Customers drive brand growth, not features
Kontra in counternotions describes how the big mobile handset makers opened the door for the iPhone by neglecting the customer context of mobile communications–which is powered more by software than hardware. Apple uses this context to create an integrated, customer-focused platform for the iPhone, from iTunes through the App Store. This brand platform (for that’s what is is) raises customers to an entirely new level, and forms a daunting barrier to competitors.
The established vendors had locked themselves in a fixed world of “device thinking,” where the name of their game was “features.” They are now playing catch-up to Apple.
Features are not the brand team’s best friend
I would add that it’s the precisely the job of brand team to find ways to develop the potential customer context of a business–as far from “features” as possible. This means building out integrated customer/brand platforms in every customer dimension. In this endeavor, classic product “features” are not the brand team’s best friend. While Nokia, Samsung, et. al. are notable brands of handsets, they’re not much more than that. As such, their feature-rich brands are context constrained. They’re not the stuff of brand platforms.
In contrast, the iPhone, as an integrated platform, behaves like an extension of you. Its software makes you feel like its potential (and yours) is open-ended. That’s how a brand platform operates.
Redefining the smartphone customer
Apple managed this industry takeover by redefining the smartphone customer. In effect, Apple made the customer the measure of the smartphone. Rather than focus on features (a device context) the iPhone focused on enriching the “whole customer” experience. That customer context, forged in radical UI and design innovation, is Apple’s real growth platform.
To change the game, change the customer
We covered some of this ground in How great brands change the game. We concluded that great brands change the game by changing the customer, not by changing the product. They become new platforms of opportunity for a new kind of customer, freshly empowered.
Brands and “features”
Companies (or industries) with a fixation on features put their brands at risk. They invite innovators to waltz in and run off with their customers. “Device thinking” and “feature-think” go hand-in-hand. They reduce product innovation to a linear, additive phenomenon, when it should be non-linear and revelatory–in a holistic customer context.
Useful definitions
For brand builders, the following definitions of “features” might be useful:
- Feature – Evidence of unfinished design.
- Feature – The absence of brand vision.
- Feature – Fear of freeing the customer–and raising him/her to the next level.
- Feature – Footprint of the committee: more is less. As a rule, good design minimizes features and maximizes customers.
Coda: Fighting on “features” means you’re fighting the wrong war.
Patron saint argument: Dionysus doesn’t do “features.”
Missing Link: “Products run amok with features when they’re deficient in brand.”
Photo credit: Julian Bleeker — Flickr
