Brand platforms, customer platforms and commodities
Ed Byrne has put forth some interesting ideas on “how to de-commoditize your product.” This is something that everyone in brands has to deal with, one way or another. The commodity question always keeps coming up, and will keep coming up for the foreseeable future. It’s a major challenge for companies. And it presents a major opportunity for brands.
In a comment to Ed’s post I said:
I think what you mean is that a company’s brand must deliver value to the customer, above and beyond the product proper. As such, “building a brand” becomes a value creating process. The long term goal, at least as I see it, is to transform your brand platform into a customer platform. Once that happens, a lot of commodity worries fade away.
So, my quick answer to the commodity challenge: think platforms, not products.
For the record, here is how I currently define “brand platform” and “customer platform.” These are working definitions; I’m always interested in comments and ideas on how to make them more meaningful.
Brand Platform
The brand platform is a structure of integrated brand components architected to create focused customer growth. As a platform, it: 1) serves as a common foundation for brand program applications; 2) allows for greater efficiency in brand program development via shared elements; 3) leverages context and content across the brand; and 4) enables customers to extend the brand through bottom-up brand innovation avenues.
Customer Platform
The customer platform is the structure of resources, tools and capabilities that the customer relies on to succeed. A properly constructed brand platform can step in and support critical aspects of the customer platform, often in a 1:1 fit, freeing the customer to pursue additional objectives. In this process, the customer “adopts” the brand platform and can add value to it through customer initiative and innovation, ultimately feeding this value back to the brand.
Brand platforms and customer platforms are thus key elements in creating customers. The stronger your platforms for customer creation, the less you have to worry about commodity incursion.
March 30th, 2006 at 8:24 am
I totally agree with you on ‘platforms’ as oppose to a product. The customer platform should, over time, lead product development & the customer platform should be a building block of the brand.
April 7th, 2006 at 5:02 am
Apple and Google are probably pretty good references for how a customer platform strategy can work. In essence, these companies are “designing a new customer” with their new products. As each new product or application comes out, you can see where it fills in a portion of a new customer platform being created.
May 4th, 2006 at 11:00 am
[...] Building the customer platform Credit and related banking services can be an invaluable customer platform. Wal-Mart understands this. They can see a wide open field to grow their brand platform into an effective customer platform. As we noted before, “The brand platform is a structure of integrated brand components architected to create focused customer growth.” [...]
May 8th, 2006 at 10:43 am
[...] Leveraging the brand platform What we see at Apple retail is tightly focused execution in leveraging the brand platform. As we define it, a brand platform is “a structure of integrated brand components architected to create focused customer growth.” Apple’s brand platform drives the Apple retail experience. The Apple store is designed (physically, emotionally, functionally) to create Apple customers and to grow them into more proficient users of digital technology. This goal separates the Apple store from computer stores which aim no further than the sales transaction. Such stores usually treat their customers as commodities: “purely to be sold to.” They invest in the sale, not in the customer—and it shows. [...]
June 19th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
[...] In larger companies, structured brand platforms carry collaboration forward. [...]
July 28th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
[...] In the present seismic turmoil some notable brand icons will hit ground and shatter. But many more will realize that there’s little advantage to being perched on a pedestal in the first place. (Indeed: being on the pedestal is part of the problem.) Brands can redirect themselves in mid-air and land safely on brand platforms, a far better foundation. [...]
December 20th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
[...] Stuart means that Saatchi is designing a customer. becoming a brand platform, and using its brand as a collaboration in context. In contrast, other galleries suddenly look one-dimensional and stale. If Saatchi manages to cultivate Stuart and grow its users through increased interaction, it stands a chance of being the place for online artists to congregate and connect. This gives Saatchi a cachet and currency it could never achieve in a thousand conventional campaigns. Saatchi itself becomes the medium. [...]
April 11th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
[...] 2. For reference, see earlier discussions of brand platforms and the brand team mission here and here. [...]