Brands Create Customers

Can the Google brand be trusted with one’s personal information? That’s becoming the central question as Google continues to struggle with privacy and customer service issues, exemplified by the initial uproar and continuing controversy over Google Buzz. Every passing day seems to raise more questions about Google’s ability to be a brand of trust. A privacy group has demanded an FTC investigation. A number of usability issues don’t make matters any easier for Google.

Google quickly apologized for its privacy transgressions, then implemented rapid fixes to help allay privacy concerns. That’s commendable. Repairing damage to the Google brand will take longer.

Brand trust or bust

For Google, earning brand trust is much more than a “customer relations” problem. Earning brand trust is now Google’s central challenge as a business. For Google, it’s brand trust or bust. Without customer trust in the Google brand, Google’s desire to be an all-encompassing provider of social media services, rolling up Facebook + Twitter + AOL + Windows  + Apple + Everything Else will be difficult—if not impossible—to achieve. People might use individual Google components—Gmail and Docs, or Google Reader, for example—but hesitate at the all-Google immersion. They will certainly push back if they feel railroaded into a one-sided relationship, as happened with Google Buzz.

Google must succeed as an platform of trust before it can succeed as a platform of social media.

You can’t toss your brand on the wall to see if it sticks

The disaster of the Google Buzz launch teaches Google a vital brand lesson. You can’t toss your brand on the wall to see if it sticks. At Google you can quickly develop a new web product and throw it against the wall to see if it sticks. If it fails to stick you can still get a pass. But things are different with brands. Customers are in the mix; live testing on customers isn’t. If you throw your brand on the wall and it fails to stick, your ass is grass.

Google’s business model can undermine its brand

Smart companies align their business model with their brand. It’s brand first, business model second. If Google follows a restrictive business model to capture, contain and control customers in order to harvest and monetize their information, the business model puts the Google brand at a competitive disadvantage. That’s because the essence of a brand is how a company approaches its customers. If the approach is primarily one of customer predation, the brand is condemned to be a shallow cloak or misdirection, diverting attention from reality. This approach wastes the strategic advantage of brands in advancing customers and co-creating value with them. Ultimately, the  “capture, contain and control” business model creates the conditions  for brand disruption from a new market entrant. It leaves too many customer gaps to be a sustainable strategy.

Google’s point of brand reckoning

Every company eventually reaches a point of brand reckoning, where its brand decides its fate. This can be a sobering moment, often at a time of profound crisis. Does the company intend to manipulate and contain its customers, or does it intend to raise them to new levels of being and doing, with freedoms to match? What’s the brand agenda? That’s the fundamental question. Google has now reached its point of brand reckoning. Where is it taking its customers? What kinds of customer growth does the Google brand offer? What new freedoms and opportunities? How are these qualitatively better than what Facebook, Twitter and other provide? What’s the Google brand journey?

In a proactive brand scenario, Google and its customers are on the same page, writing it together. Google does not dictate the script. It does not “write its customers in.” It does not try to script the customer experience.

Google as a brand of privacy

As I’ve argued before, “Protecting privacy confers strategic advantage.” This is certainly true in Google’s case. Radical as it may seem, Google’s best strategy going forward is to become the leading brand of privacy. A Google brand of privacy can solve existing problems of brand trust—and preempt future ones—at the source. A Google that leads in privacy can create sustainable platforms of trust that leverage innovative platforms of technology in ways that Facebook and Twitter can’t meet.

As I’ve noted previously (latest here) Google in many respects is an algorithm trying (and often failing) to be a brand. It “gets” information, but it doesn’t “get” humans. Google Buzz is the latest example of the latter.

In Why Google Buzz isn’t buzz-worthy Mike Egan of Datamation details key shortcomings that stand between the algorithmic Google and Google as a “psychological space” (i.e., brand) that customers can trust.

If Google can’t rise to the level of a trusted brand, where it teams with customers instead of relentlessly mining them for data, its ability to compete with brands such as Apple will be diminished.

UPDATE

Feb. 11 In response to widespread privacy concerns over the Buzz implementation process, Google as tweaked and clarified the process. See here.

For additional context, see The negative buzz around Google’s new social network in the New York Times.

In deep space it might have been a good idea: since your business exists on computers and is accessed by computers, put your brand on computers, too. Automate it. Keep messy customers on the other side of the screen. Create an online Help Page. Fill it with FAQ’s. Cue up some Forums. Add video. List some email links but tell customers not to expect personal replies. Better yet, delegate customer service to your partners. And best of all, don’t include a phone number. Why invite time-wasting customer calls? Listening is not your business.

Then sit back and let the automated brand work its magic. No fuss. No muss. No puny humans fouling the flow.

In reality it was a bad idea

In reality—on Earth— it was a bad idea. On January 5, 2010 Google boldly announced the Nexus One “superphone,” a highly advanced iPhone competitor. The launch event was a smash, but things then went downhill. Google’s automated brand couldn’t connect with customers. Its few online circuits were promptly overloaded. So many customer questions disappeared into the ether that the New York Times asked, Hey Google, Anybody Home?

Customers called, and the brand wasn’t there.

Customers had questions—lots of them

Customers had questions—lots of them—especially about buying the Nexus One for $529 unlocked. Google made that offer a big part of the launch, raising a lot of “big first” questions, especially since the Nexus One is sold only from the Nexus One website. And—reading the fine print—it did seem that if customers bought the phone at a discounted price with a carrier (T-Mobile) contract, they might face early termination fees greater than the full price of the unlocked phone itself. Whoa! How does that work?

Searching for a brand relationship

Before shelling out hundreds of dollars for a path-breaking new smartphone many customers searched for a brand relationship from Google itself. Spending big bucks for an untested smartphone is a big risk that can only be mitigated by a highly positive brand relationship. Customers wanted a direct connection to the real Google behind the screen—to that human Google that had forever seemed so elusive. They especially wanted to feel confident that Google would support the Nexus One  in years to come, since its record of supporting its brand of phones was—at this time—precisely zero.

They searched for a brand relationship and wound up with a web page.

Customers notice if you don’t connect the brand dots

Customers connect the brand dots. They notice when you don’t. A path-breaking product from a new vendor has a lot of dots to connect if it wants to build the trust that builds markets. Apple has 284 Apple stores. In Google’s case, customers may have wondered how they could trust Google when it didn’t see fit to include a phone number for customer service on its site—when Google was proclaiming itself a major player in the phone business. Perhaps customers thought: You’re selling expensive super cool phones, but you don’t have a phone number to call. Hello?

Nexus One customer service complaints

Launching a forward-focused, highly innovative product on the shoulders of an automated brand is guaranteed to let customers down. Many customers apparently bailed on the Google brand when they couldn’t get answers from Google’s Nexus One Help Page. Immediately following the Nexus One launch, reports of customer dissatisfaction were all over the Web. A sampling:

1. Google Nexus One leaves customers sour Wired
2. Nexus One a test of Google’s customer service CNET
3. Google faces deluge of Nexus One complaints PC World
4. Google, Nexus One and the customer service risk ZD Net
5. Google’s Nexus One issues threaten its push to shake up mobile Wall St. Journal

The brand is not an algorithm

It’s tempting to think that we can reduce a brand to a simple, repeatable formula, and then activate it in finitum. Unfortunately, a brand is not an algorithm. It can’t be automated. It’s a living customer connection, vital, emotional, and changeable, drawing a large part of its life from customers.

Brands, in fact, are the opposite of algorithms. They’re interactive structures of discovery, far more culture than commerce. They’re made to innovate, to explore and to create new forms of value with customers as partners. At their edges they reinvent themselves daily. That’s how they can create new classes of customers that drive the business forward, into new market spaces. A fixed brand agenda to contain customers or to lock them in place is a prescription for failure.

There is no “beta” in brands

While Google is famed for it’s innumerable “beta” releases of free software, where it could formally shift risk to customers, those days are over. While there may be lots of “beta” in product development, there is no “beta” in brands. The grown-up Google is judged by its brand.

A slow start for Nexus One sales?

Wired and the Wall Street Journal have reported hat sales of Nexus One are off to a slow start. If true, part of the reason may be Google’s failure to advance its brand with personally engaging customer service. Without such personal engagement, customer questions, doubts and fears can easily become a decision that says, “Too risky. No thanks.” A weak or reluctant Google brand will mean that the Nexus One may never achieve its potential sales volume and market share.

Google as a brand of trust

In an abbreviated sense, we can identify three phases in the evolution of Google’s brand:

1. A work in progress –  The “beta” years, now history.

2. It just works — The current phase of high-performance automation

3. Google works for you — The next phase of brand trust

This next phase will be Google’s greatest challenge to date. It entails a Google brand built on relationships, not algorithms. It means Google must excel as a brand of trust, connecting with customers beyond the machine interface.

Nexus One as a brand wake-up call

Google’s customer service shortfalls with Nexus One are in fact a wake-up call for the Google brand. While Google has done a masterful job advancing customers with highly-integrated information services, it has reached a point where trust in Google is now every bit as vital as Google’s software brilliance. Google can’t automate the next step.

Photo credit: Iitmuse — Flickr

Brands yearn to operate at the highest realms of context, but even the mightiest brand can be tripped up by a lowly bug. Verizon’s new (and highly-publicized) Droid phone is a case in point. Featuring Google’s slick Android 2.0 operating system with a handset by Motorola, Droid is getting rave reviews as an emerging competitor to the iPhone.

Except for that bug.

Fuzzy autofocus—that comes and goes

The first Droid phones had problems with the 5.0 megapixel camera, which itself is intended to be a prime feature. The camera’s autofocus didn’t work properly. Many pictures came out fuzzy. Really fuzzy. Reviewers labeled it “average at its best, and terrible at worst.”

Apparently, the problem was/is a fuzzy-photo bug in the camera software that appears/disappears in 24.5 day cycles. As one reviewer summed it up:

The camera works poorly for 24.5 days, then works properly for the next 24.5 days. This is based on the improper use of a timestamp by the focusing code, a strange cause to be sure.

Recently the fuzzy photos suddenly disappeared, leading some to believe that Verizon issued an unannounced software update over its mobile network. Or, it may be that the next 24.5 day “good” cycle kicked in.

Lowly bugs can be big brand opportunities

If Verizon wants to be a brand that takes care of its customers, then the time is ripe to announce a formal fix. Show customers that the Verizon brand has their back.

Lowly bugs can be big brand opportunities.

One of the perennial problems in business is that over-exuberant marketing claims can come back to haunt the brand. Essentially, marketing writes checks that the brand can’t cash. When product or service claims can’t be substantiated, or may be seen as misleading, it’s the brand that pays the price. Brand trust—the gold standard of customer relationships—often takes the biggest hit.

Baby Einstein creates a brand trust headache for parent Disney

The New York Times has the story of how the esteemed Disney brand is taking measures to regain brand trust after over-aggressive marketing by its Baby Einstein subsidiary began to take a toll on the Disney brand itself. Disney acquired Baby Einstein in 2001. Baby Einstein’s advertising initially claimed educational benefits from its videos and DVD’s made for infants and toddlers. The claims resulted in a citizen’s group filing a complaint to the FTC alleging deceptive advertising. The FTC eventually dismissed the suit, in part because Baby Einstein scaled back its educational claims.

Separately, a research study at the University of Washington questioned the value of such videos for infant development. Disney defended Baby Einstein from unwarranted conclusions from the study, but currently the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV for infants under two years old.

Disney offers a full refund

To help restore confidence in both the Baby Einstein and Disney brands, Disney has announced a full refund for Baby Einstein videos/DVD’s purchased within the last five years. Disney calls this “The Baby Einstein™ DVD Upgrade / Moneyback Guarantee.” You can read the details in the Participation Guidelines.

The importance of brand due diligence

Any M&A activity calls for brand due diligence, an in-depth assessment of the strategic fit between brands. Brand due diligence entails a close review of brand values and brand vision, and how a brand works to create brand trust. When Disney acquired Baby Einstein in 2001, a program of brand due diligence might have uncovered potential brand risks inherent in Baby Einstein’s marketing claims. The Disney brand might have been spared subsequent public disputes with citizen groups and academic institutions—and a large refund.

First gradually, and now suddenly, brands are migrating to the social sphere as methods of creating value. In this process they increasingly share concepts and processes with other innovation and design disciplines that are breaking new ground.

UX design, service design and design thinking

Sylvain Cottong has put together a nice overview of UX design, service design and design thinking and how they inter-relate. His presentation on SlideShare contains many classic diagrams from these fields, and some I hadn’t seen before. The presentation makes a good reference source for brand builders. At some point the best of these and other disciplines will be wrapped in a (meta) brand methodology, based (naturally) on the art of creating 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

Brand trust is unique. It’s the only brand experience that both companies and customers can take to the bank.