Is it possible to be product-centric, even user-centric, and still not be customer centric?

We discuss Apple and the iPhone and how these brands dominate even after cashing in good amounts of customer equity.

What do you think?

As we have studied 1000 Year Brands, there are some obvious common denominators.  There are 3 core traits:  great idea, great relationships, and great business model.  Consider this a running analysis as we continue to discover additional traits and new 1000 Year Brand candidates.

1. Low employee turn-over. In fact, a common issue with 1000 Year Brands is extracting the “tribal knowledge” from long-term employees.
2. An original simple idea that still remains - OR - the inspiration and implementation of new ideas that keep a brand relevant.
3. Stories - especially about employees or customers.  A good sign of this is when you don’t need a press release to get the story out.  You just tell it (usually via your site or employees) and it gets picked up by the masses and the media.
4. A respect for tradition but an obsession with staying relevant.  This is closely related to just being “cool” within a community of people.
5. A sense of inevitability.  This doesn’t mean that a brand becomes a verb (i.e. Xerox).  It means where the brand becomes a verb and it truly is what is done - i.e. FedEx’d, Googled.
6. Outward manifestation of reverence.  This could be tattoos, stickers, customer-created advertising - or simply a photo of a guy’s dream car hanging in his cubicle.
7. A respect for traditional and heritage, but a brand that is still fresh and new.
8. A “family tree” of former employees and executives that went on to create their own 1000 Year Brands.
9. Consistently staying at the top of 3 key lists:  Best Places to Work, Most Respected Brands, and Long-term Stock Value.
10. A legacy, typically done quietly, of community involvement.

It is not necessary for a great brand to have all of these traits, but as we look at 1000 Year Brands like Coke, Apple, Google, FedEx, Jack Daniels, and hundreds more, you can definitely see a pattern of greatness.  In addition, a 1000 Year Brand doesn’t have to be famous.  It could be a local company who is big in the hearts and minds of their area of influence.

As always, your submission of additional traits is encouraged and appreciated - along with you providing us some great 1000 Year Brand and/or Simple Idea stories.

Modern branding involves a series of revelations …

1. The internal revelation of why your brand exists.  This is the purpose of your brand beyond the business model, infrastructure, etc.  (We call this your Brand Core).  Once you know your brand’s purpose, it changes the way you think and act.  Instead of trying to create an image or perception, you will focus on getting your story told.  You will worry about authenticity and transparency.  To large extent, this purpose will replace your mission statement, guiding principles, etc. as a singular declaration of why your brand is here - and why the audience should care.
2. Your audience has a revelation that your product is for them.  They make an emotional connection and trigger the “adoption” mechanism.  This rarely happens through advertising (although advertising can help validate the adoption).  Instead, it happens through a process of discovery - word-of-mouth, research, customer experience, first impressions, etc.  Your audience will want to connect with you for a variety of reasons- brand “mirroring”, excitement, driving need, etc.  Almost all of these reasons will go back to the simple reason that your brand purpose matches theirs.
3. The market has a revelation about your relevance.  In other words, people are talking about you.  Stories are told - by employees, customers, vendors, etc.  The Internet and media start to chatter about you.  Momentum is created, creating additional audience revelations.  A sub-revelation is that “eyeballs” are largely irrelevant.  The true measurement of a modern brand is the number of conversations.  Some companies try to jump straight to this phase.  However, the hype-to-relevance odds are extremely low.  Just like building a fire, you need the real fuel of stories - not just an accelerant.

The most difficult thing for most organizations to overcome are their deeply ingrained expectations about what marketing/branding is.  It requires a change of thinking.  Not to a new set of tactics and tools, but a revelation that the rules of marketing and branding have changed.  That “message control” doesn’t really exist.  That your company is transparent whether you like it or not.  That employee morale and customer satisfaction are closely related.

In short, great brands are not created, they are revealed.  First to you, then your audience, then the masses.

There is always something magical when a great idea takes off.  I recently heard about Bob’s PicklePops.  These are frozen popcycles made out of, yes, pickle juice! From their web site … “This is one of those crazy ideas that should have died a quick and horrible death from the beginning, right?  But it didn’t.  As a matter of fact, it is an idea that just won’t die.”

Bob’s PicklePops is a case study on the DNA of a great idea.

1. Start with an inspiration - even if it is accidental.
2. Be TRULY different.
3. Get your product in the hands of a viral market.
4. Own the channel(s).
5. Get some media coverage.
6. Get behind a cause

Most of all, stay true to the original simple ideas - and don’t ever take yourself too seriously!

“Time is truth’s best friend”

Based on a few recent events where companies have had a series of negative turn of events … and then tried to ’spin’ their way out of it, we thought we’d talk a bit about what avoiding transparency can do to your brand.

Whether you or your company chooses to be transparent, the truth gets out; today faster than ever thanks to Twitter and other social media tools

Has anyone worked for a company that didn’t get this?

With the upcoming presidential elections approaching, we thought we’d analyze the two candidates and whether or not their brands were backed by a solid ’simple idea’; the core cause behind their campaign.

Here’s what we think John McCain’s simple idea is …

What do you think?

Share your opinion on what you think John McCain’s simple idea is or should be!

With the upcoming presidential elections approaching, we thought we’d analyze the two candidates and whether or not their brands were backed by a solid ’simple idea’; the core cause behind their campaign.

Here’s what we think Barack Obama’s simple idea is …

What do you think?

Share your opinion on what you think Barack Obama’s simple idea is or should be!

Typically, when we ask people what brands they think could survive for 1000 years, they have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept.

Recently, we were introduced to a brand that has survived for over 2,600 years and going strong! No, it’s not a long-lost chunk of the dead sea scrolls, it’s not a stone tablet or a tool used to build the Parthenon … it’s a pair of shoes.

Jeremy Courtney, Executive Director of a charitable organization called The Preemptive Love Coalition sent us a great story relating how his company is working to provide heart surgeries for children in Iraq.

Through their website, www.buyshoessavelives.com , people can buy a pair of the same shoes that people wore 2,600 years ago. They also give people that opportunity to spread the word and share in the cause by offering tools, website banner graphics, posters to hang around your work or campus, and a bunch of other things to help light a fire and keep their story alive.

In his own words:

I am a civilian American living and working in Iraq to alleviate the physical maladies facing thousands of Iraqi children and working to confront the underlying animosities and hatred that gives such easy rise to terrorism and civil strife.

Practically speaking, in addition to accepting direct donations and doing the normal human rights advocacy stuff, we have co-opted a 2,600 year old hand-made Kurdish shoe and sell (a modernized version) as a way of raising money to fund heart surgeries for impoverished Iraqi children.

Now, the shoe has already proven to be a brand unto itself, surviving in roughly the same hand-made fashion for nearly three millennia. As a shoe company, we have every reason to believe the shoe will last another 1,000 years.

But we’re more interested in the effects - not the product. If, by selling a historic shoe, we can rope in consumer dollars for charitable purposes, and if we effectively administer that money in a way that heals children and distills ethnic strife and religious fundamentalism, then it stands to reason that our work will have a 1,000 year impact.

Why?

Because to save a child’s life today by providing a free heart surgery will have untold residual effects. That child will grow to (hopefully) love the American benefactors who provided his/her surgery, flying in the face of much of the prevalent hatred to Americans in the region today. And as that child grows and has children, the family will be a standing testament to Western compassion, potentially changing entire tribes.

What’s more is that we send these Muslim heart patients to be served by Jewish doctors in Israel who are providing the surgeries at nearly nothing. As Israelis/Jews serve Iraqi/Muslims, we are finding that a number of bright spots and positive stories are happening and that the people themselves are carrying a torch of reconciliation and peace that flies in the face of age-old rhetoric.

If diffusing the pent up hatred between Muslims and Jews isn’t a lasting testament to the power of God to work through something as silly as a sometimes shoe company, then I don’t know what is!

Admittedly, we are a small cog in the process. We will not single-handedly broker peace accords or anything of that magnitude. But we are actively working with top Muslim clerics, Kurdish politicians, and impoverished children to ensure that they are given the chance at a better future.

It is our great hope that the effects of our work will last a thousand years.

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Jeremy. Your efforts are both humbling and inspirational.
We agree that the shoes may just last another 1000 years; your efforts are helping to ensure that legacy.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fascinating organization to study.  Despite having no formal infrastructure, a main office, etc. it has become an amazing success story. 

According to Ori Braffman and Rod Beckstrom, the authors of the “Starfish and the Spider”, the “secret” to AA’s success has been a core ideology shared by others - and strong spiritual leaders.  The authors opined that this is also true with any successful organization. 

Using some of the 12 Steps first defined by AA, there are lessons to learn related to marketing and branding:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

   This is understanding the reality of your brand - you are what people perceive you as.  This doesn’t mean changing how you are perceived (like many companies try to do with advertising), but truly changing your core.
   

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

   No sacrilege intended, but the “Higher Power” in branding is the customer.  Today’s customer has the power to grow or kill your brand.
   

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

   This is simply turning your business over to your customers whenever possible; surveys, product feedback, R & D, marketing, et al. 
   

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

   This means have a strong commitment to corporate integrity; being transparent and open.  This includes your customers, employees, vendors, and other stakeholders. 
   

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs (also applies to 6, 7, and 8).

   If you screw up, admit it.  Don’t hide behind a safely worded press release or some other form of corporate spin.

    9.   Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Through technology, we have the opportunity to have 1:1 relationships with 1000s of people - i.e. our customers.  This means if we make a mistake or just want feedback, we have the tools to communicate directly.

    12.   Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

            This is my favorite one.  This means find your brand core and be true to it in every situation.  It also means promoting not just your products or services, but the Simple Idea behind your organization.

These concepts dove-tail nicely with our premise that the key to a 1000 Year Brand starts with a strong vision and a sense of legacy.  In fact, one of the foundation questions we ask when helping someone find their brand core is “If you/your business was a church, what is the ONE thing you must believe to be a member?”  In addition, AA’s principles match our “3Rs” of branding: reality, reputation, and recognition.

Again, this analogy is not intended to trivialize alcoholism or the process of recovery.  It is to learn from the simple brilliance of Bill W’s original idea - how it changed lives, grew with no direct over-sight … and above all things, stayed relevant. 

“I have a great idea!”  We have heard or said this thousands of times.  Ideas are the foundation of businesses and movements.  They are little pieces of the human spirit that are transferred via word-of-mouth.  A great idea sparks innovation, changes lives, and becomes a legend. 

But how do you know when you have an idea with the potential for greatness?

1. It can be described in a short, simple phrase.
2. You can talk about it for a few minutes - or for months and years.
3. You can explain it to a 7 year old.
4. You can translate it to any language and it still is a great idea.  Exercise:  find someone who knows sign language and have them sign it for you.  It helps distill it down.
5. The more you work on the idea, the more excited you get.
6. Smart people are attracted to your idea and want to participate.
7. If it is a business idea, there is a seamless transition between the idea and the revenue model.
8. If you put the idea on the shelf and come back later and are just as excited, it is a great idea.
9. When you tell others, they say “wow” - and mean it.

#10 is the best sign of a great idea:  it immediately creates stories.  Ideas are like viruses (Quaintly called “ideaviruses” by Seth Godin).  They require a “carrier”.  The carrier of ideas are stories (actually, people; but people telling stories).  If stories spring up from your idea, then it will be a great one.

In short, great ideas are multi-dimensional, timeless, and inspiring.