insights and a clear signal based on customer voice and data. But few marketers feel they are able to unlock the opportunity in the channels and the data already in use. This doubt is contributing to a hesitancy to expand and further explore what is new in omni-channel engagement.
Getting small could get us back to the customer.
 
The criticality of small data sits with the insights that reveal the “why” – why is the customer here today, why are they searching, why are the buying, why are they NOT buying? 
Marketers are waiting for complaints or opportunities to improve experiences through answering issues or questions rather than leveraging more complex data to proactively meet the customer with experiences that add value and delight. But marketers are also looking to get a better view of what the customer actually wants. Marketers need to understand the “why.”
Are they most prepared to take advantage of small data to turn noise into signals from the customer. Marketers are also confident they will finally reach the “why” behind customer’s actions and behaviours.
“Why” is also fuelling the marketer’s aspirations. When you try to identify brands across any industry that customers admired for their ability to deliver on real-time, personalised customer engagements, some key brands consistently rose to the top: Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks and Nike. 
What these brands also do well is connect with people and engage with customers like individuals, not just transact with campaigns.The biggest differentiator of these leading brands is their ability to treat every individual like a friend or confidante.The ability to initiate conversations in a manner that reflects the customers needs helps differentiate the brand. In essence, these brands never loose sight of the fact that their customers are core to their business…and that their customers are people first, buyers second.
It is time for marketing to lead the charge to treat people like people. It is time for marketing to champion being human. It sounds fundamental…that our customers are people. But as we have already seen, marketers admit that remembering that the organisation is engaging with people and not just data sets or individual records can be challenging.
The tools and technology are available. The data is abundant. The missing piece has been the voice of the customer. It is time for Marketing to champion the shift back to human…driving profit and opportunity along the way.
ENDS
 
www.groupisd.com/story
 
www.brandknewmag.com

Your call (isn’t) important to us and will(not) be attended to shortly!

Customer journey. Customer experience. Customer expectation.Customer delight. Customer service. All old wine in new bottles but as should have naturally been the case, things have not matured with age. On the contrary, getting genuine attention(just like paying attention) in an attention starved economy is becoming increasingly difficult and going from bad to worse.
As ordinary mortals, often times we have to deal with banks, financial services, utility companies, car rental brands etc. And we reluctantly take a call on making a call to the epicentre of under delivery– the omni present but care absent  ‘ call centre ‘.
Technology has made rapid strides and from a security perspective ‘ voice recognition ‘ is the harbinger of hope( or so we hoped) for customers expecting to avoid the seven and a half minute hold listening to tastelessly chosen recorded music. And you thought your voice will be heard– tough luck- once you are past that process, you go back in time(yes, literally) and field the 5 security questions to ensure that you are who you are and you are not from a different mother as originally envisaged. And you are left wondering why was the voice recognition used in the first place if the process was to lead to further questioning and endless hold. A lot of questions and certainly no convincing answers.
Pardon my sequencing here- I overlooked to mention the two biggest lies floating around that brands have been propagating blatantly, namely:-
– Your call is important to us and will be attended to shortly
 
– This call maybe recorded for quality and assurance purposes
I say these are the biggest lies for a couple of reasons:
– When was the last time you actually found a call centre personnel sufficiently empowered to resolve your problem? Even if your imagination runs riot, you will be chasing a mirage only.
– On multiple occasions we have put forth our suggestions, frustrations etc on these ‘ recorded for quality & assurance purposes ‘ calls and the customer experience slide has only degenerated further south. Maybe it was ‘ just for the record ‘.
– Have you ever received from a ‘ Relationship Manager ‘ of your bank based in a distant call centre(who is clueless about where you are based) on a Friday afternoon when you have just settled into your afternoon weekend siesta? I have, many times over. This after copious amount of information has been shared to them in the KYC(Know Your Customer!). It should be more like NO, YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER!
– Have you received calls from an over enthusiastic telecom provider calling you three times in a day(atleast) to ask you for payment(which falls due two weeks hence)? I have. It leaves you wondering ‘ Do(I let phonetics play its part here in let you deciphering who) they have to do that? ‘
Of course there are exceptions and we have heard about the experiences that the likes of Zappos etc provide to their customers that is now part of folklore. But all that seem to be happening on a different planet.
A caveat here before you may misinterpret my vitriol: I don’t belong to that tribe who echoes the sentiment ‘ The customer is always right ‘- its certainly not the case.
The sanctum mantra that brand owners, marketing heads and guardians have been acting on endlessly has been ‘ call to action ‘. But, when the shoe is on the other foot, it seems more like a ‘ call to inaction ‘. And you just can’t seem to shoe that away!
ENDS
 
www.brandknewmag.com
 
www.groupisd.com/story
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POVer Shift:From POV(Point of View) to POV( Power of Vulnerability)

Moving the Needle from From POV(Point of View) to POV(Power of Vulnerability)!
In today’s context, to say that social( in the sense of the term social media) has gained significant currency would be a gross understatement.It’s all pervasive, inescapable and deep rooted, one can safely assume.
Once upon a time the theory(espoused by Kevin Bacon) that was floating around was about ‘ The Six Degrees of Separation ‘ where one individual could connect with any other individual in the world irrespective of level, status or complexity through a chain of six human connections. That seemed a feat in itself. The advent of social media networks like Facebook apparently brought that number down to 3.57.
Now add another theory to the above. We are the average of the five people that we spend maximum time with is what we are being given to understand for some time now.That was in a physical world. Now, move that to a virtual scenario wherein our social media contacts run into hundreds if not thousands of connections and we are all observing, contributing, silently following one another and not always for the right reason because the swell of opinions and information is just too over powering for one individual to withstand. Distilling the wheat from the chaff is easier said than done. There is ‘ status anxiety ‘. There is the FOMO at play(Fear of Missing Out) as well. In the relentless avalanche that straddles social media platforms, where is the real ‘ you ‘, the individual? Is your POV(Point of View) actually your point of view? Or conditioned(by AI/Machine Learning etc), pulverised, calibrated, engineered, manipulated to suitably conform, comply, stand in? Or are we falling constant prey to the supposed ‘ wisdom of the crowds ‘?
Have we moved our butt so much from but naturally to bot artificially?
We seem to be in a sordid vortex of an ‘ authenticity drought ‘. Trying to project a chimera that is certainly not a wilful representation of our true self. The power of ‘ onlyness ‘ that creates the distinct individuality the world so badly needs from you is just a fleeting mirage.
Given the context, a huge opportunity looms large. That is embedded in another similar acronym POV but with a radically different meaning. Power of Vulnerability. The true you, with all it’s mortal encumbrances. With the courage ‘to stand naked in your own truth’. No excess baggage of trying to be whom you are not. The YOU that only you can be and WANT to be.Where failings and weaknesses are welcomed as normal just as all the super Machiavellian in us. Where the human is permitted and motivated to be humane. Can we circle back to leverage the opportunity that is unfolding?
For organisations, brands, marketers, behavioural economists and all of those involved in ‘ social listening ‘, data science and analytics, what option would you prefer? An ambiguous amalgam of over, untrue or misrepresentation or a predictably irrational version of what we humans normally are. The jury is out!
‘Tribe mentality‘ is absolutely fine. That is the way we have evolved over the centuries.  But don’t let that scuttle the ‘ onlyness ‘ in you. As you move ahead in life, don’t forget to take yourself along with you in the journey! That is the only baggage you may need. And there won’t be anything ‘ excess ‘ about it. It will be all ‘ access ‘.
ENDS
 
www.groupisd.com/story
 
www.brandknewmag.com

Your brand’s worth is in your own hands!

Your brand’s worth is in your own hands!
You do not have to look far ahead into the horizon to read that businesses are facing an uncertain economic landscape across multiple markets around the globe. We are amidst a landscape in which brand worth has never faced fiercer scrutiny.
 
Moreover, in this environment, a power shift has taken place as price-conscious shoppers have seized control. Price loyalty or brand loyalty?
 
The done to death strategy(dare we call it that?) that brands have been resorting to, to drive volumes has been, no prizes for guessing, discounting. Not only is it a short term strategy but it also does both the brand and the business serious damage in the longer term. Turning the model upside down, research has shown that a 1% price increase can drive a 12-15% increase in profit. That is three times the profit increase seen by boosting sales the same amount. Which shows that the commercial impact of protecting prices can outweigh cutting them to drive volume.
 
Just like most buying decisions are not rational, so is consumers perception of price, which too leans towards the irrational. Behavioural economics studies show that when you flip the context, re bundle your output and shift the focus from price to value through added layers of experience, consumers are willing to pay disproportionately more for it. This, in some way, also endorses the oft used observation that price is the yardstick of quality.
 
By combining data-led pricing strategies with the creativity and behavioural science of a modern agency(be it ISD Global or any other), brands can dramatically outperform the competition in a commoditised market. 
 
Brands can increase their price perception in the eyes of the customer through a 3C Model of Create(through rituals, theatre, value added services)-Connect(establish a culture where customers are happy to pay more like Frappuccino from Starbucks)-Convert( Optimum sales balancing value and volumes, omni channel, something like what hotel chain IHG does).
 
For the community of marketers everywhere, it is time to seize back control of the most ignored, most impactful lever in the marketing mix: Pricing.
 
 
ENDS
 
www.groupisd.com/story
 
www.brandknewmag.com

Time to change your default settings!

A legacy approach might be stifling you, without you even realising it.Best practices may not be that best(or better) at all. In fact there is scope to abandon best practice as the ‘ practice ‘ as it used to exist has changed altogether.

Your current marketing and customer strategies may unknowingly be rooted in old patterns. It may be time for a change.

The purpose of business—creating a customer—and your customers—at a human level—aren’t changing. That, irrespective of all the tectonic shifts happening around them.

But for many businesses, it’s time to make a change toward having a deep understanding of their true purpose and their customers.

The terms consumer and customer are often used interchangeably but they signify very different relationships. Etymologically, consumer stems from a word that means “one who squanders or wastes,” whereas customer stems from a word meaning “a person with whom one has dealings,” with the implication that it is an ongoing relationship.

As Stanley Marcus, of Neiman Marcus, wrote, “Customers are people; consumers are statistics.”

Marketing isn’t about selling to the customer; that’s a byproduct. As the legendary Peter Drucker observed, “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy.”

It’s the time to break old tendencies. Its the time to be aware, to rebel, to kill old habits and to seek change.

Not changing is a default tendency. Change the default settings!