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.)

brand as business bit:  Stephen Denny and I have just done a blog-exchange on retail and small business.  Check out his post on Killing Retail Giants, and mine on new retail opportunities.  Both pieces speak to the unique advantage small businesses have in winning at retail, in part because they are more likely to make the retail experience personal and emotional.

Our perspectives are supported by recent research findings from Motista, a consumer intelligence firm showing that:

Customers who feel emotionally connected to their retail brands are three to four times more likely to pay more, tell a friend, shop their stores more often, and rate the brands online than customers who are merely satisfied.

read Motista’s report

(The following is the first in a two-part blog-exchange I’m doing with Stephen Denny, author of Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath in Your Industry.  Because Steve and I are among those teaching the upcoming Marketing Profs University course, Marketing Your Small Business, we decided to address retailers’ issues and opportunities in these posts and focus specifically on small businesses.  

The following are questions I posed to Steve, his answers, and my follow-up.  My post will appear on Steve’s blog next week.  Steve kicks off the MPU course next week – so register now and use my coupon code BRANDASBIZ to receive $200 off!)

Denise:  How are small businesses uniquely suited to win “in the last three feet” of retail?

Steve:  Small businesses win in the last three feet by understanding that there’s always time left on the clock. By not going away, in other words.

Giants, by their very nature – from their rewards systems to their staffing plans – are built for the “start” and rarely for the “finish.” They’re great at throwing agencies and dollars and fluff into the air, but they’re also on the hook for the rest of their quarterly objectives. Executives in giant companies don’t stay to the end. Executives – and founders – of Giant Killers do, because it’s their life’s work.

How do small businesses win in the last three feet? They spend other people’s money. They take the foot traffic or the eyeballs that were purchased at great cost and recognize them for what they are: qualified prospects, courtesy of someone else’s marketing budget. They don’t make the false assumption that they’re brand converts unwilling to hear about another solution.

Does it always work? Who knows. But if you can turn what was once a slam dunk and turn it into a jump ball, the possibilities for growth are endless.

Denise:  How are mobile and other retail trends making winning in the last three feet more challenging?

Steve:  Augmented reality, the quick merging of online and offline and the built-in disadvantage of having to pay for a brick and mortar presence all loom pretty large over this conversation, don’t they? And Amazon’s price checker app certainly hits this nail on the head pretty hard.

If I had to pick the one most significant structural shift I’ve seen in the “Winning in the Last Three Feet” world, I’d pick the technological one – specifically, the smartphone in your pocket. The rise of the ubiquity of the mobile internet and location based services have created a self-service culture very comfortable with on-the-fly purchase decisions, often – as in the case of the Amazon app – while the customer is face to face with the physical product in someone else’s storefront.

Is this “against the rules”? Yes! Dirty as hell. And Amazon can do it, so it will. Last I heard, Amazon wasn’t in the business of installing that 72” flatscreen – but I do hear rumblings that they might be looking at opening retail stores of their own.

Denise:  QR Codes — Is there something here? What are we to do with this opportunity disguised as utter confusion?

Steve:  QR codes are the modern day El Dorado, unfortunately, as most marketers don’t know quite what to do with them and virtually all consumers ignore them, so the evidence today suggests. Many marketers much more knowledgeable that I am on this subject declare the jury to be out, which really is too bad – I want this to work because it seems to be such a wonderful opportunity for people to stop what they’re doing and watch the video I want them to watch. With regret, “compliance” isn’t always a first reward of marketing anymore, is it? This may be the reason QR codes are still in the dark, frankly.

But I’m not giving up hope. The one project I’m working on today puts QR codes and mobile-friendly videos they point to in the hands of in-store retail evangelists so that the newest of new schools is supported by the oldest of old school techniques: the original “social” media, meaning real live people. Using QR codes as the in-person double-click – aided, in this case – is a step that makes sense in this particular case. More on this as it develops! It’s still in its early phases.

Denise:  I really like your answers, Steve, and see a common theme running through them – that is, the need to think different – to zig while others zag. Whether it’s focusing on the “finish,” breaking the rules, or using technology to provide more personal service, there’s always value in doing what others don’t!

related posts:

• how to succeed in small business
• six best practices in retail

In the spirit of New York Times Magazine’s annual Year in Ideas, I’ve compiled an alphabetical digest of ideas, from A to Z, that I wrote, spoke, and passed along over the past 12 months.  The following are excerpts — the original pieces linked. 

By assembling this collection of preoccupations, provocations, and predilections, I realize how random my ramblings may seem at times – but I hope they’ve been helpful to you in some way.  So here we go:

All You Need Is Love – Love is a driver of business — when businesses are grounded in love and when leaders love the people around them, the result is growth and goodness and success and strength. (my op-ed published by the Greenville News)

Belief Repositories – “Belief repositories are fueled by hard evidence but can lead marketing teams to make investments where no experiment or marketing mix model has yet been run.” (Joel Rubinson in a guest post on my blog)

Culture Isn’t Enough — A vital, vibrant culture unifies, aligns, focuses, motivates, and propels.  But it is not enough to produce a profitable business.  Culture must be linked to, and pursued with the same rigor and vigor as, the customer experience. (blogpost)

Decrease Your Deal-Dependence with Differentiation — Differentiation is really the best way for all businesses to address consumers’ new value mindset. (my bylined article published by Franchise Update Media)

Embrace (and Enforce) an Inspiration Policy –  Clarify why inspiration is important to the company, and how people will be supported and encouraged to develop it.  (one of the top10 things i’m going to use from Andy Stefanovich’s book, “Look at More Stuff”)

Failure Is a Gift – “I think of my failures as a gift. Unless you view them that way, you won’t learn from failure, you won’t get better.” (from my three-part recap of Harvard Business Review’s Failure Issue which quoted former P&G CEO A.G. Lafley)

Grow As Slowly As You Can — Growing slowly allows you to make sure you have the right people and allows you to personally foster your culture. (learned from talk by Jason Fried, CEO of 37signals)

Health Is In the Eye of the Beholder –  Health means different things to different people — and that variation is actually good news for restaurateurs. (my bylined article published by SmartBrief for Restaurants)

Innovate Around the Person, Not the Technology — The temptation with any development in technology is to use the new capability as the starting point for innovation.  But this often leads to developments which fall short of or are off base from what end users want and need. (my guest post on CEA’s Digital Dialogue)

Just Because… “Food is served fast, doesn’t mean it has to be the typical fast food experience” – (from my recap of the reality TV show, America’s Next Great Restaurant, quoting Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle)

Kodak Tries to Bring Its Digital Revival into Focus — Kodak is not giving the consumer a reason to purchase. I don’t know that a good brand halo helps if you don’t have the ability to convert it into sales. (my POV quoted in Bloomberg Business Week)

Less Is More — “Trader Joe’s may offer customers less choice. However, in terms of ease of choosing and relevance of choice, it is definitely where less choice is more.” (C.B. Whittemore in guest post on my blog)

Modern Brand Names — Brand names reflect the business climates they’re developed in — modern brand names need to tap into the differentiating power of values and personality. (blogpost)

Not 360 Degree Marketing – “The goal shouldn’t be 360 degree marketing.  Find 10-20 degrees that give the most leverage.” (advice from Tim Maleeny, Ogilvy’s Director of Planning)

On-Stage Leadership – “Leaders are always on stage… it’s a metaphor [to explain] role modeling is the key element. They’re always in the spotlight.” (the philosophy behind Sharp Healthcare’s leadership training, as explained by Director Mark Tomaszewicz)

Progressive Brands Should Turn Their Backs on Sustainability – “Brands have a far more important – a far more exciting – role to play in helping us all move towards becoming more sustainable in our lifestyles.” (POV of Guy Champniss, Managing Director of Meltwater Consulting, as relayed in my blogpost)

Quality… of engagement is a better measure of brand strength than quantity of followers (from my piece “Leveraging ‘Like” Into Loyalty” published by Franchise Media Update)

Remarkable Retail — What makes a retail store an experience so compelling that customers will tell others about it?  Interactivity, a personal and local feel, and an editorial voice. (my e-newsletter recapping a series of Brand Experience Briefs)

Storytelling – “If you’re curating really excellent thought-provoking content, and then sparking conversations around that content, you can build that kind of equity…so that people naturally develop a relationship with you.”(recommendation from Sam Rosen, Creative Director and Co-founder of ThoughtLead)

Take a Crap – I told a CEO to “take a crap” – that is, go sit on the toilet in her restaurants — so she could see how much the details of the customer experience get overlooked.  (blogpost)

Use Your Fear – Survivors aren’t fearless.  They use fear:  they turn it into anger and focus. (one of many business leadership lessons from the book, “Deep Survival” as relayed in my presentation)

Visibility – A logo must achieve impact and contact. The former is about visibility, stating what the brand is and stands for; the latter connects the brand to the customer, making a personal, emotional connection. (my Brand New Perspectives column in QSR Magazine.)

Wallets…are becoming as unnecessary as watches.  Smart phones are easier to use, provide more functionality, and offer greater security.  (blogpost)

X…as in TEDx San Diego – spoken word artist Sekou Andrews opened this year’s event with an inspiring declaration:  ”When our ‘ready’ is ‘able,’ our will be done.” (from my slideshow recap)

You Need More Competition — More competition is a good thing because it generates increased demand, gives customers confidence, builds up infrastructure, and helps you get better. (my bylined article published by SmartBrief on Leadership)

Zappos — CEO Tony Hsieh says, “Every employee can affect your company’s brand.  Not just the front-line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.” (quoted in my speaker video)

Thank you for following, reading, re-tweeting, liking, commenting, and sharing me and my work this year!  See you in 2012 for another year of ideas!

(Here’s another installment of “brand experience briefs” — insights from my audits of new and interesting retail and restaurant concepts.)

What:  Subway Café

• a test concept featuring (as stated in the company’s press release) “an upscale coffeehouse ambience, an expanded menu, and Seattle’s Best coffee offerings including espresso drinks, lattes and frozen blended beverages, along with amenities such as Wi-Fi, and DIRECTV”
• “There are coffee people out there who like to have their Starbucks but want to have something to eat too,” one of the store managers explained the concept to the local newspaper.

Where:  Twenty locations including two stores in the San Diego market – one downtown, the other on the edge of Mission Hills, an upscale neighborhood.

What worked:

• Décor and fixtures – The only thing that seemed even somewhat appropriate were the décor and fixtures.  Instead of the standard Formica countertops and generic fixtures that adorn a regular Subway, the Subway Café featured nicer items.  A stone wall made the store seem higher quality than your typical Subway, bar stools and tables gave the place a hipper feel, and the wall hangings were eye-catching.

What didn’t work:

• Product – The coffee is advertised as Seattle’s Best brand, which is a positive association for me, but the coffee drink I ordered (a Caramel Latte) was made in one of those one-cup dispensers and that detracted from the perception — and reality — of quality coffee.  That Subway Café uses a machine to make their coffee drinks means they miss all the compelling cues of a standard coffeehouse and the benefits those cues suggest and deliver — no fresh ground coffee, no hand-made product, no sense of real ingredients.  Plus the drink tasted awful – and trust me, I am not a coffee snob.

The food selection was equally off-the-mark.  The pastry selection, standard and stale-looking, didn’t tempt even my overactive sweet tooth.  Plus the assortment skewed toward breakfast items despite my visit taking place in the late afternoon – why not offer more daypart-appropriate items like cookies, brownies, etc.?  Or better yet, use those ovens the store already has to make fresh-baked items?

• Training – The employee who served me was not trained.  She didn’t know the menu, she had to study the instructions for operating the one-cup machine (really?!), and she couldn’t answer a standard coffeehouse question (“We have half-and-half” is not an acceptable answer to the question “Do you have soy milk?”)
• Brand visuals and messaging – The store was filled with signage for Subway, Seattle’s Best (old and new visual identities), and Tazo Teas, but none of the designs or messages were integrated.   Further, the Subway Café logo has no cohesiveness – it looks like someone simply slapped on the word “Café” to the end of the Subway logo. This visual disjointedness detracts from any sense of a concept.

• Overall concept – If Subway Cafe intends to create a “third place” a la Starbucks, it’s got a long way to go.  Delivering a coffeehouse experience requires more than putting up some coffee signs and installing a coffee machine.   A different level and type of product quality and selection, service, and ambiance is called for.  Subway doesn’t have the credibility, nor the executional chops, to go there.  Plus, Subway’s primary brand equities are fresh, healthy, and made-to-order-right-in-front-of-you – Subway Café leverages none of these.

What I’d change:

• Shift gears — Focus on building Subway’s breakfast daypart.  Subway shouldn’t try to be something they’re not — especially since they’ve got a great concept as is.  This new concept is probably intended to offset the sluggish growth Subway will eventually experience, as the chain reaches a point of saturation in most markets.

So instead of creating a new concept, they should introduce a “Breakfast at Subway” program.  Offer fresh brewed Seattle’s Best drip (skip the coffee drinks), more breakfast sandwiches and sides (including fresh and perceived healthy items), and breakfast combos.  Keep executing the heck out of the grab-and-go experience that Subway does so well – and leave the coffeehouse aspirations to others.

Bottom line:  Starbucks and McDonald’s have nothing to worry about.

(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.)

other brand experience briefs:

• Walmart.com store
• 77kids
• Central Market

The holiday shopping season is upon us and retailers are trying to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the new retail reality.  As a recent Bloomberg Businessweek article observed, “Americans don’t shop the way they used to.”

Between developments in social commerce, mobile apps that facilitate shopping on the go, and increases in multi-channel purchasing, retailers are faced with a multitude of possibilities for engaging customers.  They need to create a cohesive brand experience across all touchpoints.

A Customer Experience Architecture is a tool that retailers can use to optimize, prioritize, and unify all of their customer experiences.  It’s a framework for describing and delivering the optimal experiences to different customer segments in different channels.

It’s an “architecture” similar to other strategic architectures like a brand architecture or an information architecture that are used as planning tools.  Plus, assembling a Customer Experience Architecture is like building a house.

A few years ago my husband and I got the crazy idea that we would build a house.  That delusion didn’t last long, but we learned a lot about the process of designing a house — and I learned a lot about the process of designing customer experiences.  After all, a house is more than the materials to make it – we were really building our desired home experience.

So here are the steps for building a Customer Experience Architecture:

1. Brand platform — Our first step was to hire an architect and the first thing he worked with us on was our vision for the house – did we want a mission style?  Modern?  Spanish?  etc.  That vision is equivalent to your brand platform, the first step in developing a Customer Experience Architecture.  You start by defining what you want your brand to stand for, the overarching idea that represents you.

2. Customer experience strategy — We then worked on translating that vision into the overall feeling of the house we desired – e.g., did we want a cocoon to rest in or a clubhouse for our family to gather in or an entertainment hub for our friends and neighbors?  That’s the second step – articulating your customer experience strategy, the overall experience you want to deliver across all channels.  Perhaps you want to create a “place” to discover and try; or perhaps you want to deliver legendary service.

3a.  Channel requirements and objectives — Next we broke our plan down into the specific considerations and priorities for each room – e.g., a wide-open kitchen; a walk-in closet in the bedroom, etc.  We had to factor in the limitations of the property we had purchased and the budget we wanted to stick to.  In the same way, in a Customer Experience Architecture, you break down your plan by channel.  Outline the business requirements and objectives of each and factor in your operational capabilities and assets.

Your website may use sophisticated filtering technology, for example, that makes it easy for the customer to find whatever they’re looking for, so you may specify that channel for carrying a very broad assortment.  Or, the location and layouts of your brick-and-mortar stores may be perfect for grab-and-go purchases, so that channel may be all about speed of service.

3b.  Segment needs and drivers — At the same time in our home-building process, my husband and I defined our different needs so the architect could tailor his designs to address those differences – e.g., in the living area my husband “needed” a large area for watching TV on a big screen while I needed a sightline to the kitchen.

Similarly, your target segments have different needs in general and in different channels.  Some may value convenience over price; others may be looking for an entertaining experience.  Whatever they may be, outline those different needs and drivers of their purchase decisions and brand perceptions.

4. Customer experience — Then like our architect, outline the ways you are going to meet those segment-specific needs in each channel.  Use all the levers of customer experience – product, service, content, community, value, facilities, etc.  What product categories will you feature?  Will you do sampling and demonstrations?  What added value services will you offer?  What information is provided and how?

5. Assessment and integration — Once your Customer Experience Architecture is assembled, assess it as a whole “house” – is the brand strategy delivered throughout?  Do the discrete experiences ladder up to the overall customer experience strategy?  Do the experiences complement and enhance each other, or do they conflict or detract from each other?  You may need to go back to the drawing board a few times.

You also need to show how you will integrate the experiences.  A map that shows how different experiences feed into and from each other will ensure customers get a seamless shopping experience.

6. Prioritization — The next step is to value the different segment/channel intersections and prioritize them.  Use criteria like profit potential, fit with your long-term strategy, differentiation, and value to the customer to determine which experiences are the most important.  You should also look for synergies between the intersections, meaning if you focus on one, you might also be improving another.

7. Description – Finally once you’ve set your priorities, use narratives, images, idea boards, videos, etc. to convey your vision for each priority experience and the granular details that comprise them.

Creating a Customer Experience Architecture isn’t rocket science.  And believe me, it’s a lot less painful than trying to build a house.   It simply requires discipline and a deliberate process.  Great customer experiences don’t just happen.

But the return on your investment is significant.  One retailer used a Customer Experience Architecture to get all of its employees, executives, and vendors on the same page about how it would increase its competitive advantage.  It showed how the company was going to get more business out of their existing channels and how to appeal to growing segments.  The framework increased marketing efficiency by helping the company target the right people in the right way.  And it improved customer satisfaction.

As the number of brand touchpoints grows in today’s retail environment, retailers need to focus and unify their customer experiences. A Customer Experience Architecture enables you to deliver a cohesive experience that builds your brand and your business.

(To learn how to use a Customer Experience Architecture for your business, to request a custom proposal, or to book a workshop, contact me at mail AT deniseleeyohn DOT com.)