Brand Autopsy

THIS MATTERS NOW (and tomorrow)

2009-12-14T08:41:15-06:00

Seth Godin asked 70 people to choose a provocative word and riff. Seth compiled the short essays into an ebook titled, WHAT MATTERS NOW. You’ll recognize many of the contributors. Hopefully, you’ll be inspired by their contributions to make your best contribution in 2010.

*** DOWNLOAD THE PDF here ***

Digitally riffle through the pages using Scribd.

Enjoy and share with others.

My contribution is titled, SACRIFCICE. It's on page 62. It's also below...

Bryant Simon on Starbucks | part 3

2009-12-11T06:13:00-06:00

We conclude our short series highlighting Bryant Simon’s book, in EVERYTHING BUT THE COFFEE: Learning about America from Starbucks (University of California Press, 2009).

Bryant writes how early on in his research he was supportive of Starbucks against its detractors complaining of Starbucks bigness and sameness. However, his attitude changed. He calls it his “Rwandan moment.”

In an email exchange, I asked Bryant what happened during his “Rwandan moment” causing him to go from being sympathetic to Starbucks to somewhat critical of Starbucks. He replied...

BRYANT SIMON: Before I started my research, I found Starbucks to be an interesting place, most notably a potentially important public gathering spot in suburbanizing America. But the deeper I dug into the company’s history and charted its actions and located it within the context of the changes in American society, the more skeptical I became about the promises it made. My patience with the company snapped when I learned about its behavior (both the promises it made and its deeper indifference to what was actually going on) in Rwanda.
Rwanda, as most people know, has had a mean and bloody past. Ethnic violence in the mid-1990s cost the nation, a former colony with a woefully underdeveloped economy and infrastructure, hundreds of thousands of lives. By 2000, the country was trying to get back on its feet and the coffee industry had the potential to help it and some of its farmers recover. Starbucks, it turned out, played on this history and this guilt – a western guilt over doing nothing to stop the killing – to sell some pricey coffee and make itself look better.

In 2005, Starbucks introduced Rwanda Blue Bourbon with its “subtle acidity” and “herbal, spice, and cocoa notes” as one of its “Black Apron Exclusives” – the designation it uses for its highest-end, most expensive specialty coffees. “Taste a special coffee,” an in-store sign maintained, “that’s helping transform farmers lives.” “A Promising Future in Every Pound,” a company press release announced to mark the introduction of Rwanda Blue Bourbon. “Following the devastating events of 1994“ – a store sign proclaimed and this was all it said about the country’s troubling past – “this new cash crop (coffee) has given Rwandan farmers hope for a better future and helped them afford better education, medicine, and housing.”

These signs – again promises – got me interested in what Starbucks was actually doing in Rwanda. I asked around a bit and found out that while Starbucks charged $22/per pound for its coffee, it wasn’t paying any more at origin than other roasters buying Rwandan beans from small growers and charging consumers far less. Starbucks, moreover, wasn’t buying its bean from co-ops or small farmers, at least not directly. “These are plantation beans,” one source who knew something about the Rwandan coffee industry commented when I asked him about Starbucks purchases. When I asked him what he meant by this, he curtly answered, “I meant what I said.” Starbucks was buying beans from large shareholders, not small farmers, from powerful landowners with, in many cases, ties to old colonial authorities, not from the victims of the ethnic cleaning campaigns that ripped the country apart.

But the Starbucks’ promises, again, made it seem like it was helping the least fortunate (not lining the pockets of people who never stopped getting decent educations, adequate health care, and spacious accommodations.)

So this was my Rwandan moment. To me, this was just too much. Manipulating the Rwandan tragedy to make money seemed totally out of bounds and nearly unethical. But even more, it demonstrated to me the utter ordinariness of Starbucks. It wasn’t that the company was exceptionally nefarious or greedy; it was that the company just like any other company, was willing to do just about anything and say just about anything to move product.

Bryant Simon on Starbucks | part 2

2009-12-10T06:03:00-06:00

We continue our short series highlighting Bryant Simon’s book, EVERYTHING BUT THE COFFEE: Learning about America from Starbucks (University of California Press, 2009).

In the book, Bryant takes a look at Starbucks from all angles including its impact on the environment, cultural society, consumerism, and globalization matters. At one point he writes, “... it became clear that Starbucks fulfilled its many promises only in the thinnest, most transitory of ways and that people’s desires went largely unfulfilled.”

I asked Bryant Simon, in an email exchange, to give specific examples how Starbucks thinly fulfills its promises to customers. Here's his reply:

BRYANT SIMON: Many branders, following the lead of Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, argue that higher-end consumers are looking for experiences and wiling to pay extra to get them. I think about this idea in a slightly different way. I think we pay a premium to get the things that are missing in our lives – experience being just one of them (and I write about this in the chapter in my book on music and the feeling of discovery, both real and vicarious that Starbucks sells.) Back to my point, so I think that people increasingly buy to fulfill their desires or get a hold of the things that are missing in their lives.
But there is another dynamic at work here.

As other social forces – neighborhoods, community, unions, and politics – seem to recede, brands have stepped into our lives to offer more of the things that matter most to us – everything from authenticity to work spaces to belonging to social justice. Really, then brands sell promises – promises to fulfill our needs and desires. Yet, often they deliver only an illusion of what we need and want, some vapory facsimile that looks like the real thing, but usually isn’t even close.

Few companies, in what we might call the “promise economy,” sell more -- e.g. promise more – than Starbucks. But again, the company doesn’t always deliver on its promises.

Take the promise of Third Place. Starbucks has borrowed – expropriated -- this phrase from the sociologist Ray Oldenburg. Oldenburg calls these locations real – not virtual -- sites between work and home where people can gather. Starbucks serves this role, but back to the question, in only the thinnest, most ephemeral of ways.

To Oldenburg, third places are social setting where strangers meet and forge the bonds of community. Once they trust each other, they go on to discuss matters of crucial import to the community. Talk is essential for these places to genuinely work. But that isn’t really what happens at Starbucks. People come to Starbucks to get a moment of respite or to meet with colleagues, but rarely do they engage in the kinds of community discussions needed to bolster civic life. So what they get at Starbucks, is a busy, chatty looking place that looks like a third place, but isn’t really a third place. Kind of like those cup quotes.

Remember when Starbucks tattooed its cups with quotes? They were there the company said to encourage conversation and community, but they didn’t say much that could get anyone to actually talk or engage with others. Who isn’t in favor of finding love, the rainbow of colors, and the innocence of kids playing baseball? When the cups did incite a little controversy, Starbucks pulled the offending cups. That’s not free speech, and free speech is key to Third Places and to community. Just ask Ray Oldenburg.

Same with the environment. Starbucks knows that a growing core of its customer base cares deeply about green issues, so it promises to do its part (and allow them to think they have done their part). On every Starbucks cup, it reads right under the quotes, “Help us, help the planet.”

Sure, Starbucks has done some great stuff to limit its carbon footprint and utilize solar energy sources, but it doesn’t really help the environment, it actually leaves it in worse shape after each latte purchase. By not pushing in-store ceramic cups or reusable tumblers, Starbucks encourages takeaway, throwaway consumption. Every time we walk out the door with a paper cup, java jacket, and plastic lid (and perhaps a green plastic splash stick), we are – and so is Starbucks – creating trash (and all of the energy and oil needed top produce these additional cups and lids and then cart them off to the landfill where the take up place and slowly rot, but not be they get covered up by another bag of coffee house rubbish.)

These are two examples of promises that Starbucks makes – because the ideas they promise have value to their customers and add value to their products – but doesn’t entirely fulfill. And this is one of the avenues of inquiry I explore in my book. I look hard at what Starbucks sells and what it actually delivers.

More to come on Friday.

Bryant Simon on Starbucks | part 1

2009-12-09T06:10:00-06:00

I first met Bryant Simon in 2006. At that time, he was in the early stages of researching Starbucks impact on culture and consumerism. We traded emails about nuanced Starbucks happenings from store-level operations to broader marketing matters. He was curious to learn the rationale behind a lot of the decisions he was experiencing in Starbucks stores. As a former Starbucks marketer known for sharing tribal knowledge about the company, I enjoyed my email threads with him and my face time with him when he visited Austin in 2007.

Since he’s a history professor at Temple University, Bryant comes at the Starbucks story from a unique angle. He uses this unique perspective to make interesting observations about Starbucks.

After a few years of research and thousands of hours spent observing Starbucks from hundreds of its stores, Bryant Simon has released his observations on Starbucks in EVERYTHING BUT THE COFFEE: Learning about America from Starbucks (University of California Press, 2009).

It’s a worthwhile read. We’ll be sharing Bryant’s take on Starbucks impact on culture and consumption over the next three days.

We begin with a highly condensed verbatim abstract of chapter two in his book. This chapter is titled, “Predictability the Individual Way.”

Bryant Simon writes ...

“Built for the postneed, status-seeking, civically challenged world, Starbucks offered an important variation on McDonald’s-style, branded predictability, sameness and comfort are certainly important for highly mobile yuppies, bobos, and creative class types.” (pg. 60)
“Predictability doesn’t just happen. Starbucks works hard to stage this easily consumed familiarity, starting with the coffee itself. Reluctant to franchise, Starbucks owns most of its outlets.” (pg. 65)

“Starbucks baristas also tend to look alike—usually smiling and usually young. This, too, is no accident. As thick as a chemistry textbook, the Starbucks employee manual leaves little to chance. It provides workers with a script outlining exactly what they should say and the tone they should strike. It spells out what they can and can’t wear and what they can’t show of themselves.” (pg. 66)

“Making every Starbucks look familiar and feel safe requires heavy doses of policing, employee disciplining, and systemization. In other words, as McDonald’s expert George Ritzer suggests, it requires that Starbucks stores operate like McDonald’s franchisees. Indeed, as Starbucks grew, it became more like McDonald’s every day, turning consumption, work, and management into a series of predictable centrally controlled routines.” (pg. 71)

“There is a tipping point here, however. Too much sameness alarms rather than reassures, many bobos and creative class types; it cuts into their sense of individuality.” (pg. 76)

“In one last twist on the themes of sameness and placelessness, authenticity and consumer desire, Starbucks, in some ways, has begun to consume itself.” (pg. 81)

More to come on Thursday and Friday.

CONFESSIONS OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER | a dramatic reading

2009-11-30T21:11:53-06:00

CONFESSIONS OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER by Scott Berkun gets the Marketing Masterpiece Theatre treatment.

If you regularly give presentations, you'll find yourself nodding in agreement with many of the stories Scott tells about presentations gone right and those that went terribly wrong. You'll also pick-up a few pointers on improving the design and delivery of your next presentation.

(Check-out Scott's presentation style by watching his recent gig at the Web 2.0 Expo 2009.)

Don't expect a drab how-to-present book. This ain't it. Scott mixes in his advice alongside well written stories about his life as a "freelance thinker."

Time to cue Sir Wilton Norman Chamberlain III for his dramatic reading ...

RSS Readers ... click here to view the video.

[NOTE: I often receive free copies of biz books from publishers and publicists. However, I spent my money for my copy of CONFESSIONS OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER.]

WOMMA Conference: Recap Presentation

2009-11-22T18:10:00-06:00

*** Note, my WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post. ***

When you return from a conference chock-full of insights, it’s difficult to share everything you learned. Sure, you can transcribe your notes but your notes are bound to have some holes. You can also pull insights from summaries other attendees have posted on their blogs.

Or ... you whittle through the thousands of tweets from attendees to carve out a more complete list of insights. That’s the path I’ve chosen to take after returning from WOMMA’s Creating Talkable Brands conference.

Over 470 attendees shared 3,600+ tweets (.pdf download) with the #WOMMA hashtag during the three-day conference. I’ve whittled down the 3,600+ tweets to a more digestible collection of 165 tweets and compiled them into this SlideShare presentation. Enjoy.

Talkable Tweets from WOMMA's 2009 Summit

View more presentations from Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

File Under: MISSED OPPORTUNITY

2009-11-17T08:23:50-06:00

Something doesn’t make sense with this poster ad on the DFW Airport skylink tram. Do you see what I saw?
If I’m advertising a “treat yourself” occasion at the airport during the hullabaloo of holiday travel, I’m choosing something more treat worthy than a low-fat soft pretzel. There are lots of "treat yourself" opportunities at DFW Airport that out indulge a basic pretzel.

Beloved Companies Make The Right Decisions

2009-11-11T16:22:36-06:00

As a customer loyalty-focused marketer, Jeanne Bliss has been in the marketing game with some notable brands: Lands’ End, Coldwell Banker, Allstate, Microsoft, and Mazda. She has seen how making the wrong decisions can lead to forging customer disloyalty and how making the right decisions lead to fostering customer loyalty.

I’ve known Jeanne for a couple years. Smart gal. And her latest book, I LOVE YOU MORE THAN MY DOG, is a smart read for businesses wanting to earn loyalty from customers. (Since Jeanne is a friend, she gave me a copy to read. Friends are nice that way. Thanks Jeanne.)

Jeanne is onto something worth reading by framing her book around exploring five decisions company’s make (or don’t make) to become a beloved brand.

To summarize key points from the book, let’s give it the Brand Autopsy "WHAT? – SO WHAT? – WHAT NOW?" treatment...

WHAT?
“When you make a decision, it results in action. And the accumulation of those decisions and actions become how people describe you and think of you. It becomes your ‘story.’”

SO WHAT
“As customers and employees, we crave what beloved companies deliver. They enable people to decide and act from a corner of their brain that is congruent with doing the right thing. In doing so, they build an organization with energy and spirit that draws customers to them.”

WHAT NOW?
“[There] are five decisions that set beloved companies apart. These five decisions reveal who they are and what they value.”

Decision #1:
Decide to Trust Customers and Employees
“By deciding to trust customers, [companies] are freed from extra rules, policies, and layers of bureaucracy that create a barrier between them and their customers. And by deciding to believe that employees can and will do the right thing, second-guessing ... is replaced with shared energy, ideas, and a desire to stick around.”

Decision #2:
Decide to be Guided by a Clarity of Purpose
“Beloved companies take their time to be clear about what their unique promise is for their customers’ lives. Clarity of purpose guides choices and united the organization. It elevates people’s work from executing tasks to delivering experiences customers will want to repeat and tell others about.”

Decision #3:
Decide to be Real, Genuine, and Personal
“... beloved companies shed their fancy packaging. Beloved companies strike a chord with customers. They decide to create a safe place where the personality and creativity of their people shine through.”

Decision #4:
Decide to Deliver Thoughtful Customer Experiences
“Beloved companies think and rethink how to conduct themselves, so they earn the right to their customers’ continued business. Their ‘experience’ is far more than the execution of an operating plan. [Beloved companies] leave customers thinking, ‘Who else would have done this?’ ‘Where else could I get this?’ ‘I want to do this again.’”

Decision #5:
Decide to Apologize
“When a beloved company apologizes for something that goes wrong, the intent and motivation is to make customers whole—to earn the right to continue the relationship. Many companies consider the apology as admitting defeat. In actuality, the reverse is true. A well-executed apology: one that is timely and delivered with humility and remorse ... often build a much stronger relationship. Both the customer and company win.”

Decision #6:
Decide to Read I LOVE YOU MORE THAN MY DOG
(This is a bonus decision you should make.)

Business Lessons from a Soda Jerk

2009-11-08T13:45:33-06:00

John Nese is a modern day soda jerk. He’s passionate about “flavored water with a lot bubbles.” Soda makes him smile, makes him happy. He’s the proprietor of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles. His store sells about 500 different sodas from small, independent-run soda makers. His business is a prototypical purple cow, worthy of word-of-mouth.

Watching the video below will not only make us smile and happy, it will make us smarter about business strategy and jealous we don’t have the same passion for what we do that John Nese does.

We’ll become smarter because we’ll see first-hand how passion propels performance, how being more selective makes a business more effective, and how sharing inspired expert knowledge will never go out of style.

We’ll become jealous because we’ll see someone who has made the necessary sacrifices in life to pursue their calling.

Enjoy. (Thanks Seth and Neal for bringing this video to my attention.)

RSS Readers ... click here to watch the video.

No More Starbucks Gold

2009-11-06T10:04:59-06:00

Lots of chatter online about the revamped Starbucks “rewards” program. Starbucks will discontinue its Gold Card program it began a year ago. The Starbucks Gold Card program was designed like many membership rewards program where customers pay a yearly $25 fee and in return they receive free refills on brewed coffee, free wi-fi access, and 10% off on all purchases.

Beginning December 26, Starbucks will replace its Gold Card program with a "My Starbucks Rewards" program offering customers a free beverage after 15 purchases. (There are a few other small perks in this program but it's essentially a Buy 15 Drinks, Get 1 Free program.)

Starbucks is touting its new rewards program as an improvement because of its simpler design and the no annual fee.

However, the consensus from the online chatter is this new program benefits less frequent Starbucks customers (2-to-3 visits a month) than the very frequent Starbucks customer (8+ visits a month).

Obviously the redesign of this program will benefit Starbucks more financially. Perhaps offering a 10% discount to Gold Card members on all purchases was profiting heavy-spending customers more than it was profiting revenue-needing Starbucks.

Whenever I read about new Starbucks business happenings, I refer back to the book I wrote about Starbucks foundational business practices. In TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE, there’s a short section on fostering customer devotion where I give the old school Starbucks perspective on “Preferred Shopper” loyalty schemes, such as a Starbucks Gold Card program or the new My Starbucks Rewards program...

“These ‘Preferred Shopper’ promotions also reverse the logic of great customer service: they ask customers to sign up for a card or buy a certain amount of product before they can enjoy the benefits of being part of the club. Do you really want to create two classes of customers? One that gets the ‘good stuff’ at a good price, the other that gets a raw deal? If you want to foster true customer devotion, don’t make your customers jump through hoops just to feel welcome, or 'preferred.'
Businesses operating like this treat their customers like cattle, doing whatever they can to attract attention. When companies are more focused on their own bottom line than their customers, both will eventually fall away. These programs lack soul and meaning to stand the test of time.”

The last paragraph in this chapter shares a thought more businesses, especially Starbucks today, need to pay attention to:

“Customer loyalty works both ways, and Starbucks knows that. Of course Starbucks wants to maintain its profitability, but it does this by helping the folks who come into its stores, not by working against them. If you want customers to stay loyal to you, stay loyal to your customers—treat them as people, help them as individuals, offer them something extra, and they’ll come back for more.”

You can read the full chapter, TRIBAL TRUTH #28: Foster Customer Devotion, in the box below:

Foster Customer Devotion