The most impactful blogs I’ve written in 2017 fall within three categories that are reflective of my research and writing interests. The first category, brand stories, is driven by my new book, “Creating Signature Stories” which is available now for pre-order. The other categories are about having a higher purpose and business growth strategies. Let’s walk through some of my blogs and explore each topic.

Creating Signature Stories

• Higher Purpose Programs Make For Powerful Brand Stories: Learn how brand stories when tied to a higher purpose – either social or environmental – can resonate with customers and drive brand awareness.
• Four Keys to Gaining Attention for Brand Stories: Get your target audience to pay attention to your content. Learn the 4 key elements to capturing – and keeping – attention for your brand stories.

Higher Purpose

• Why the Failed Unilever-Kraft Heinz Merger is a Very Good Thing: See why the failed merger of two consumer brand giants, Unilever and Kraft Heinz, is a very good thing from a brand perspective.
• 5 Key Benefits of Higher Purpose Programs: Consumers and employees are seeing the importance of social & environmental higher purpose programs. Here are 5 benefits of having one.
• The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism: Whose Job Is It?: The world faces critical social and environmental problems with governments that are limited or paralyzed. Learn how major firms and other players can make a difference.
• What Brands Have Earned Trust?: Prophet’s Brand Relevance Index™ is a consumer ranking of the most relevant and trusted brands. Learn what brands have earned the most trust based on the Index.
• What Brands Inspire?: Pinterest, LEGO and Fitbit are inspiring customers through brand relevance. Learn why they ranked so highly in Prophet’s Brand Relevance Index™.

Growth Strategies

• Creating a New Subcategory: A Story of Two Pizza Brand: I discuss how DiGiorno & Domino’s create new brand subcategories and differentiate themselves in the pizza market with a compelling value proposition.
• What We Can Learn from Dove’s Brand Portfolio Growth: Over the past 20 years, the Dove brand has grown tremendously due to product innovation and expansion. Learn why Dove is a model for brand portfolio growth.

Many brands attempt to inspire customers with energy, purpose or by creating a customer experience that is uplifting. Being inspired is one of the most admired and sought-after brand achievements. What brands have gotten there and which have disappointed?

The new 2017 Prophet Brand Relevance Index™, which measures the strength of 275 top brands from over 25 categories, helps provide some answers. One of the 16 measures in the survey was “Makes me feel inspired.” Looking at the results of that question there are some surprises.

The Brands That Inspire in Prophet’s Brand Relevance Index™

The headline of the 275-brand survey: Pinterest was way out in front in terms of being inspiring. Way out in front! Why? Pinterest is the go-to place if you want to do something new and creative.

You can ask for help with a project important to you, such as cooking for your kids, decorating a room in your home, getting started on a craft, learning about a particular exercise, or really anything you want to do that is beyond your current activities. You’ll be connected with ideas and people that are also interested in your challenge.

When you go to the site, you’ll be greeted with content that’s selected based in part on past requests or interactions. These options, all presented with pictures that draw you in, are personalized to your interests and passions.

“You’ll be connected with ideas and people that are also interested in your challenge.”

Pinterest perceives itself to be the world’s catalog of ideas and has a mission to help people discover the things they love and inspire them to do those things in their daily lives. It stretches boundaries by enabling a person’s creativity and desire to try something new. The experience promises to deliver connection with others and a feeling of a sense of accomplishment.

These Pinterest themes can also be found in at least seven of the other top 15 brands in the “Makes me feel inspired” dimension.

• #3. Food Network provides a way to make a person feel creative and accomplished in the kitchen with ideas and recipes, some from leading chefs, all in entertaining and digestible formats. The brand also inspires by its visible support for the NoKidHungry program.
• #5. An Etsy devotee will admire the creativity and initiative that is abundant on the e-commerce site. Further, there is the ability to “discover” something unique and the satisfaction of finding a new gift concept. Etsy’s mission which includes harnessing the power of business to strengthen communities and empower people is itself inspiring.
• #7. NPR inspires by challenging its audience with issues and stimulating topics, many of which would not be found elsewhere, and presents them with depth and style. Its mission is to promote personal growth, respect differences, and encourage a sense of active participation. It is noteworthy that NPR separated itself from news channels like CNN and others which were near the bottom of the ratings.
• #10. Fitbit becomes an ongoing enabler of living a healthier, more active life by tracking activity, exercise, sleep, weight and more. Using Fitbit, you can design or try new exercise programs with the added motivation generated by the ability to measure progress and results. And there is the promise of a sense of accomplishment.
• #12. LEGO provides children both the joy and satisfaction of creating a new structure. The ultimate purpose is to inspire children to think creatively and reason systematically. Inspiration also comes from LEGO’s sustainability efforts which not only involves wind farms but also the “planet promise” where a kid at any home can commit to be a part of the solution in simple ways, like turning off lights.
• #14. M·A·C allows customer access to vivid and interesting colors that makes cosmetics glamorous, dynamic and personal. It is about being creative, experiential, and proud of their appearance. The inspiration could come in part from the fact that M·A·C since 1994 had a VIVA GLAM line featuring a bright red color, the proceeds of which donated over $400 million to AIDS. #15. IKEA, the “world of inspiration for your home,” has people pick out affordable, stylish, unique furniture and then assemble it at home—an effort which requires creativity and ability to face a meaningful challenge. IKEA has an aggressive sustainability program and, additionally, supports those uprooted such as giving 5,000 beds to refugees.

Again, the common themes are enabling creativity, discovering the new, stretching yourself, interacting with others about a passion, and feeling accomplished.

3 Other Ways Brands Are Inspiring Consumers

Three other routes are suggested by the other top “inspiring” brands. The first is to provide entertaining stories of role models, real or fictitious, that are inspiring. Pixar at #2, Disney at #4 and Marvel at #11 all provide characters and vicarious experiences that can inspire. Each provides entertainment which undoubtedly creates involvement and heightens the emotional response and the potential to inspire.

A second is to be inspired by the mood or feelings that are put in place. Spotify at #7 and Pandora at #13 create music experiences that can add inspiration to the enjoyment of the moment and even contribute a mindset that leads to excelling in other activities. It is noteworthy that Spotify and Pandora, like Pinterest, also personalize content.

A third is illustrated by #6 Apple and #9 Nike. They are both known for being inspiring for their products, personality, message and expectations by their customers. Apple was #6 in part because of its leadership role, its relentless innovation record, its design flare, the fact that its products have enabled people’s lives to do more, and the dazzling retail presence. Nike at #9 is a brand that has always stood for performance that inspires. This consistent message has been long supported by innovative products and visible spokespeople.

It should be emphasized that the subjects in this survey are those that are active in the category and are familiar with the brand. In most brand surveys, many respondents may not be familiar with a brand or it might not be relevant to them and, as a result, brands that inspire their customers do not show well.

Additional Observations from the Brand Relevance Index™

Why are the credit card brands in the bottom one-fourth of all brands? MasterCard has the 20-year-old priceless campaign and American Express is the quintessential statement brand. Have credit cards moved to be functional and taken for granted?

There was a time when the most inspiring products and brands were in the auto sector. Not now. A few car brands like Toyota and Tesla were in the top 15 percent of brands and a few more like Honda, Ford, BMW and Chevrolet were in the top 75, with Lexus a bit behind. But half of the 18 car brands in the survey including Mercedes-Benz and Cadillac were in the bottom half. Why are automobiles not as inspiring as they once were and why do these two brands score lower on inspiration than other car brands?

Why is KitchenAid #27 while Whirlpool and General Electric are not in the top 100; and Frigidaire, Maytag and Haier are not in the top 180? One explanation is that KitchenAid has added dozens of innovative new areas notably small appliances and offer some color options that allow a person to use KitchenAid to make a personal statement in their kitchen.

Why are Betty Crocker, Hershey’s, and Pillsbury in the top 75 and Heinz, JELL-O, Oreo and Kraft in the bottom one-fourth? It might be that the heritage effect of the first three is simply stronger with more warmth and positive memories.

Why is Alexa (#57) so much higher than Siri (#161)?  Is it because Siri is a less robust iPhone?  Or is it because Alexa has a different personality? Or is it something else?

What other questions can advance the brand inspiration conversation? What brands inspire you?

Prophet’s team of experts help brands create customer experiences that inspire.

Trust is considered by many as the bedrock of a brand underlying all perceptions. You need trust for people to believe you will live up to your brand promise. Without trust, your assertions about your brand will ring hollow. And creating and maintaining trust is especially difficult given the fact that trust in brands globally has been eroding for the last two decades. Yet there are brands that have achieved a high level of trust. Who are those brands and how have they done it?

“Without trust, your assertions about your brand will ring hollow.”

Answers to these questions come in part from the new 2017 brand relevance survey conducted by Prophet of the strength of 275 top brands from over 25 categories using U.S. respondents that were active in the category and familiar with the brand. The survey used 16 measures that were combined to create a measure of attachment to the brand that is termed its Brand Relevance Index™ (BRI). One of the 16 measures in the survey was “a brand I trust.”

Top 25 Most Trusted Brands

In looking at the top 25 brands on the trust scale, four groupings seem to emerge. The first are heritage packaged-goods brands, brands that have earned a reputation for reliability over generations. The second are “star” brands that are strong on all of the 16 dimensions and have top BRI scores. The remaining two include a pair of specialty retailers and two package delivery brands.

All the top trust brands are perceived to deliver to their brand promise over time consistently and reliably. There can be a slip-up if it is convincingly corrected so that it is judged an abnormality, the exception that proves the rule. It nearly all the top truest brands, the performance is visible, the brand can be counted on because these respondents have had first-hand experience with the brand or know someone who has. However, the perception of trust is almost always based on more than brand experience.

Reliable Consumer Brands

The first trust grouping, the heritage consumer brands, have earned a reputation for reliability over generations. They dominate the trust dimension and include three of the top five brands (Band-Aid, Tide and Crest), 6 of the top 10 (add Cheerios, Clorox and Kleenex) and 13 of the top 25 (add Dove, Johnson & Johnson, Hershey’s, Windex, Pillsbury, Betty Cocker, and Ziploc).

These brands have certainly earned trust for reasons that go beyond their demonstrated reliability. They have associations of mom, grandmother, family, traditions, support you can count on, warmth, security, and permanence. They are part of a person’s history and values and create feelings that affect judgments. This array of associations creates trust in the brand, a perception that is likely more important in making a trust evaluation that any brand experience.

Those packaged-goods brands sharing the same categories that are much lower on trust are usually new brands like Kashi, Chobani, or Method or brands that have a heritage that is weak or unhelpful in supporting trust perceptions, brands like Pop-Tarts, Axe, or Red Bull.

Star Brands

The second grouping of high trust brands, the star brands, are that have the highest BRI scores. Of the 8 brands in this star category, three are among the top five BRI brands (Apple, Amazon and Netflix) and all eight are in the top 25 (add Pandora, KitchenAid, PayPal, Fitbit, Bose). By comparison, none of the 13-heritage packaged-goods brands were in the top 25 in the BRI overall score, the highest was Dove at 27.

These brands had two other characteristics. First, they occupied meaningful parts of a person’s life and lifestyle. Second, they achieve high levels of performance in a very visible way. A person knows when there has been a mess up.

Strong Brands are Trusted Brands

The power of a strong brand will for sure influence perceptions of trust. It will support a trust judgment because it provides a set of proof points as shown by their scores on the other 15 dimensions. Additionally, there is a halo effect. A brand that is strong on 15 dimensions will be assumed to be strong on the 16^th in the absence of some information that is inconsistent. So again, we see perceptions of trust based on a broad array of brand image elements in addition to brand reliability.

The other four brands in the top 25 on the trust question come from more specialized categories and benefit from the trust engendered by their high performance within those categories. The North Face and Trader Joe’s are specialty retailers and were at the top of the trust measure of a 33-brand set of retailers with brands like Neiman Marcus, 7-Eleven and J. Crew. The final two brands in the top 25 were FedEx and UPS both of which are positioned around reliability and have created the infrastructure and computer system to deliver.

There are two common mistakes in strategically managing a brand portfolio. The first is to define a brand too narrowly around a product attribute and to believe that breaking out of this conceptual box will damage the “brand equity” represented by the attribute. The brand then stays in the box and never realizes its potential. The second is to have too many brands each covering the various attributes believed to be valued by the market. The result is underfunded brands, confusion in the marketplace, and a lack of brand-building focus.

Instead, the primary strategic goal of a brand portfolio should be to focus on a limited number of strong brands and find ways to leverage those brands by enhancing their market penetration, by extending into new offerings, and by expanding into new markets.

Unilever is a case in point. They focus on their 18 or so biggest brands, 13 of which are billion-dollar brands, and they don’t put the brands into confined functional boxes.

“The primary strategic goal of a brand portfolio should be to focus on a limited number of strong brands and find ways to leverage those brands.”

Dove, launched as a bar soap brand in 1955 known for its moisturizing quality, was in a box doing a respectable $200 million dollars in sales in the early 1990s. The brand then broke out of the box and aggressively grew its sales with brand extensions, product innovation, and geographic expansion.

Sales were over three billion in 2011, the last year that sales were reported, and are much more now. This growth was earned in an intensively competitive arena with large, smart, established competitors.

The extension strategy was to leverage the moisturizer attribute heritage of the brand into new categories supported by meaningful innovation. The first extension success was the Dove Moisturizing Body Wash with the innovative Dove Nutrium technology that deposited lipids, Vitamin E and other ingredients onto the skin. This was followed by entries into deodorants, disposable face cloths, shampoos with Weightless Moisturizer, Nutrium soap, and lotions with Shea Butter. Dove also entered the male market with Dove Men+Care and recently entered the baby market with baby Dove.

Each extension’s success was based in part on compelling value propositions. Additionally, an aggressive global expansion resulted in the brand, once a factor in only a few countries, now having a presence in over 80 countries.

An important ingredient to Dove’s successful growth was its “Campaign for Real Beauty”, originated in Brazil by Ogilvy & Mather in 2004. The campaign set out to make women aware that they have real beauty, not based on a standard of a young, model-thin body with excessive make-up. The goal was to change the way that women are perceived and to improve their self-esteem.

The campaign started with advertisements showing real women that may have been older or heavier than the “ideal” but exhibited beauty. Billboard ads invited passers-by to vote on whether a model was, for example, “Fat or Fab” or “Wrinkled or Wonderful”, with the results of the votes dynamically updated.

One of the campaign videos shows a forensic sketch artist drawing several women first based only on their descriptions of themselves (he does not actually see them) and then based on the descriptions of a stranger. The subject, seeing the resulting sketches side-by-side, realizes that the sketches inspired by strangers are much more flattering than the versions from their own self-descriptions show the tagline “You are more beautiful than you think.” The first two 3-minute Dove Real Beauty Sketch ads each got over 35 million viewers within two weeks of being posted on YouTube. Thirty-five million!!!

The Real Beauty Campaign expanded the brand and its relationship to customers by connecting with an issue of deep concern: the appearance and self-confidence of themselves and their daughters. It also provided energy and visibility that enhanced all the Dove products.

I have long argued in the book “Brand Relevance” and elsewhere that the only way to grow, with rare exceptions, is to develop customer “must-haves” that define a new brand subcategory and then manage that subcategory to success. Marketing and branding then become one of subcategory competition instead of “my brand is better than your brand” competition, and the winning brand will be the one that is most relevant. The pizza world provides two examples.

Kraft’s DiGiorno introduced in 1995 its “rising crust” pizza, the first pizza with a fresh-frozen, no pre-cooked crust. Rather than competing in the frozen pizza section, DiGiorno chose to create a new subcategory, frozen pizza brand that could deliver the same quality as delivered pizza, the only relevant brand being DiGiorno. The result was not only strong growth in sales but a 50 percent repurchase rate and a substantial price premium.

The DiGiorno positioning was developed with a series of stories delivered in a long-term advertising campaign all around the tagline of “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno.” The rising crust was usually connected to the story. In one story, a person was recruited to be the DiGiorno deliveryman, a position that requires no work. In another, four people are watching a football game enjoying a DiGiorno pizza and comparing it to a delivery pizza that has a soggy crust. In still another, a couple enjoying a pizza observes that they do not have to tip the delivery boy. Over two decades the stories keep coming, all making the point that people experience as good or even better pizza than delivered pizza if they use DiGiorno and they don’t have the inconvenience nor the higher price point. The new brand subcategory thus appears to differentiate with a compelling value proposition.

“The new brand subcategory thus appears differentiating with a compelling value proposition.”

Domino’s Pizza went from a 9 percent share (and falling) of the pizza restaurant business in 2009 to 15 percent in 2016 by first reframing its brand to be relevant and then reframing the category using a host of stories along the way.^[i] Its stock went up 700 percent during that time.

The story started with the “cardboard crusts” comments from customers, taste tests in which the brand finished last, and the use of frozen or canned ingredients. In response, the company decided to completely reinvent their pizza from the crust up. The effort culminated in a product that won taste tests, a PizzaTurnaround.com website that documented customers’ responses to the new pizzas, a 2009 “Oh yes we did” video and an ad that showed Domino’s chef personally delivering the completely reformulated pizza to some of their biggest critics.

During that time, Domino’s created a new brand subcategory defined by “must-haves” around the ordering and delivery of pizza created by a new 30-person technology team hired in 2009. Domino’s provided a dozen ordering options involving “Easy order” apps, Facebook, Twitter, Apple Watch, voice-activated, “zero-click”, and more. Several provided content for user stories. Its online Pizza Tracker service allowed customers to track the status of their pizza in real-time. In 2016, half the orders were placed online, up from 20 percent in 2009. Delivering innovations include a modified car that holds 80 pizzas in a warming oven and keeps beverages cold as well as experiments with drones and robots made for interesting stories. The story of a drone delivering a pizza in the UK got nearly 2 million views.

ⁱ Susan Berfield, “Delivering a $9 Billion Empire,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 20-29, 2017, pp. 42-47.

The Brazilian private equity group, 3G Capital, who own Kraft Heinz and InBev, and whose strategy was summarized by Fortune as “Buy Squeeze Repeat,” were rebuffed in their effort to buy Unilever. Thank goodness.

Unilever is a shining light. In 2010, Unilever launched USLP (Unilever Sustainable Living Plan) with the vision of addressing the environmental and social problems in the world. Unilever has a host of specific environmental goals dedicated to reducing its footprint (cutting it in half), getting people access to safe water, increasing the use of renewable energy and stopping hazardous waste from going to landfills. Social programs abound at Unilever, like Dove’s programs to raise girls’ and women’s self-esteem and Lifebuoy’s program to change handwashing habits to reduce infant deaths throughout the world (they are halfway toward the goal).

Unilever’s Belief in Corporate Responsibility

The rationale, as explained by CEO Paul Polman, is fascinating. He notes that (in part) because of the limits of capitalism, we have created an unsustainable set of problems which include global warming, resource depletion and an increasing gap between the rich and poor. He believes that businesses have a responsibility to address these related issues. The Unilever business model calls on the firm to be an active contributor in finding solutions. Toward that end, the needs of citizens and communities carry the same weight as the demands of shareholders at Unilever.

“The Unilever business model calls on the firm to be an active contributor in finding solutions.”

Polman argues that such actions will help businesses in the end. Better employees, especially millennials, will be attracted. Enough customers will respect – even admire – you to make a difference. And, brands will get more visibility and energy, key determinants of long-term success. By raising the living standards of third-world counties, new markets will open. The risk of catastrophic damage to the environmental, social and economic framework will be reduced; which should objectively be a plus for business.

The Kraft Heinz Difference

In sharp contrast, 3G Capital strategy acquires and merges firms, and then ruthlessly reduces headcount and operational expenses to sharply improve operating margins, profits and, most important, per-share earnings. During the first 15 months after buying Kraft, the employee count went from 46,600 to 41,000 and overhead went from 18.1% to 11.1%. Just days after the purchase, ten top executives were fired, office refrigerators were removed, company planes were gone, everyone flew coach, people even shared hotel rooms—all in the name of creating a cost-reduction-first culture. All programs and people were placed on a zero-based budgeting system with a “justify what you are worth” ongoing evaluation.

Because of these changes, the Kraft Heinz market cap went up sharply. Wall Street is impressed by cost moves. This strategy may work short-term, but cost-oriented strategies can and have run out of steam requiring firms to change – sometimes painfully – to invest in rebuilding brands and finding growth avenues. Maybe that will happen at Kraft Heinz and maybe not. Perhaps the lack of a higher purpose will inhibit them from hiring the best people, and adversely affect the loyalty of a part of the customer base. Or maybe not.

It seems unlikely that over time 3G will champion a higher purpose or develop substantial programs to protect the environment or address social issues to the extent that Unilever and many other firms are doing. They may be right in setting their priorities and the result may be a financial success. Or maybe not.

Unilever invests in solutions to social problems in the context of running a business. I submit that we are better off because of the Unilever’s of the world, which incidentally, include many, if not most, major firms.

How do you get a target audience to both notice your brand signature stories and consume them? Without attention, the content does not matter.

I researched this question for my upcoming book on signature stories, and came across a helpful book by Ben Parr entitled “Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention.” Parr used academic research and case studies (by people and firms that have successfully achieved high visibility) to establish seven triggers of attention (or captivation, in his words): automaticity, framing, disruption, reward, reputation, mystery and acknowledgment. Based, in part, on his discussion of these triggers and their variants, I arrived at four keys to capturing and keeping attention to a brand’s signature stories.

The first two keys are relevant to the challenge of getting immediate or short-term attention.

1. Have a trusted story source.

A trusted storyteller can come in the form of a friend or respected expert who passed along a video with a strong recommendation – “you have to see this.” Or a familiar personality, such as Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame or Tom Dickson host of the “Will it Blend?” challenges for Blendtec blender. Recognizable subjects are also trusted sources, like the Budweiser Clydesdales that have for years delivered a satisfying, emotional experience.

2. Send an immediate signal that the story is novel, provocative, out of the ordinary.

There must be a reason why a person will notice and process the story. It could portend an unusual character, plot or even presentation; and promise to be intriguing. It is the judgment of the audience that matters. Just because a firm executive thinks the story is intriguing does not mean a target audience will too.

The next two keys to gaining attention are around keeping the audience’s attention. To maintain interest, YouTube research has found that the first 15 seconds are crucial to getting a viewer to stay with a video. How do you keep the audience involved past the initial exposure?

Consider the following first sentence of this introduction to the McElroy “brand man” story, “It was a drab and rainy day in mid-May 1931 when 28-year-old Neil McElroy, the advertising manager for P&G’s Camay soap, sat down at his Royal typewriter and wrote perhaps the most significant memo in modern marketing history.” Doesn’t that perk up your ears.

3. Create uncertainty and suspense.

The McElroy story does this. Why the memo? Why was it important? The detail gives you a visual image of McElroy at the typewriter and gets you thinking, “who is this guy?”  It gets your attention, keeps it, and promises real rewards.

What will happen as a result of the memo? Uncertainty is not enough, it needs to be resolved and, importantly, it has to matter to the audience. Making the audience feel emotionally invested in the characters and plot will make the audience care about the outcome. The way the plot and presentation is structured also matters. It is best if the process of the story builds and leverages the suspense and its resolution.

4. During the first 15 seconds create the expectation that the audience member will be rewarded by continuing to hear the story.

There will be rewards for being thought-provoking, interesting, informative, newsworthy, exceptionally relevant, entertaining or by reaffirming an opinion or a lifestyle choice of the audience. There needs to be more than a hint or expectation, there should be a basis for believing that there is a reason to stay involved with the story. At this point, phony, contrived, salesy or boring impressions should not be emerging.

“Without attention, the content does not matter.”

Immediate or short-term attention is the first barrier a story needs to overcome. Using reputable storytellers gives your stories merit because there is an established expectation that the story will be worthwhile. This is similar to current trends toward targeting social media influencers – these influencers are trusted among certain audiences because they have established credibility on particular subjects.

Stories communicate messages better than facts: they are more arresting, persuasive, memorable and social. Most marketing executives have accepted that premise, and are hiring journalists and formalizing the task of finding or creating stories to leverage both internally and externally.

The problem is finding or creating what I call signature stories: stories that are intriguing, involving, authentic and have a strategic message. Most brands and products do not lend themselves to stories that capture attention and really touch people. Even when an occasion has a potentially emotional aspect to it, finding a story that is both involving and authentic can be difficult and finding one with the potential of a viral breakout is virtually impossible.

Signature Stories That Draw From Programs For Social Good

One solution is to find or develop signature stories drawn from social or environmental higher-purpose programs. By their very nature, higher-purpose programs tend to be arresting, inspiring, authentic, emotional and draw people in with vivid characters and significant challenges.

“Stories that are intriguing, involving, authentic and have a strategic message.”

The percentage of organizations that are developing or enhancing a higher purpose program is remarkably high and growing. They are making a difference, both to society and the organization. There are many motivations: to do the “right thing”, to inspire employees (particularly millennials) that want meaning in their jobs, and to appeal to a growing and influential customer base that prefers to do business with brands they respect and admire. Being the source of powerful stories is another unstated and often unrecognized reason.

Consider the raw power of stories such as:

• A video in Lifebuoy’s “Help a Child Reach 5” campaign shows a mother put time and devotion into nurturing a tree that we learn was planted at her son’s birth, a custom in her village. This makes us curious. The next day there is a celebration, the woman’s son has turned five – an age that most children in their village will never see as many die from water-carried illnesses. Over 30 million viewers saw this campaign for hand washing programs.

• As part of the Always “Like A Girl” campaign, a woman acts out the stereotypically assumed motion of running awkwardly and unathletic-like, “like a girl.” When she sees a 10-year-old girl run naturally, with vigor and speed, she wanted a re-do because she changed her mind about what it means to run like a girl. This story was packaged with three others into a signature video campaign that received over 85 million views. 85 million!

• Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS, was vacationing in Argentina in 2006, when he was overwhelmed by the sight of children without shoes. His vacation prompted him to start a company that, for every shoe bought, gives a pair of shoes to a child in need. “One for one” became the slogan, and most who buy from TOMS know the story.

Among the major challenges marketers face in the year ahead will be creating and retaining a loyal customer group. It is a challenge because of the difficulty of brand building in an era with fast-changing media, much under audience control, and because e-commerce and digital communication make it difficult to integrate messages and deliver on-brand customer experiences.

How to Build a Loyal Customer Base

How do you create, manage and leverage a loyal customer base in this environment? To empirically address that question we leveraged the database associated with Prophet’s Relentless Relevance 2015 study in which 400 brands from 29 categories were assessed on more than 20 measures of brand relevance. The goal was to determine what drives two loyalty levels: the satisfied and the committed.

The satisfied are those who buy regularly, often out of habit, because they are satisfied with the brand’s performance over a long time period. They perceive the brand to be familiar, dependable with consistently good experiences and easy to buy. The brand has become a comfortable habit and there is no reason to change. For some low-involvement products, the satisfied are the core loyalty group.

“They perceive the brand to be familiar, dependable with consistently good experiences and easy to buy.”

The committed have a more intense, involved relationship with the brand. They are more likely to have an emotional attachment, to receive self-expressive benefits and to have a user experience that goes beyond merely functional benefits. They are also more likely to be brand supporters, even telling others about the brand and its user experience. For some high-involvement products, a brand should aspire to have a committed group.

How do these groups differ with respect to what drives their formation and nurtures them over time? From the Prophet study, indicators of the two loyalty types and five potential drivers of loyalty were identified. The extent to which each of these five indicators impacted (explained variation in) the two levels of loyalty were explored statistically.

The “satisfied” group was represented by the phrase, “one of my favorite brands,” which reflects satisfaction and a lack of motivation to change to another brand. The “committed” group was represented by the phrase, “I can’t imagine living without,” which suggests there is a functional or emotional attachment that is so intense that the absence of the brand would be upsetting.

5 Drivers of Brand Loyalty

There are five variables that have been uncovered to be potential drivers of brand loyalty; several have multiple indicators that are combined. These variables are:

• Dependable: described as “always deliver to expectations,” “I can depend on,” “I trust” and “consistent experiences”
• Better: described as “better than others,” and “only brand that does what it does”
• Social media: described as “has interesting and engaging content online”
• Light emotional connection (LEC): described as “makes me happy”
• Heavy emotional connection (HEC): described as “connects with me emotionally,” “makes me feel inspired” and “has a purpose I believe in”

Satisfied Brand Users

Consider the satisfied model. The “dependable” variable has more than three and a half times the explanatory impact as does the “better” variable. This confirms the hypothesis that satisfied loyalists are driven by habit, familiarity, comfort and satisfaction, and being better is not as important as delivering the brand promise. They are instead going to stick to the brand as long as it delivers. Controlling for “dependable” and “better” (perceived superiority), the “light emotional connection” variable has a meaningful role, about equal to that of the “better” variable, while the “heavy emotional connection” variable has zero impact. Finally, the “social media” variable, as expected, was not a driver, essentially zero.

The satisfied group included brands that do not engender much passion or emotional connection. Of the top 50 brands of the Relentless Relevance 2015 database, 15 were classic brand names that largely delivered functional benefits and were extremely high on the dependability measure. Leading the way with positions in the top 25 were Betty Crocker, Band-Aid, Clorox, KitchenAid and Folgers. All were extremely high on the “dependable” and trust dimensions as well. That reinforces the hypothesis that delivering to expectations may not be glamorous, but it can drive a brand’s ability to create and keep a loyal segment, which can be the basis of a healthy long-term business. There’s also likely some emotional benefit linked to the nostalgia of growing up with these brands. They become part of the fabric of people’s lives.

Committed Brand Users

Next, consider the committed model. The “better” variable has a large impact, about equal to that of the “dependable” variable. The “heavy emotional connection” variable has an explanatory power equal to the “better” variable and more than twice that of the “light emotional connection” variable.  Finally, the “social media” variable is now more of a player, albeit smaller than the other variables.

The committed customer group is necessary if you want to be a leader in more involving categories. This is the group that can deliver social buzz and net promoter scores. And it can defend you when you have an unfavorable incident. But to create and nurture this group, it is clear that brands must get beyond “dependable” to “better” and get beyond happy to deliver a meaningful emotional feeling that connects and inspires. The top brands on the committed scale such as Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Chick-fil-A, also score high on the emotional connection, inspiring and having a purpose. Apple, in fact, is in the top two on each of these dimensions. They are clearly more than functional, high-use brands that deliver satisfaction. Social media also became relevant. The committed will likely include people that are influencers on social media, and they have an impact far beyond their number.

The strength of the “dependable” dimension to explain the committed status of a brand is noteworthy. Many of the top brands on the committed scale such as Apple, Netflix and Microsoft ranked extremely high on dependability and ease of use. Amazon, added to the study in 2016, was also extremely high in the committed and dependability measures. The ability of these high-tech, innovative brands to deliver an astonishing level of performance on the dependability dimensions is a crucial and largely unrecognized element of their brand strength. In general, they deliver on their brand promise without frustration or disappointment.

I have written and spoken on the importance of having brand energy, organizational values, a brand personality, and a point of difference so compelling that it forms a new subcategory. What is also true, is that a brand can develop substantial loyalty by just doing its job. Just do the basics: Deliver the brand promise. Don’t screw up and provide a reason to consider the competition. It turns out that people like brands that work…and question those that don’t.

I was again reminded of this fact when analyzing the Prophet Brand Relevance Index™. The 2016 U.S. survey tested the relevance of 325 top brands from 29 categories using respondents that were active in the category and familiar with the brand. The survey ranks brands across four dimensions: Innovation, Customer Obsession, Inspiration and Pragmatism. Two surprising results emerged regarding the Ruthlessly Pragmatic dimension, which measured ease-of-use and dependability.

Two Surprising Results from Top Pragmatic Brands

Fourteen of the top 25 brands measured on the Ruthlessly Pragmatic dimension were commonly used consumer brands such as Clorox (3), Ziploc (5), Band Aid (8), Tide (9), VISA (12), Crest (13), Kleenex (14), Dove (15), Betty Crocker (20), KitchenAid (22), Colgate (23), and Campbell’s (24). Nine of these ranked in the top 25 on trust, as well. All of these brands were in the top 75 on the overall relevance scale, ten were in the top 50 and 3 in the top 25. It is rather incongruous to see some commonplace, older brands that are not known for being dynamic (although if you look closely, they are innovating at a rapid pace) in such a rarified atmosphere. However, they all deliver on their promise, rarely disappoint and have earned remarkable brand strength.

An even more surprising result is the Ruthlessly Pragmatic dimension’s power among high-tech brands, the strongest in the survey. In fact, four of the top six brands in the survey were tech companies: Apple (1), Amazon (2), Android (3) and Google (6). We expect these brands to be strong, driven by the other dimensions such as being pervasively innovative, customer-obsessed or distinctively inspired. But it turns out that the ability to deliver in an easy, reliable manner is one of the qualities that push these brands to the top.

“The ability to deliver in an easy, reliable manner is one of the qualities that push these brands to the top.”

Amazon, which leads the retail segment by a huge margin, gets the highest marks from consumers for being available and dependable. To run such a complex service and do it so well, living up to the brand promise, is really astonishing and the company is rewarded with brand strength. The Apple iPhone and Android are visible and functionally enable customers due to their role in people’s lives. Google is given difficult assignments by their users and nearly always comes through with their search, maps and more. And both just work. Netflix’s platform is engaging and easier to use than others, delivering on another complex task. All these brands deserve a lot of credit for simplifying a complex offering and making it work so well.

I am reminded of a book, Simply Better by Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan. In the book, the authors argued that success is achieved by delivering basic category benefits better than others. Even for complex or high-tech products and services, strategy is second-tier to exceptional execution and consistently delivering positive customer experiences.