Brands Create Customers

Whole Foods has taken initial steps to create a personal brand application (PBA) that can strengthen its brand ecosystem and develop deeper brand relationships with customers. Potentially, it’s a PBA that can radically differentiate Whole Foods and its customers from the Safeway’s of the world, raising Whole Foods customers to a level of brand experience that other grocers can’t match.

Personal brand applications

Personal brand applications are software applications that deliver brand value on smartphones and similar digital devices. As brand applications they do things, and they’re personal, portable and persistent (always on). They enable the brand to be a partner, sidekick and mentor to customers 24/7.

(You can read more about personal brand applications here, here and here.)

Being enabled is a high-level brand experience

Personal brand applications enable customers to do more, and to be more, consistent with the brand’s vision and innovation roadmap. This sense of enablement is a brand experience. It’s proactive, not passive, the experience of a newly empowered partner and participant. It’s a tremendously powerful and often liberating feeling.

Brands that aim to amuse, flatter, entertain or otherwise “delight” customers are no match for brands with the power to enable.

What the Whole Foods PBA does

The (free) Whole Foods PBA is based on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. It enables customers to enjoy tasty and nutritious food by providing a comprehensive database of 2000 recipes, including nutrition information and tips for preparing meals from what one has in the fridge. As Whole Foods describes it:

Searchable by ingredient, special diets, and other elements like “budget” and “family friendly,” each recipe contains detailed preparation instructions and nutritional information, which can be copied and pasted, saved as a personal “favorite,” and emailed from within the App itself.  The App also includes an “On Hand” feature where customers can enter ingredients and get back meal recommendations.

The brand context of the PBA

At first glance this may seem like a pretty basic smartphone app that helps people chose and cook good food. However, there’s tremendous brand potential in the context of the PBA, where Whole Foods and its customers can team and collaborate in the daily process of eating healthy food and living sustainable lives. That’s a very different brand context than the traditional “grocer” + “shopper” context of supermarkets. It’s a shared context of value chock full of opportunities for personal growth and new market creation.

Whole Foods becomes more than a supermarket brand

The PBA makes Whole Foods more than a brand of organic foods and natural products. Its certainly helps raise Whole Foods beyond your basic supermarket brand. Through the PBA Whole Foods becomes a brand of healthy choices, healthy living, creative cooking, nutrition, sustainability and taste. All this happens at the personal level of the customer, via the iPhone/iPod touch. Brand and customers share and act within a unified, holistic vision, accessed on a daily basis. This shared context extends far beyond the store proper.

A PBA that builds brand trust

An added value of the Whole Foods PBA is that it can help build brand trust at the personal, interactive level. It integrates Whole Foods into a customer’s daily life as a trusted partner. And if Whole Foods ever decides to offer new products down the line, such as health insurance or life insurance, it can leverage the platform of trust created in part by its PBA.

Changing the retail future

Personal brand applications have the power to change the retail future. A retailer can combine store brands with personal brand applications to gain more brand presence (and brand clout)  with customers than packaged “name brands.”  The PBA becomes the connective tissue between retailer and customer, a low cost substitute for the billions of dollars spent by national packaged brands to advertise their goods. The PBA puts the retailer and the customer on the same page, writing it together.

Related post: Brand platform innovation at Whole Foods

Photo credit top : kalebdf – Flickr

Photo inset: Whole Foods

[Updated June 22, 2011. Original post July 11, 2008.)

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 2008 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 sometimes “totalitarian” nature of brands themselves. As I see it, the key questions are as follows:

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 totalitarian, inventing an all-encompassing new world order for customers? (Behind every logo is a torchlight parade.)
5. What are the strategy downsides of brands conceived and executed as propaganda, or as “totalitarian?” What other brand models could disrupt them?

I’ve also discussed some of these elements in the various posts referenced  below.

Definition of “totalitarian” brand

For this discussion I define a “totalitarian” brand as follows: “A totalitarian brand is a brand that totally subsumes the customer into the brand, erasing the individual and the individual’s capacity for proactive, independent action.” In other words, in a totalitarian brand approach the brand wants to impose its will upon the customer. The customer becomes a creature of the brand. The brand intends to “own” the customer—body, mind and soul. ((And wallet.)

The customer as “true believer”

I would also suggest that a totalitarian brand approach is one that wants customers to be “true believers.” The brand seeks mindless followers—perhaps because mindful followers might see through it. I would define “true believer” as a one-dimensional person fanatically devoted to a cause, an organization or to another person. A true believer is a follower with a capital “F.” (You might also substitute “fan boy.”) In the eyes of the true believer, the leader can do no wrong. And thus, true believers add no value to the brand. They don’t interact with it to make it better. In fact, they typically magnify its shortcomings. A brand with true believers typically doesn’t innovate, or innovates narrowly, and may be its own worst enemy. True believers are not strategic.

True believers and “yes” men

It seems to me that a brand of true believers will be just as effective as a company of “yes” men. In other words, not very productive. Eventually both become an anchor, the opposite of a game-changing force. (And it may be that true believers are the products of yes men, who are simply cloning themselves.)

Two brand models: containment vs. liberation

As part of this discussion we can assess two different models of brands:  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 capture, contain and control customers, to keep them in place so they continue to be “loyal” to the brand and purchase the product at desired price points.

In contrast, a liberation model of brands aims to free customers to be more proactive for themselves, on the premise that greater sales will flow from a more proactive and productive customer culture, where customers are active players in product development rather than a passive audience. This model assumes that a company can gain market advantage via product and service innovations that create a more proactive culture, where customers leave behind old paradigms. It’s a method that uses customer initiative to disrupt competitors. Apple shows that it can be done, and quite profitably, too.

Some related posts along these lines:

• Some brands go medieval on their customers
• Brands as collaborative strategies
• A brand is not a lure (and customers aren’t fish)

Customers as puppets—or proactive partners?

The “totalitarian” approach to brands might also be contrasted to an “innovation” brand approach. In other words, do we want customers as puppets (controlled in the totalitarian model) or as proactive partners who move the brand forward? The puppet approach calls forth the salesman’s dream of “shooting fish in a barrel.” The drawback to the puppet approach is that it locks the brand in place and makes the brand incapable of the innovations that could take customers to the next level, leaving competitors in the dust. When the next level appears—and it inevitably will—customers move on, and the brand is left holding the strings.

Brands of puppets

Brands that position their customers as puppets eventually become brands of puppets. In terms of “total customer control” that may be a totalitarian ideal, but it doesn’t hold much future for the brand. I discussed this issue in Position the customer, not the brand. In essence, the puppeteer shares his fate with the puppet. Creating brand dependencies often means that innovation is placed on the back burner, leaving the brand further exposed to disruption.

Social media and totalitarian brand strategy

How does social media affect the concept of a totalitarian brand? Good question. Social media is bottom-up, whereas totalitarian brands are classically top-down. It certainly looks hard for traditional propaganda to work in an open social media setting. But (closed) Facebook now has 500 million members, and is becoming an alternative to the (open) Web itself. Is it possible for Facebook to be a totalitarian brand? Or is Facebook simply an all-inclusive platform where advertisers can have total access to customer data? It may be that Facebook is just the barrel, and Facebook users are the fish.

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

Every craft and every profession needs a patron saint. Your patron saint is the spiritual power and muse to tune your senses, watch your six, and ease the path ahead. It’s someone you can commune with on the Ducati, in the midst of a do-or-die decision, or while laying out the bills for a case of 2004 Antinori Tignanello.

People graced by a patron saint have that special glow. Their inner dashboard radiates a confidence of connection.

So, who’s the patron saint of brands?

Dionysus: patron saint of brands

That’s easy. It’s Dionysus, the edge-god of art, passion, creation and wine, Mr. Wild Side himself, ecstasy in excelsis, musician, dancer, fount of thoughts unbridled, lust undying. Like great brands, Dionysus unfolds the untamed. He pushes limits. In a world of tepid convention, he’s the sensual feast of free.

Not for the meek

Dionysus is not for the meek—but neither are brands. He’s a non-stop force of creative destruction, blasting the current context for something bigger and better, shredding, melding, re-shaping, re-birthing. He may be momentarily satiated, but satisfied—never. He doesn’t let brands coast, or calcify.

Brand-builders can’t have limits

Dionysus is the perfect patron saint for brands because brand builders can’t have limits. Their mission is to bring products to life, pushing, pulling and transporting customers beyond the grind, into new contexts of living. Brand builders don’t just strut upon a stage; they cook up new stages. Dionysus fuels their brew. (Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne above captures some of the Dionysian fire.)

The Dionysian license to create

Vital question: If you’re a brand builder, does having Dionysus as your patron saint grant you the license to let your senses soar and your creative juices run wild?

Vital answer: Only if the essence of your creation is a higher form of customer. (Brands aim high. Don’t waste your powers on trivia.)

Dionysian brands

There are brands, and then there are Dionysian brands. Dionysian brands are a ferment of mind and matter. Instead of being some concocted add-on, or a cheap-rent façade, they’re primordial and potent, delivering visceral value, procreating customers, infusing every synapse of company being. They’re passion from the core. You, the brand builder, are the music, the grapes and the dance. Step one is to Unzip Your Brand.