Brands Create Customers

I ended a previous post, How to define the brand mission, by stating that I would compare the brand missions of Google and Microsoft as examples of my approach. This post fulfills that commitment. As a bonus it tosses in Yahoo, since Yahoo is now contemplating an unwelcome buyout bid from Microsoft itself.

What we see in this comparison is one company with a productive brand mission, one company that denies brand value altogether, and one company whose brand mission is so lacking in purpose that it never takes off.

Comparison framework

Please keep in mind that my focus is entirely on the brand mission. As I define it, a company’s brand mission is to create the customers that will drive the business forward. “Creating a customer” is a strategic act that entails a joint venture between company and customer. Each feeds off the initiative and innovation of the other.

Brand Mission Criteria

In comparing and assessing brand missions, these are some of the criteria I consider:

1. What new value does the brand intend to deliver?
2. What kind of customer does the brand aim to create?
3. How will that customer add value back to the brand?
4. How does the brand mission help create a platform for new customer opportunities?
5. Where is the brand leading its customers?
6. How does the brand mission add value over and above the business mission?

Applying the “brand of” test

One way to analyze a company’s brand mission is to ask: What is Company X a “brand of” in the first place? This helps reveal the effective, real world brand mission, not a brand mission that’s tossed up for PR purposes. In my analysis, here’s how these three brands stack up:

1. Google is a brand of Internet opportunity—especially for customers
2. Microsoft is a brand of market power, where the customer is tightly contained
3. Yahoo is a brand of place, where many great things happen—for no particular purpose

Microsoft: business mission trumps brand mission

Microsoft seems to be one of those companies where business mission trumps brand mission. If we define “brand” as a collaboration in value and culture between a company and its customers, it’s reasonable to argue that there is little brand mission at Microsoft. At Microsoft, the customer is targeted for capture and harvest; advancing the customer is not part of the plan. The result is a Microsoft brand that’s frequently viewed with suspicion and distrust.

Microsoft: a brand of market power

To the extent that Microsoft is a “brand of” something, it is a brand of market power. The Microsoft brand mission seems to reduce the marketplace to a Microsoft company town, anchored by a Microsoft company store, where customers are limited to Microsoft’s integrated offerings on Microsoft’s terms and conditions. Is this “bad?” Yes, if you want to stay fresh and grow. This model will eventually grow stale and collapse upon itself.

Microsoft’s goal: make brands irrelevant

Microsoft seems to feel extremely uncomfortable with the concept of brand itself, perhaps because brand responsibilities might interfere with Microsoft’s market power objectives . If Microsoft can force customers into a Microsoft company town where other brands can’t compete, then Microsoft wins “the brand game” by making brands irrelevant. In the absence of effective competition, their “non-brand” wins, no matter what they say or do.

Create customer dependencies, not customers

It appears that Microsoft’s strategy is to create customer dependencies instead of creating customers. Those dependencies translate into market power. The downside is that this strategy typically locks out innovation, and over time alienates customers. In the long run, this strategy is counterproductive. One “payoff” of this strategy is the notable lack of enthusiasm for Microsoft’s most heralded product in years, Microsoft Vista.

Google: a brand mission to unlock Internet value

We’re all familiar with Google’s “Don’t be evil” mantra, but that’s not Google’s brand mission. No, Google’s brand mission is far more disruptive, and revolutionary. It is to unlock the value of the Internet using customers as the key, and as the beneficiaries. That’s pretty Schumpeterian right there. If I were to condense the Google brand mission into one line, it would be this:

Google’s brand mission is to translate Internet capability into customer productivity.

Google as a value-based brand

Google is a good example of what I call a value-based brand. It delivers value customers can use. For Google, the Internet is not a medium to be monetized. It’s a set of infinite capabilities to create value-producing opportunities. Google is pushing Internet value into the hands of customers at an amazing clip, faster than any competitor, and with more customer-side options for customization via brand API’s.

New customer opportunities mean new markets

For example, one could see how Google might become the universal digital platform for education. Instead of purchasing Microsoft Windows, students could do research, take notes, collaborate, write papers and make presentations using Google apps within an on-campus Google network. Some students are there now.

The advantage of the Google program, he said, was that it allowed him to keep his information on Google’s servers so that it was accessible at any computer, whether he was working at his fraternity, a coffee shop, a campus computer bank or the library. The experience, he said, has persuaded him not to pay money for software.

“I don’t ever see myself buying a copy of Office,” he said.

Google: an enabling brand

Thus, Google is an enabling brand that gains strength by advancing its customers beyond archaic business models geared to hoarding properties (or gateways) and imposing fees and rents. In this respect, Google’s brand mission places the greatest powers of the Internet in the hands of customers. Customers reap new value and return new value to Google, completing the cycle. (Every new Google app is one more building block for its advertising network, or a complement to other networks Google has abuilding.)

Yahoo: a brand mission stuck on sticky

I have to admit that I’ve always liked the free-spirited Yahoo culture, plus Yahoo’s ability to deliver some first-rate, innovative Web apps. That said, there was always something missing in the Yahoo brand, as if it lacked direction and defining purpose.

Long on features, short on mission

Yahoo seems to be long on features but short on mission. It’s hard to figure out where Yahoo is going, where it’s leading its users, and what kind of customer Yahoo is trying to create. It’s as if the self-absorbed Yahoo parts have more presence than the global Yahoo brand. This makes identifying the Yahoo brand mission—and identifying with it—far more difficult.

A “media company” brand mission

The Yahoo brand mission has been conditioned and constrained by Yahoo’s “media company” orientation. As a media company, Yahoo doesn’t create customers as much as it creates an inviting place for content “consumers” to spend as much time as possible, so they can be exposed to advertising. In accordance with this media model, Yahoo has lots of media “assets” whose intent is to collect segments of valuable “eyeballs” that advertisers might covet.

Stuck on sticky

Yahoo’s brand mission would seem to be this: create a digital village of outstanding properties where visitors can be entertained and made totally comfortable, so that they stick around for advertisers. This mission doesn’t do that much in terms of advancing customers. It certainly falls short in creating customers who can personify the Yahoo brand. Brand-wise, Yahoo is upstaged by tiny Moleskine.

In Yahoo’s brand mission, Yahoo is a cul de sac instead of a journey. That robs the brand of a defining passion to galvanize and lead customers toward overarching goals, outside the village gates.

Declining orbits

Where Google innovates to enable new value for customers, Yahoo innovates in hopes of keeping users’ eyeballs in orbit. This approach limits the sense of discovery and adventure that customers can experience. No surprise, then, if users eventually wander off. Indeed, this closed-in experience may have led to Yahoo’s sluggish performance, which invited facilitated the Microsoft takeover. Had there been a living, breathing Yahoo brand mission in place, the company (and its customers) might have had a fighting chance.

Photo: sissi de kroon — Flickr

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Brand Innovation, Brand Building, Brand Mission, Brand Strategy, Brand Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.