brand as business bit:  My latest Brand New Perspectives column in QSR Magazine answers a QSR operator’s question about keeping customers coming back.

The piece outlines my thoughts on increasing purchase frequency — an objective of practically every marketer — I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the effectiveness of a heart-felt ‘thank you.’  Said with earnestness, those two words have so much power — they:

• convey emotion — humans are emotional beings
• make a personal connection — what marketer wouldn’t want to do this?
• stand out — because it’s becoming a rare occurrence
• increase profits — read the evidence in this great bit from last fall’s Fast Company
• give me a reason to buy again – nuff said

Here’s an example of a well-executed “thank you” I recently received in an order from the White House/Black Market:

Love it!

Hi folks!  Trying a new feature this year — a monthly round-up of my published content.

It’s a mental buffet of ideas that may seem schizophrenic at times (I do work on fast food restaurants as well as fitness brands, after all!), but it’s all in the service of helping companies understand and apply the “brand as business” management approach.  Enjoy!

retail and restaurants:

• 12 truths to guide retailing in 2012 – a slideshow success in retail from speakers at NRF’s Retail BIG Show in 2012
• Vickie Achee on the Grand Retail Experiment at Patagonia – an interview with the head of Patagonia’s retail marketing
• Brand Experience Brief: Patagonia’s Tin Shed – photos and notes from my audit of the new concept
• Killing Retail Giants – guest post by Stephen Denny, author of Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry.
• New Retail Opportunities – my post on Stephen Denny’s blog
• Picking a Marketing Firm for Your Company – advice from my QSR Magazine column
• J C Penney to Revise Pricing Methods and Limit Promotions – quote in New York Times article
• Is J C Penney Stuck with Stores? — the thoughts behind my NY Times quote
• How Wendy’s Found Itself, Slipped Past BK Into No. 2 Spot – quote in Advertising Age

digital health and fitness:

• Digital Health and Fitness at CES 2012 – video recap of highlights from CES
• Will 2012 Be Like 1984? – a bit inspired by the 3D TV hullabaloo at CES
• Digital Device Manifesto – a call to arms to get and keep the industry’s focus on the user
• Crossing the Health & Fitness Tech Chasm – article published by CE Vision magazine
• Fitness Technology: It’s Not Just Entertainment – a write-up on the panel I moderated at CES’s Fitness Tech Summit

other brand-building topics:

• Brands to Watch in 2012 – my prediction of brands that will make headlines this year
• Brands to Watch – a brand as business brief (e-newsletter) highlighting another brand to watch in 2012
• Lesson from Kodak – a bit about companies shedding their legacies and reinventing themselves
• Differentiation through Specialization – a bit about how to differentiate
• Brand-building for Small Businesses – an excerpt from the course I taught for Marketing Profs University, “Why Small Businesses Need Brands and How to Build Them”
• Learning at Lego – a bit about using anthropological research methods to understand users
• Sam Palmisano’s Legacy: Teaching a Giant to Run – a bit about Palmisano’s four question framework

New York Times’ Stephanie Clifford asked me for reactions to J. C. Penney’s recent presentation about the vision and path forward for the venerable chain.  My comments were featured in her piece as follows:

Denise Lee Yohn, a branding consultant, said that she was impressed with some of his ideas, but that Penney’s physical presence was a limiting factor. “I don’t think the opportunity to do something dramatically different is possible, given their real estate and the realities of retail.”

I thought I’d flesh out my thoughts a little further:

CEO Ron Johnson seems to have accurately diagnosed the chain’s problems with comments like “We have to radically rethink presentation,” and “We haven’t given the customer enough reasons to love us.”  And, among the smart plans he and President Michael Francis outlined were focusing on new/hot brands and launching a new monthly magazine-like book.

But they also announced they wouldn’t be launching a new prototype store until 2014 and projected it would take until 2015 for the total transformation to be complete.   While I don’t question the magnitude of the change needed, three years is a lifetime in retail.

Tectonic shifts in technology will continue to change the retail landscape and consumer buying behavior.  And emerging brands like Uniqlo and H&M seem to be well on their way to making mid-tier department stores obsolete.

Meanwhile I’m dubious that today’s fair weather  investors will be patient enough to wait three years — especially when they’ve got other retail options like Apple whose share price recently soared to record levels after the high-tech giant doubled its profits in one year.   Moreover although J. C. Penney’s shares gained 15% after the company issued a 2012 profit outlook well above analysts’ projections, I question whether it will indeed be able to fund the transformation with cash flow from operations, as it’s promised.

But I suppose the company is stuck with large, expensive, and in many cases less than desirably-located real estate assets.  And as such, it only has so many options to explore and levers to maneuver.

I was bullish on J.C. Penney when I wrote my Brands to Watch in 2012 post earlier this year — and I remain cautiously optimistic.  But I would have like to have seen a more aggressive turnaround timeframe and more ideas about transforming the shopping experience.

What do you think?  Comments open!

related posts:

• 12 Truths to Guide Retailing in 2012
• Build Your Brand with a Cohesive Customer Experience
• Brand Experience Briefs

(Here’s the latest “brand experience brief” — insights from my audits of new and interesting retail and restaurant concepts.)

Check out this video featuring photos and my notes on Tin Shed, Patagonia‘s new retail concept — and then check out my interview with head of retail marketing at Patagonia, Vickie Achee, which I posted a couple of days ago.  She calls Tin Shed “a grand experiment” for the company and explains the thinking behind the concept.

recent brand experience briefs:

• ihop express – a fast casual concept from the venerable pancake chain
• Walmart.com – a shopping mall retail storefront for Walmart’s online business
• 77kids – a style lab in New York City’s Times Square for American Eagle Outfitters’ kids brand

(If you’re Interested in learning how to improve your in-store experience, sign up for a Brand Experience Day. We’ll head out into the field to experience retail concepts — good and bad — and then regroup to identify and apply the insights to your business. Learn more.)

Today’s interview takes a peek behind the curtain at an extraordinary company, Patagonia. 

Patagonia is known worldwide as an outdoor clothing and gear brand, but I wanted to better understand the company’s retail strategy.  Who better to ask than the head of marketing for the North America Retail Division at Patagonia, Vickie Achee. A twenty-plus veteran of the company, Vickie has held many marketing and branding positions throughout her tenure and has the inside scoop on the company’s current push to grow retail (opening 15 stores this past year), including its new concept, Tin Shed.

Take a listen to learn how Patagonia is taking on a grand experiment in retail, opening its mindset to different types of markets and retailing models.

Later this week I’ll be posting photos and notes from when I visited the Tin Shed location in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so check back soon to get even more inside scoop.

related content:

• What Your Underwear Says About You
• Brand Value Creation — Learning & Growth
• Tiffany Vandemark on Chobani Fit

brand as business bit:  Phil Rosenthal‘s analysis of Eastman Kodak’s failure in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune is quite insightful — particularly in its juxtaposition of Kodak and R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., the commercial printing company that’s been shedding its legacy and reinventing itself.  Most telling is the quote from Donnelley’s CEO and President Thomas J. Quinlan:

“The real trick is to not get wrapped up in evaluating individual technologies…For us, it’s: Where are the emerging trends, and how is that going to affect communications?”

This points to the importance of having a customer/market orientation vs. a technology one.  A successful path forward comes from focusing on what people are going to want to do, instead of which technology is best.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) can be an intoxicating experience.  Drinking in all the devices on the show floor, it’s easy to be dazzled by cool features, brilliant designs, and products you never even dreamed of.  Speakers captivate your imagination as they describe bold visions and demo the newest products.

But amid all the hype, a sobering truth must be acknowledged:  Too many people in the industry get so caught up in the technology of the digital devices that they forget about – or ignore — the people who use them.

With this in mind, I offer the following “Digital Device Manifesto” – a call to arms of sorts to get – and keep — the industry’s focus where it should be:  the user.

Realize we’re the ones who are stupid.  Bill Campbell, Apple’s CEO, exhorted his employees at Steve Jobs’ memorial service, saying, “When we make things that people can’t use, we think they’re stupid.  But Steve Jobs said, ‘When we make things that people can’t use, we’re stupid.’”  Our job is to make technology easy to use.  It’s not the user’s job to figure it out.  If we don’t make it easy to use, we’re foolish – or delusional – or both.

Ask what we can take out of the device.  More features and capabilities tend to complicate the user experience.  In one of the sessions of this year’s Fitness Tech Summit at CES 2012, an engineer enumerated the long list of features in his new product, explaining that his team asked themselves, “What else can we put into this device?”  How much simpler and more elegant might it have been if they had remembered the adage, less is more.?!

Spend more time working on how to get people to use device.  We stunt the potential of a new technology when we assume people will want to use it.  A recent New York Times piece featured “the start-up whisperer,” Reid Hoffman.  He’s observed, “Entrepreneurs spend too much time creating products and too little figuring out how to get people to use them.”  Innovation isn’t only about generating ideas; it’s also about generating demand.

Care what people do with the data.  Device makers think agnosticism toward services, software, and apps makes the appeal of their products more universal.  In fact, one CES Digital Health Summit panelist boasted that he “didn’t care” what people did with the data that his device produces.  But the reality is, device manufacturers become more valuable when they help people extract the value of the data by curating, integrating, and/or developing all aspects of the user experience.

Don’t talk down to people – but don’t set them up to fail either.  We make people feel like dummies when we limit their options or prescribe the way they should use our products.  But people also feel dumb when we don’t educate and equip them with the information and tools to make decisions on how best to use them.  There’s a fine line between empowerment and abandonment.

related content:

• Digital Health & Fitness at CES 2012 – video recap
• Crossing the Digital Health and Fitness Chasm – published by CE Vision magazine
• Will 2012 Be “Like 1984?”

brand as business bit:  I just taught “Why Small Businesses Need Brands and How to Build Them,” a session in Marketing Profs University course on Marketing Your Small Business.

I talked about how brands don’t only create value for large companies — they’re also important to small businesses.  A couple of reasons:

Small businesses need to build relationships with suppliers and distributors, the media , investors, local government, banks, etc.  You need to stand out among the sea of proposals or plans they are inundated with and you need to be crystal clear about what your value is so they will want to business with you.  A brand can help you do just that — a thoughtfully-designed brand identity and substantive brand story communicate what the company stands for and express it in a memorable, compelling way.  If your company doesn’t have the salience and clarity that a strong brand provides, your business is likely to be passed over by these people without a second thought.

Also small businesspeople have so many decisions to make and a brand serves as a compass for making them.  For example, the pressure to grow and produce immediate results can lure entrepreneurs into pursuing areas outside the company’s initial charter.  While branching out into a new technology or adding to your service offering may make sense when viewed through the lens of short-term growth, these distractions divert precious dollars and manpower away from your top priority – that is, developing a strong and sustainable core offering.  Because a brand embodies the values of the company, it can serve as a decision-making filter when you and others are evaluating growth opportunities.

Heather Rast, the course curator, tweeted some of the other points I made — here’s a screen grab of her Twitter feed during the session:

P.S. If you’re interested in the course, it’s recorded for use on demand.  Use my code “BRANDASBIZ” when you register to save $200!

Check out my recap of the technologies at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in the next wave in consumer electronics:  digital health and fitness.