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

brand as business bit:  Next week I’m teaching a webinar, Why Small Business Needs Brands and How to Build Them, as part of a Marketing Profs University course on Marketing Your Small Business.  Here’s a sneak preview:

One of the topics I will cover is how to differentiate — and among the approaches I will discuss is specialization.  By designing your business to appeal specifically to a certain type of customer, you become known as an expert for that market and stand out from the crowd.

An example:  When I did a Google search for website agencies in my city, I got over 8000 results.  Now that’s probably not an accurate number of actual agencies in town — but I can imagine there are at least 100 and they all seem exactly the same. They all seem to be saying and offering the same things – effective, innovative, well-designed websites.

But then there’s City Gates, an agency that specializes in making websites for churches.  They’ve developed a real expertise in knowing the kinds of features, content, and designs that churches want and need – and this expertise separates them from the crowd.

If you were a church, which agency would you pick – one who specializes in serving organizations like yours or a generic one?  That’s the power of differentiation through specialization.

(P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about Marketing Your Small Business, register for the course and use my code BRANDASBIZ to get $200 off!)

In a recent post, I described a meeting I led for one of my clients that needed to engage its senior leadership with its brand. And I mentioned that I had started the meeting with a cheeky “What Can Brands Learn from Lady Gaga?” video.

Although I can’t show the video here, I did want to share with you the points from it, since I really do believe the Lady has a lot to teach us about brand-building. And the success she’s achieved in such a short time is admirable for anybody – and any organization – that’s looking for tangible results:

• won five Grammy awards
• 1st album “Fame” hit #1 on record charts in 6 countries
• named Billboard Artist of the Year in 2010
• on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People
• is #7 on Forbes’ list of Most Powerful Women
• sold over 22 million albums and 69 million singles worldwide
• grossed $170 million on 137 songs in 22 countries in 1 year

Those are impressive numbers on the key metrics that matter for someone like Lady Gaga. How did she build such a powerful brand? Here are the top 5 lessons we can learn from the Queen of the Little Monsters:

#1. define a clear identity

“Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta” just wasn’t who Lady Gaga aspired to be, so she changed her name and assumed a new identity:
• a change agent
• a diva
• pop culture
• creative
• outré (definition: unusual and startling)

Companies need to clearly define their brand identity. While visual image is certainly an important piece of this (Lady Gaga wouldn’t be Lady Gaga without her unique looks), identity is much more than just a logo or look and feel. Brands must be clear about what they stand for – the values and attributes they want to be known for.

Companies need to ensure the brand identity is understood, embraced, and interpreted and reinforced properly by all internal stakeholders so that it is clear to the outside world. This is particularly important in today’s social media-dominant world where if you don’t define your identity, someone else will.

#2. be different

If there’s one thing Lady Gaga is, it’s different. She stands out from the sea of female pop artist sameness by looking, acting, performing, writing, and being different. “You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way,” she explains.

Differentiation is critical to brand-building as well. It’s important because our brains are hard-wired to notice differences. So differentiation enables you to stand out and get noticed – not a small feat in the today’s over-crowded marketplace.

More than that, though, differentiation also helps create brand preference by helping customers understand their options and giving them reasons to choose one over the other. And it helps companies charge higher prices. If people perceive an offering as special, they are willing to pay more to get it. Think of how at auctions it’s the one-of-a-kind items that people drive up the price for. Plus, if you offer something completely different from everyone else, customers can’t easily compare it to others and so you can set your own price expectations.

#3. tell your story by creating an experience

Lady Gaga is an entertainer, so she knows how to create a breakthrough experience that really brings to life who she is and what she wants to say.

Think about the 2011 Grammys. She was paraded through the streets and down the red carpet in an egg carried by staffers in revealing eggshell-like costumes. On stage, the egg hatched and Lady Gaga emerged, launching into a spectacular version of Born This Way. At one point, she played on a dramatic organ with disembodied heads balanced on top and, at the end her dancers stripped off their latex outfits. Talk about an experience!

Most companies, of course, wouldn’t want – or need – to create such a spectacle, but they do need to create customer experiences that stand out and send a message. Brand experiences should tell a story, appeal to the senses, and inspire — from start to finish. And, details matter (you can bet every moment of Lady Gaga’s time at the Grammy’s was choreographed.)

#4. stand for something bigger than yourself

The gospel according to Lady Gaga goes something like this, “I want women — and men — to feel empowered by a deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they’re always trying desperately to hide. I want that to become something that they cherish.”

Or in other words, “To everyone who says this is wrong to feel like this say, ‘I was born this way baby.’”

To her fans, Lady Gaga is more than a singer or performer. She is hope, love, inspiration, and empowerment. That’s why she’s able to create such a powerful connection with them.

Companies can develop powerful connections with their customers as well. For some, this is done by connecting the core values of the brand with customers’ core values. For others, it’s about calling people to a higher purpose to which the company and its customers aspire. The point is to recognize that, as humans, we all seek meaning in our lives.

#5. foster a community

Community is what creates impact for brands and for Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga calls her community her “Little Monsters.” They love it; they love her. She’s written a manifesto and created an app for them.

She also uses different tools to engage, listen to, share with, and relate to them: Twitter (12.2 million followers), Facebook (42 million likes), YouTube (150 million views), etc. Her website features a wiki-style blog, Gagapedia, which features nearly 2,000 pages of content she and her Little Monsters have created.

These tools and tactics are powerful brand-builders. They help develop relationships that seem exclusive and personal, while fueling buzz and broad awareness. What company wouldn’t want to have a passionate community of supporters and evangelizers?!

To riff on her song title, Lady Gaga teaches us about brand romance!

related post:

• kicking off a brand journey

“Differentiation is really the best way for all businesses to address consumers’ new value mindset.”

That is the key point of the article the folks at Franchise Update Media Group asked me to write.  Decrease Your Deal-Dependency with Differentiation is part of their latest newsletter (subscribe here).

I’ve heard from so many business leaders who struggle to clarify and leverage their differentiation that I’m now making one of my speaking topics available as a webinar or in-person seminar.  ”Differentiate Your Way to Success” is a practical and instructive session that teaches you how to develop and use a brand positioning to strengthen your competitive advantage.

Here’s a preview:

Please contact me at mail AT deniseleeyohn DOT com to learn more or to arrange to share this program with your organization.

What do cameras and sandwiches have in common? A lot, Jonathan Kaplan hopes.

The creator of Flip Video, the super-simple camcorder device that provided a lot of the initial fuel behind YouTube’s early growth, has gotten a lot of press lately about his latest aspiration: The Melt, a nationwide chain of restaurants offering gourmet variations of grilled cheese sandwiches.

Kaplan has set his sights on opening five restaurants in the San Francisco area by Thanksgiving of this year and 25 nationally by the end of next. So he’s lined up an impressive set of partners including celebrity chef Michael Mina and advisors like Sequoia Capital’s Mike Moritz. Let’s hope he’s working with some smart marketers as well.  After all, when it comes to marketing, cameras and sandwiches don’t have a lot in common.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between the two categories, since I’ve worked in both consumer electronics (CE) and quick-serve restaurants (QSR), on brands like Sony and LG for the former and Jack in the Box and Jamba Juice for the latter. There are definitely some substantial differences in the marketing challenges between them.

In CE, marketing must demystify the product, while in QSR marketing, it must mystify it.

Most people need to be convinced that a new technology product is not complicated – that it will do what you say it does and it will be easy to set up and use. As such straightforward marketing approaches are the most effective in CE – Apple’s success with its demo-like commercials exemplify this point.

But when it comes to QSRs, people need to perceive the offering as special and something they can’t make at home or get elsewhere. Marketers create an aura around the product through romance, theatre, and storytelling. A good example is Chipotle’s Food with Integrity platform – through it, the company has made a basic food item, the burrito, seem quite captivating.

Because of the nature of innovation within the CE category, companies are often introducing a new behavior when they launch a new product. Taking informal videos and then immediately sharing them online may seem so natural now, but only a few years ago when Flip was first introduced, it really hadn’t been possible. Many new CE devices often open up new ways of doing things that people never even dreamed of, so a large part of the marketing task in CE is to introduce and evangelize the new behavior.

In the QSR space, people are generally quite familiar with the category. People’s expectations are already set by existing players, so they’re either relatively satisfied with their options or disillusioned by them. Either way, the marketing task is to prompt a fresh look at a familiar offering. Instead of a promoting a new way, you’re promoting a new choice.

Also the differences in the “transactions” involved in the two categories make the marketing challenges different between them.

Electronics are usually one-time purchase transactions followed by multiple usage incidences. Their relatively higher price points and longer life cycles make the initial transaction seem more risky. Marketing must lower the perceived risk through promotion, information, or confirmation (e.g., customer reviews, guarantees, etc.)

On the other hand, the perceived risk of a $8 lunch is much lower for most people, so marketing a QSR is less about risk reduction on a single consumption. It’s more about prompting multiple purchase transactions. You need to provide reasons for frequent return visits.

So, the user experience must be part of the QSR marketing effort – in fact, it’s quite possibly the most important part. With CE products, the user experience is also important but there’s a longer, less direct connection between it and any subsequent purchase.

Which leads me to the final difference – how loyalty is judged between the two categories.

The difference is based on something CPGers commonly refer to as “share of requirements.” If you buy 10 tubes of toothpaste in a year and 7 of them are Colgate-branded, then Colgate is said to have a 70% share of your requirements. In consumable categories, gaining a higher share of requirements is the prevailing goal because most consumers are not 100% loyal to a brand. Even if you prefer Colgate, you probably end up buying Crest sometimes for a variety of reasons. Marketing is considered effective if the aforementioned 70% share of requirements can be raised to 80%, for example.

The same is true in QSRs. A frequent QSR user visits QSRs an average of 25 times a month. With rare exceptions, those 25 visits are distributed across several brands. So, the marketing task is to get more of the 25 — and customer loyalty is best measured by transactions and sales volume.

But in CE, people usually only own one brand of device at a time, maybe 2 or 3 if we’re talking TVs or cameras. Share of requirements becomes less meaningful in this context and loyalty is better measured by feelings of affinity or frequency of advocacy.

When considered together, the difference between CE and QSR marketing can be characterized in two words — relevance and differentiation. In consumer electronics, establishing relevance to the consumer is the overarching marketing aim. You want to get the consumer to see themselves in the story of your product. For quick serves, differentiation is the name of the game. You want to get consumers to see your brand as unique and special relative to other choices.

It will be interesting to see how Kaplan’s foray into the restaurant business goes. I for one am eager to sink my teeth into a goat cheese and mint sandwich, so I wish him well.

related content:

• how to differentiate
• seven things aspiring restaurateurs can learn from “america’s next great restaurant”
• on tech innovation

David Aaker, author, brand guru, Vice Chairman of the brand consulting firm Prophet, and professor emeritus at Berkeley’s business school, joins me for a provocative interview on the state of brands today.

Providing color and context for his latest book, Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant, Dave explains:

• why the only way for brands to win is to create a new category or subcategory
• the difference between incremental vs. substantial vs. transformational innovation
• why researching your innovations with your target market is not enough

He also provides a host of examples to support his theses.  You can learn more by reading Dave’s blog and following him on Twitter — and of course, check out the book.

I have long admired Dave and, from the very beginning of my brand-building career, I’ve been deeply influenced by his thinking.  It’s an honor to post this interview.

other interviews:

• john gerzema on how to connect with today’s consumer
• jonathan salem baskin on the history of social media
• john costello on behind the scenes at dunkin’ donuts

At last week’s MINDBODY University, I had the opportunity to teach business leaders how to increase their competitive advantage. Although the seminar was attended by business owners in the health, fitness, and wellness industries, the principles we covered are instructive to most all businesspeople and so I thought I’d share them here.

The core of the session focused on competitive brand positioning – what is it, why is it important, how do you develop one.

What is a competitive brand positioning?

It’s a strategy that defines how your business will establish and maintain competitive advantage.  It’s one half of your brand platform – the other is your brand identity, or what your brand stands for. Your competitive brand positioning references who you are selling to, what your business scope is, and what you do to create value for your customers. It drives your business strategy and operating plan.

Why is competitive brand positioning important?

I can’t think of any business that doesn’t compete with something (another company, a changing market, emerging technology, etc.) And in order to effectively compete, you must understand what you’re competing against for whom, and how best to position your brand to leverage your strengths and take advantage of market opportunities.

Without a competitive brand positioning, your brand might only remain a conceptual vision or a set of cultural values which sound great but don’t really make a difference in the marketplace. A meaningful, powerful, valuable brand is based a clear, crisp articulation of your competitive strategy.

How do you develop a competitive brand positioning?

In-depth knowledge of your target, your competitors, and your own business enables you to define a strong positioning. Use rigorous market research and competitive intelligence to uncover new insights and develop a proprietary point of view about the market opportunities and competitive landscape (see my research and competitive landscape map tools). You also need a fresh and objective assessment and analysis of your own company’s capabilities, resources, and assets (a brand diagnostic can help.)

Armed with these insights, you can use the following competitive brand positioning statement template to articulate your positioning:

For X,
we are the A who does B
because C

• X = target audience

Who are you trying to persuade? What distinguishes them? What’s important to them?

• A = competitive frame of reference

What is your aspirational competitive set? What is the mental file folder your target should put you in?

• B = differentiating value you deliver

What do you do that no else does as well and that your target cares about? Why should your target value you?

• C = reasons to believe

What evidence proves that you deliver that value?

Some examples:

A few years ago, a national smoothie QSR chain articulated their competitive brand positioning as follows:

For (X) everyone who chooses to do something good for themselves, we are (A) the convenient place for great tasting, healthy products that (B) energizes the way you live and feel — because we (C)
• are considerate of what you put in your body
• make it enjoyable to be healthy
• help create healthier communities

A running shoe and athletic gear company used the following statement to describe their competitive position:

Only we design (B) performance solutions that (A) fit (X) athletes and fitness enthusiasts who are confident in themselves and are driven to achieve.  (C) Reasons to believe:
- we offer the largest breadth of shoe widths
- our company started as an arch support business
- we continue to innovate insole designs to optimize fit

(As the above example indicates, your competitive brand positioning can take on a different sentence structure — you don’t have to use the exact template, as long at the components are included.)

You might have an intuitive understanding of your competitive strategy, but it’s important to take the time to document your competitive brand positioning. Doing so will ensure you’ve applied a rigorous analysis and covered the most salient points of your strategy – and the statement is a powerful tool to unify and align all of your stakeholders.

A few final notes:

-  target – Some businesses try to reach everyone because don’t want to limit their appeal – but history shows, if you try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing to no one. If you target a particular type of person or group, your relevance to them is stronger as is their identification with your brand.

Also your strategy will be stronger is you define your target audience with more than demographics. People groups are growing in diversity, so an 18 year old young lady in California is probably looking for very different things from a similarly-aged person in the South — and actually might have more in common with a 30-something guy who embraces an active lifestyle.  So use mindset, needs, attitudes, or values to profile a more precise target.

-  competitive set – The opposite tact is necessary here – you want to think broadly about who you’re competing with. The more narrowly you define your competition, the more easily it is to identify your competitive advantage – but also the more likely you’re overlooking viable options your target is considering.

A fitness boot camp isn’t simply competing with other boot camps – it’s also competing with other types of specialized workouts, full-service fitness clubs, non-group workouts like running, and even inertia. The couch may be its biggest competition! So define your competitive set from your target’s point of view, not your category’s.

-  differentiating value — Unless you’re the 99 cent store, price is not a sustainable differentiator. If the only thing that differentiates your offering is price, it’s fairly easy for a competitor to undercut you or bait you into a price war.

That’s not to say price promotions shouldn’t be used as introductory offers or other limited time only deals, but they should not be the thing you count on to maintain competitive advantage. Instead, your differentiating value should be based on a claim that you are “the best,” “the first,” or “the only” brand to do what you do.

related posts:

• strategic brand platforms
• frozen yogurt and the future
• size as a competitive advantage

Earlier this week I posted some key takeaways from the keynote speakers and panelists at the Southern California Business Growth Conference.  As a panelist on the marketing track, one of the things I said during the “Brand Implementation & Impact: Bring your Brand to Market” session seemed to spark some interest of its own – and so I thought I’d say more about it here.

I referred to political platforms when I explained why I call a brand strategy a “strategic brand platform.”  Just as a political candidate or group has a platform which outlines what they’re advocating, I explained, a brand should have a platform to delineate what it represents.

Specifically I see three similarities between brand platforms and political ones:

1.    a platform outlines what the brand – or candidate – stands for

For example Meg Whitman, who is running for Governor of my fair state, has outlined 3 goals she has for California.  On the platform page of her website she says:

“I am running to reinvigorate California’s economic potential and help employers create two millions jobs by the beginning of 2015. I am running to rid our state government of waste, duplication and inefficiency so we can get control of runaway spending and create long-term fiscal stability.  I am running to fix our failing schools so we can give our children the opportunity to advance up the economic ladder and achieve their fullest potential.”

From these brief statements, we get a clear understanding of what Meg stands for.

In the same way, a brand platform should clearly outline the values and attributes of the brand. A tagline, mantra, or even brand essence serves as a useful tool to summarize and/or communicate the brand strategy, but it’s not the same thing as a rich and thorough brand identity which fleshes out all that the brand stands for.

2.    a platform gives buyers – or voters – reasons why they should choose the brand/candidate

The storied Contract with America which the Republican party created during the 1994 congressional election campaign is another example of a political platform.  In it, the Republicans promised a list of actions to bring on the first day of their majority to floor debate and votes, including
* cutting the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third
* limiting the terms of all U.S. Congressmen and U.S. Senators
* banning the casting of proxy votes in committee
* requiring committee meetings to be open to the public

By outlining these specific plans, the group made a clear case to those who were seeking governmental reform – if you elect our people, you will get these results.

Similarly brands need to outline what customers will get when they buy them. A strategic brand platform should include a brand positioning which states the unique benefit or value the brand delivers to customers.  It shouldn’t necessarily be about specific offerings or value propositions – rather, the platform should articulate the broader, higher level brand value.

3.    a platform explains how the brand – or candidate – differs from others

In the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sought to differentiate themselves from one another by adopting distinct platforms.

Each used postures (the establishment vs. the challenger and the tested vs. the inexperienced) to denigrate the other. But more importantly, the candidates’ positions on policy and major issues also were points of differentiation.

For example Clinton’s American Health Choices Plan provided a mandatory path to universal health care for all, ensured coverage is not denied because of preexisting conditions, and gave small businesses a tax credit for health care coverage.  Obama’s platform outlined universal health care (although not mandatorily), a reduction in family premiums, and the establishment of a National Health Insurance Exchange to oversee plan fairness and standards and increase competition amongst insurers.

On the campaign trail, these differing plans and the philosophies behind them were hotly debated between the two candidates.

As noted above, the unique value or benefit delivered to customers is an integral element of a strategic brand platform – here the emphasis is on the word unique.  Oftentimes a brand platform might also include a list of key differentiators. The point is to articulate what makes the brand different and better from the other choices the buyer has.

The similarities between brand platforms and political platforms are reinforced by some of the definitions of the word “platform” listed on Dictionary.com including:

- a public statement of the principles, objectives, and policy of a political party, esp. as put forth by the representatives of the party in a convention to nominate candidates for an election
- a body of principles on which a person or group takes a stand in appealing to the public; program
- a set of principles; plan.

I hope this examination has been helpful. I also hope it has led you to an important conclusion about campaigns — political ones and brand ones.  That is, a campaign is only the promotion of a platform – it’s not the platform itself. So when a company is looking to develop or optimize its brand, it should start with the platform first – it should ensure the strategic foundation is right before seeking a creative way to communicate and promote it.

Furthermore, the integrity of the campaign really becomes apparent only after the purchase (or election!)  Hopefully brands have a better track record than most politicians when it comes to doing what they say they will do.

For more of my thoughts on the elements of a strong brand platform, see this post.

Oh and of course I must point out that all of the above examples are used for the purposes of explaining my point, so please don’t try to surmise my political leanings from them.

other posts inspired by politics:

• the brand mavericks
• brands are more than symbols and words

“Differentiate or die” is probably a familiar mantra to all; and there’s a well-established albeit less pithy corollary – don’t sell the category, sell your brand.  After all, given the overcrowded nature of most categories, the hope of success for most brands rests on their ability to stand out from their numerous competitors.  And promoting the category usually only benefits the market leader.

That’s why the most common marketing challenge is communicating a brand’s differentiation.  But there are instances where differentiation is not the primary issue — and in many of these cases, it’s the relevance of the category itself which marketing must establish.

I’m thinking there are at least three business situations in which marketing should focus on increasing a brand’s relevance first, and differentiating the brand second.

seeking more mass appeal for niche brands

When a company aspires to broaden its appeal beyond a narrow target audience, the brand’s relevance to the broader audience must be established.

For example, many health, fitness, and wellness brands enjoy a strong and loyal core customer base.  People who have a disciplined exercise regimen are likely to know and love brands of sport-specific apparel, fitness clubs, and nutritional supplements.  So they’re likely to respond to communications intended to position a brand as an expert in its field or a particular aspect of the category.

But most brands in these categories aren’t even on the radar screens of the majority of U.S. adults who live primarily sedentary lives.  In fact in some recent proprietary research I conducted among a general audience, many health/fitness/wellness brands performed strongly on perceived expertise in their category but were much weaker when it came to being a “brand for me” (see chart below.)

As such, marketing for these brands shouldn’t be about a brand’s superior performance on the things the narrow target audience cares about – e.g., unique product formulations, expert endorsements, etc.  Instead marketing should be focused on explaining the benefits of the category and connecting those benefits to primary drivers of the mass market.

I recognize that not every niche brand wants to go mainstream – but those which are serious about growing exponentially will most likely have to.  They can’t expect mass-market consumers to just “get” their brand, much less their category.

introducing “new to the world” innovations

Many innovations introduce new features, form factors, delivery mechanisms, etc. which capitalize on existing demand.  When marketing these innovations, companies explain how the new product or service improves upon – and importantly, how it differs from — existing options.

However, new products and services which are truly “new to the world” have no such foundation of existing consumer relevance.  Often these innovations are developments people could not have even imagined previously — completely new ways of doing, thinking, experiencing, even living.

Innovations in technology tend to fall into this category.  When the integrated iPod/iTunes solution initially launched years ago, the marketing brief was simply to tell people what had become possible in music listening.  The ability to seamlessly download songs and store thousands of them “in your pocket” was a compelling proposition in itself – messages about the uniqueness of Apple’s brand would have been superfluous.

Listening to music is a relatively universal consumer want/need and so, for Apple, the relevance of its solution was pretty easy to establish.  Other innovations, however, are based on less salient drivers — so companies must generate perceptions of relevance by communicating a compelling vision of the category. People must see themselves in the story of the innovation before they will care and can appreciate what makes the particular brand unique.

addressing changed consumers’ needs

In some cases, a brand has lost appeal because people no longer perceive the category it trades in to be relevant.  Perhaps consumer values have shifted – or their lifestyles have changed – or new technologies have rendered the category practically obsolete.

The viability of some retailers is being threatened in this way.  The Internet has given people direct access to products they previously relied on retailers to make available to them – and in many cases, consumers can access even more products than they used to through retailers.   So retailers which previously touted their unique or exclusive access to certain merchandise are finding such claims no longer true, nor differentiating.

The best way for retailers to combat this is not necessarily to try to regain the upper hand on access.  Instead, retailers may need to re-establish the importance of the physical store in the shopping experience. By promoting the sights, sounds, smells, and tactile elements – especially the human contact – of the store shopping experience in general, companies can make shopping in retail stores more relevant to today’s experience-seeking consumers.

Ultimately relevance is accomplished by weaving your brand into the fabric of consumers’ everyday lives. Brands addressing the above business challenges shouldn’t take it for granted – are there others you can think of?  Please let me know.