Brands Create Customers

An article that every brand builder should read is Branding Youth in the Totalitarian State in Design Observer. The article is based on Steven Heller’s new book: Iron Fists: Branding the Totalitarian State.

The article raises all sorts of interesting questions about the relationships between propaganda and brands, and on the “totalitarian” nature of brands themselves.

1. Are brands a form of propaganda?
2. How are brands different from propaganda?
3. Are the best brands “totalitarian” in concept and in execution?
4. Is every brand builder a closet fascist, inventing a new world order for customers?
5. What are the strategy downsides of brands conceived and executed as propaganda? What other brand models could disrupt them?

I’ll tackle these questions bit by bit in coming posts.

Two brand models: containment vs liberation

As part of this discussion maybe we can assess different models of brands, among them a persuasion or propaganda model, and a contrasting liberation model. A persuasion or propaganda model would try to shape customer thoughts and feelings so as to contain customers, to keep them in place so they continue to be “loyal” to the brand and purchase the product.

In contrast, a liberation model of brands might aim to free customers to be more proactive for themselves, on the premise that greater sales will flow from a more proactive culture, where customers are active players in product development rather than a passive audience. (This model assumes a company can lead by innovation into a proactive culture, and that can be a very risky assumption.)

Two previous posts along these lines:

• Managing the brand agenda for customer growth
• Some brands go medieval on their customers

Totalitarian brands—and brand builders

To a certain extent, every brand builder has a totalitarian mindset. (Yes, admit it.) We conceive of a “total” unified and integrated brand experience where the brand identity is carefully composed and actively expressed. We make sure that every symbol, slogan, color, theme, touchpoint, etc. is set forth to maximize the brand effect. Behind every logo is a torchlight parade.

Personally, I tend to be a super-totalitarian in this regard, but I always have to ask myself: does this approach leave sufficient room for the customer? Since we’re trying to build the brand through the customer, shouldn’t we also focus on building customers themselves so their freedoms can create new markets for us?

Limits of a totalitarian brand strategy

Some questions: Can a brand be too totalitarian? Does a totalitarian approach create passive customers who are a dead end strategically? Can we build a totalitarian brand from the bottom up? Does a totalitarian brand just hold customers back? Or can it set them free?

More to come.

NOTE: See also the Youth under fascism site, which is the source of the poster above.

We don’t often think of brands as “incubators,” but incubating customers turns out to be a critical part of the brand mission. As a matter of fact, it’s strategically vital.

The logic of incubating customers

Let’s begin by observing, first and foremost, that brands are creative partnerships between companies and their customers. They’re a team effort, bottom-up as much as top-down. As such, brands have a vested interest in incubating as many energetic, diverse and free-thinking customers as possible. These are customers who can push the product envelope and the brand envelope into new forms, formats and markets. In so doing, they add value back to the brand from a dozen different directions, and help drive the business forward.

Strategic incubation

As warm and fuzzy as “incubation” might sound, brands incubate customers for reasons that are strictly strategic. The payback from incubating customers is competitive advantage. Your goal in incubating customers is twofold. You want customers who can:

1. Augment your R&D
2. Carry your business into new markets where competitors can’t follow.

The customers that your brand incubates today may drive your strategic platforms of tomorrow. By incubating customers your brand becomes a means of innovation, organically developing new contexts of product and service value.

The incubator model: an innovation platform

There’s a very specific brand vision behind the incubation process. That vision understands that customers are much more than mere “buyers” of products. They’re potential innovation partners who can pay bottom-line dividends far into the future. Thus, we employ an incubator model that’s much more than heat lamps and a comfy nest. In brands we incubate innovation, and we design the brand as an innovation platform for customers. (Brands belong in the innovation department far more than they belong in the marketing department.)

Brands as innovation tools

Brands are, of course, the premier tools to create (and incubate) customers. Brands enjoy this special status because they encompass creative, social, personal, emotional and moral dimensions. These are all potential innovation levers. This special scope grants brands a transcendent power to transform customer lives—in the right directions if the brand is morally and socially grounded.

A reference model: Y Combinator

One reference model for brand builders is that of startup incubators, the boutique companies who help fledgling entrepreneurs turn raw ideas into business. Treat your customers as brand entrepreneurs, because that’s what they want to be, and that’s you need them to be. A useful model to examine in this regard is the successful business incubator Y Combinator. Brands would do well to learn from their vision and focus.

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Back in 2003 a prominent Windows user tried to download a new Windows application to his machine. The download did not go well.

Bill Gates fired off a blistering email to top Windows honchos detailing his experience, and his frustration. You can read that email here.

In business, the company that listens best often lasts longest. The brand approach to business teaches that you don’t have to be the loudest, flashiest or most intrusive voice to build the strongest customer base. You simply have to listen to what your primary partners—your customers—have to say.

After all, they’re your brand partners. And they’re saying it for your benefit.

The New York Times has an example: Believe it or not, someone’s listening.

Listening is the province of brands

Listening is the province of brands. While marketers may lapse into sales pitch mode at the drop of a hat (full disclosure: mea culpa, mea maxima culpa), brands listen as marketers never can. That’s because brands are structured as joint ventures with customers, where listening is as fundamental as breathing. A brand is an active collaboration in context, and it is the brand’s ability to listen that keeps that collaboration alive.

Listening is the province of brands because brands are a team effort, a pursuit of shared objectives and mutual goals. Do we listen closely to our teammates? Yes we do—without giving it a second thought. Listening comes naturally to brands because it’s a basic function of teaming and working together.

Listening is part of the brand experience

Listening is a also vital part of the brand experience. Let me clarify that: how you listen to your customers is a big part of their brand experience. A “rich” brand experience is one rich in listening and conversation, where communication flows freely. The deeper the brand, the deeper the listening. (In many respects, the engine of sustainable brand growth is not the big campaign, but the many individual instances of listening and conversation along the way.)

Brands that thrive on listening

The brands that listen best are often bottom-up brands structured as platforms to advance and grow customers. These brands tend to be hands-on, direct and participative. The more they listen to customers the more they can learn, and translate that learning into innovation. While they may utilize surveys and focus groups, the ultimate goal is real-time listening through front-line employees, where company and customer forge the leading edge of the brand.

Such brands treat customers as friends and allies on a shared brand journey. They listen intently, step by step.

Image: Self portrait, Vincent van Gogh — Wikimedia Commons