Typical mobile industry players are regarded as arrogant and insensitive to the frustrations of the consumers. It’s an industry that has long frustrated customers with complex plans, locked-in contracts, restrictions against upgrading phones and the loss of investments in existing devices. But now, T-Mobile has introduced a game-changer to the market.

They call themselves the Un-carrier, to vividly emphasize that they are doing something radically different. They’re basing their whole philosophy around doing exactly what the customers want, as indicated by their feedback. It sounds simple. So why did it take so long to create such a strategy? And why was T-Mobile, the number 4 player in the industry, the first to innovate? (Full Disclosure—Prophet was a partner with T-Mobile in developing the new strategy.)

The “Simple Choice Plan,” introduced in March of 2013, included elements that broke long-time industry practices. Long-term contracts were replaced with monthly plans with no long-term commitment. Plan pricing that required you to estimate minutes used and text messages sent was replaced with plan pricing that was much more flexible and easier to understand. The basic plan includes unlimited talk, text and web access (up to 500MB high-speed) and can be augmented for those that need large pools of high-speed data. Finally, you can bring your own device to the program. You don’t have to buy a new phone, but if you do, T-Mobile will finance it over 24 months. When it’s paid off, the monthly bill will be reduced accordingly.

With Un-carrier 2.0, launched in the summer of 2013, family plans without necessary credit checks were added. This was a huge deal for users that are routinely slammed with multiple $200 deposits on family plans. Families could now get four lines with unlimited talk, text, and web (up to 500MB high-speed) for $100 per month, plus taxes and fees. In addition, the JUMP! (Just Upgrade My Phone) Program recently launched, where a person who subscribes for $10 a month can update their phone twice a year. At the same time improvements in their network, particularly in major urban areas, were announced, improvements that allowed T-Mobile to surpass Sprint on coverage.

And the momentum continues. In October of 2013, T-Mobile announced at a New Your concert event their Un-carrier 3.0 strategy, by which they would deliver unlimited global data at no extra charge in 100+ countries. The program was a dramatic attack at the practice of charging large fees for cross-border connections.

Then, at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), T-Mobile announced an offer to pay the termination fee of the locked-in customers of Verizon, Sprint or AT&T and give them a credit toward a new phone. The colorful T-Mobile CEO, John Legere was quoted as saying, “We are either going to take over this whole industry or these bastards are going to change.”

Since the Un-carrier launch, T-Mobile has steadily brought this strategy to life through positioning, framing the discussion, messaging, communications, customer experience and employee engagement. The strategy was supported by humorous advertising (advertising gets easy when you have something to say) that featured Bill Hader as an inept phone user who welcomed the Jump! program. The JUMP! campaign was led by some outrageous (think Steve Jobs-style) presentations by Legere talking about why customers are switching to T-Mobile and how backward competitors are.

“They’re basing their whole philosophy around doing exactly what the customers want, as indicated by their feedback.”

At the beginning of 2013, T-Mobile was suffering from an ongoing loss of share that affected its image as well as its financial health. The Un-carrier initiative dramatically changed that. At one point during the campaign, T-Mobile was gaining customers at a rate that exceeded the three competitors combined. Further, according to a study by Baird Equity, 26 percent of potential wireless carrier switchers are looking at T-Mobile, as compared to 9 percent for Sprint, 10 percent for AT&T, and 19 percent for Verizon. In the minds of many, T-Mobile went from an also-ran company to a firm with a leadership position that reinvented a major industry. It’s an amazing achievement.

There are 5 lessons to be learned from T-Mobile’s Strategy: 

As I discussed in Brand Relevance, the only way to grow is to create “must haves” that define a new subcategory

T-Mobile was not able to grow until it did just that, developing a half dozen “must haves.” Note that the disruption was not caused by a technological advance, but by some simple changes in pricing and contracts.

A new subcategory needs to be protected

T-Mobile protected its innovative, disrupter position with breakthrough brand-building and ongoing game-changing innovation.

The disruption was driven by an understanding of basic customer frustrations and complaints

In fact, it did not take strategic insight that was subtle and nuanced. Perhaps the depth and influence of these customer issues were underestimated, but they were well known.

Any brand can become a true challenger brand

It is interesting that the brand that pulled off this innovation wasn’t Verizon or AT&T, but the fourth-place player. Why was that? The industry leaders had too much to gain by sticking with the status quo. As a challenger brand, T-Mobile had less to lose and more to gain by disrupting the wireless category and doing what the other carriers do not; they put the customers’ needs ahead of business-as-usual.

Once you start innovating, keep up the momentum

All three major competitors scrambled to respond with their own versions of fewer contracts, quicker upgrades, cheaper plans and more. To maintain relevance, they had no choice. But they are all clearly copying the innovator, playing catch up. Although these competitors have an impressive set of assets, it is likely that the market structure will be changed by the T-Mobile initiatives. Further, the T-Mobile momentum and energy will make it hard to reverse these changes.

What Are Your “Take My Name Off the Door” Values?

I was recently reminded of the power of meaningful organizational values when I watched Leo Burnett’s farewell speech, “When To Take My Name Off the Door.” In his own style, he talked about making outstanding advertising, which is the core value of Leo Burnett.

He says: “Somewhere along the line after I’m finally off the premises, you – or your successors – may want to take my name off the premises, too. That will certainly be OK with me. But let me tell you when I might demand that you take my name off the door. That will be the day:

• When you spend more time trying to make money and less time making advertising – our kind of advertising
• When you forget the sheer fun of ad making and the lift you get out of it
• When you lose that restless feeling that nothing you do is ever quite good enough
• When you lose your passion for thoroughness…your hatred of loose ends
• When you are no longer what Thoreau called “a corporation with a conscience”
• When you disprove of something, and start tearing the hell out of the man who did it rather than the work itself
• When you stop building on strong and vital ideas and start a routine production line
• When you start believing that, in the interest of efficiency, a creative spirit and the urge to create can be delegated and administrated, and forget that they can only be nurtured, stimulated, and inspired
• When you start giving lip service to this being a “creative agency” and stop really being one

THAT, boys and girls, is when I shall insist you take my name off the door. And by golly, it will be taken off the door. Even if have to materialize long enough some night to rub it out myself – on every one of our floors. And before I de-materialize again, I will paint out that star-reaching symbol too. And burn all the stationery. Perhaps tear up a few ads in passing.”

“The Leo Burnett core value doesn’t sound like much until it is elaborated with a multidimensional perspective.”

The Leo Burnett core value doesn’t sound like much until it is elaborated with a multidimensional perspective, buttressed with the numerous anecdotes reflecting the style and standards of the founder, and brought to live with legendary campaign role models (such as “Maytag: The Dependability People,” United’s “Fly the Friendly Skies,” Allstate’s “Good Hands,” the Marlboro man, the Jolly Green Giant, the Keebler Elves, and countless others).

Organizational values are almost always central to the long-term success of a business. They underlie any successful business strategy, they are the basis for a market-facing brand vision that differentiates and provides credibility, and they contribute to an internal brand that inspires and clarifies. Among those values should be a few signature values supported by substance and by stories that are central to the business. When they fade, the business may no longer reflect the brand. And as a result, its equity and legacy may become damaged.

So if the Haas School loses its “confidence without arrogance,” if being “weird” is no longer comfortable at Zappos.com, if Patagonia stopped using its business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crises, if Apple stops creating leadership products that extend human capability, if IBM stops focusing on being dedicated to every client’s success, or if Prophet was no longer about liberating ideas, inspiring people and driving impact, then in each case, the soul of its organization and the essence of its brand will have been compromised.

Neural marketing, which involves techniques such as fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) or EEG (electroencephalogram), is a hot topic in marketing. It can purportedly generate insight into consumer response to marketing variables while reducing the biases inherent in asking consumers their opinions, such as when they are not able or willing to give valid answers to questions involving perceptions, attitudes, or behavior. Further, consumers are driven in part by subconscious thoughts and emotions that neural marketing techniques can access. There are estimates that 95% of all thoughts are subconscious.

Neural marketing, in the right context, can measure variables like attention, engagement, emotion, pleasure/liking, and memory. Each of these can be an extremely relevant dependent variable of interest when testing or evaluating many marketing stimuli.

Here are several interesting anecdotes involving neural marketing:

• The MiniCooper from BMW was designed with the aid of fMRI equipment. The physical characteristics of the model were linked to a highly likable and beautiful baby face. It was said that the resulting design made people feel like caressing the car.
• Frito-Lay used EEG technology to learn that when Cheetos made the fingers of an eater turn orange a strong response was created.  The consumers liked the messiness of the product perhaps because it reflected an indulgent experience and because it indicated that the product really was infused with cheese. This insight was exploited in an advertising campaign.
• Tests of neural activity associated with unknown songs predicted their eventual commercial success.
• Campbell’s Soup used neural research to guide a redesign of their iconic packaging.
• Neural research has helped practitioners design stimuli that lead to engagement on social media.
• The Weather Channel has used EEG and eye-tracking to measure viewer reactions when showing different promotions to a popular show.

What is the future of neural marketing? Will it become an important and even game-changing technique? Or will it become more of an academic research tool that will be helpful commercially in niche contexts? I predict the future is more in line with the latter because of fundamental limitations.

1. The equipment is highly intrusive which limits the stimuli that can be presented. The EEG measure requires wearing a hat with measurement devices attached. The fMRI is beyond intrusive. Respondents have to ride through a tunnel and endure the risk of claustrophobia and the loud, high-pitched noises that accompany most experiences.
2. EEG technology is not capable of reaching the interior of the brain where an area reflecting pleasure and liking exists.  The fMRI is extremely expensive to own and to use, the polar opposite in terms of the cost of conducting something like Internet-based surveys.
3. The results are ambiguous and probably unreliable even in expert hands. It turns out that a lot of emotions can activate most regions of the brain in addition to target stimuli; in fact, some may be the opposite of what is being hypothesized, for example, eliciting disgust rather than liking. It takes a great deal of skill and experience to design experiments that guard against spurious results and to interpret the results accurately. Research to determine if findings are robust is probably rare.

“Neural marketing, in the right context, can measure variables like attention, engagement, emotion, pleasure/liking, and memory.”

Neural marketing reminds me of motivation research that was introduced in the 1950s by Ernest Dichter. Like neural marketing, motivation research aimed to understand the subconscious and its impact on motivation and choice. Dichter, a clinical Freudian psychiatrist, used in-depth interviews to find out what was motivating people. He famously linked Campbell’s soup to a mother’s love. He was very good at translating his insights into why people buy into copy like “wash your troubles away.” In the hands of Dichter, the insights were magical. But, more generally, as time passed and it became clear that motivation research insights were often not reproducible, the method was all but discredited a few decades after Dichter pioneered them. However, it is clear that many of the current qualitative research techniques incorporate some of his methodology.

Brand equity is a term used to describe the value of having a recognized brand, based on the idea that firmly established and reputable brands are more successful. More specifically, it’s a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand name and symbol, which add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service.

Connecting “brand” to the concepts of “equity” and “assets” radically changed the marketing function, enabling it to expand beyond strategic tactics and get a seat at the executive table.

To help break down brand equity and provide details about how the term is used in the marketing industry, we’ve outlined how it all came into place, why it’s so valuable and a roadmap for success.

How Brand Equity Came Into Place

In the late 1980s, brand equity was just emerging as an important idea. An avalanche of researchers, authors and executives who provided substance and momentum to this idea reframed marketing.

In 1991, I published a book, Managing Brand Equity, which defines brand equity and describes how it generates value. This model provided one perspective on brand equity that is worth another look now more than twenty years later.

Why Is Brand Equity So Valuable?

Another aspect of the definition of brand equity that I presented in my book was the argument that brand equity is that it also provides value to customers. It enhances the customer’s ability to interpret and process information, improves confidence in the purchase decision and affects the quality of the user experience.

The fact that it provides value to customers makes it easier to justify in a brand-building budget. This model provides one perspective of brand equity as one of the major components of modern marketing alongside the marketing concept, segmentation, and several others.

The Roadmap for Building & Managing Brand Equity

Brand equity has four dimensions—brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand associations, and perceived quality, each providing value to a firm in numerous ways. Once a brand identifies the value of brand equity, it can follow this roadmap to build and manage that potential value.

• Brand Loyalty
  • Reduced marketing costs
  • Trade leverage
  • Attracting new customers via awareness and reassurance
  • Time to respond to competitive threats
• Brand Awareness
  • Anchor to which other associations can be attached
  • Familiarity which leads to liking
  • Visibility that helps gain consideration
  • Signal of substance/commitment
• Brand Associations (Including Perceived Quality)
  • Help communicate information
  • Differentiate/Position
  • Reason-to-buy
  • Create positive attitude/feelings
  • Basis for extensions

The introduction of brand loyalty to the model was and is still controversial, as other conceptualizations position brand loyalty as a result of brand equity, which consists of awareness and associations. But when you buy a brand or place a value on it, the loyalty of the customer base is often the asset most prized, so it makes financial sense to include it.

And, when managing a brand, the inclusion of brand loyalty as a part of the brand’s equity allows marketers to justify giving it priority in the brand-building budget. The strongest brands have that priority.

Examples of Brand Equity

Positive Brand Equity

Amazon and Apple are classic examples of brands with positive brand equities. Both Amazon and Apple provide consistent customer experiences, are dependable, innovative, and purposeful, and are integral in people’s day-to-day lives, making them indispensable.

They also deliver on their promises to customers— Amazon provides convenience and industry-leading shipping options, while Apple prioritizes innovation and sleek design. All factors combined, these brands boast positive reputations or brand equities.

Negative Brand Equity

When it comes to negative brand equity, Volkswagen is an example that can be learned from. In September 2015, the EPA issued a notice of violation stating that the brand had been falsifying emissions numbers. As the news spread, Volkswagen lost brand equity, since the public no longer viewed the brand as trustworthy, nor as adhering to its promises to be environmentally friendly.

A key to building segments with high loyalty is to create brand relationships that have traction and meaning. To understand relationships, it’s useful to recall the classic work of Susan Fornier going way back to her dissertation in the mid-90s in which she used human relationships as a metaphor for brand relationships. She examined the work of psychologists who studied the nature of relationships and the characteristics of ideal relationships. Drawing in part on this body of work plus her own consumer research, she identified seven types of relationships that are important to understand and had intriguing insights into how brand-customer relationships should be conceived, measured and managed.

These dimensions provide lessons on brand loyalty but come at it from different perspectives. A brand can use them to understand the nature of their customer relationships and how they might expand and deepen them.  The two statements associated with each dimensions provide texture and items for a measurement scale.

The Seven Dimensions of Brand Loyalty

Behavioral interdependence

The degree to which the actions of the relationship partners are intertwined. Indicators are the frequency of interaction and the importance of and involvement in the use occasion.

• This brand plays an important role in my life.
• I feel like something’s missing when I haven’t used the brand in a while.

Personal commitment

The partners are committed to each other. There is a desire to improve or maintain the quality of the relationship over time and guilt when it is compromised.

• I feel very loyal to this brand.
• I will stay with this brand through good times and bad.

Love and passion

The intensity of emotional bonds between the partners, the inability to tolerate separation, and the reflection of love and passion that exist. In brand relationships, customers can develop passionate links to brands. Substitutes create discomfort.

• No other brand can quite take the place of this brand.
• I would be very upset if I couldn’t find this brand.

Nostalgic connection

The relationship is based in part on the memory of good times.

• This brand reminds me of things I’ve done or places I’ve been.
• This brand will always remind me of a particular phase of my life.

Self-concept connection

The partners share common interests, activities and opinions. The brand reflects the interests and activities of the person.

• The brand’s and my self-image are similar.
• The brand reminds me of who I am.

Intimacy

A deep understanding exists between partners. The consumer will achieve intimacy by knowing details about the brand and its use. One-on-one marketing programs enhance intimacy by fostering mutual understanding.

• I know a lot about this brand.
• I know a lot about the company that makes this brand.

Partner quality

The evaluation by one partner of the performance and attitude of the other. The evaluation by the consumer of the brand’s attitude toward the consumer.

• I know this brand really appreciates me.
• This brand treats me like a valued customer.

“These dimensions provide lessons on brand loyalty but come at it from different perspectives.”

Read it in Chinese: 7种可以提高忠诚度的客户-品牌关系

P&G’s Pampers completely reframed the diaper category in China, and in doing so created enormous growth for the category and for the brand. It is a good example of how focusing on category competition is a better route to growth than trying to win the “my brand is better than your brand” battle. The story is fascinating and informative, not only with respect to framing a category but to entering a new country with a different culture.

Pampers entered the China market in 1998 with a strategy of making a cheaper version of their Western product. The result was indeed cheap, and also was of inferior quality. The product was perceived as plastic and irritating, and it didn’t go anywhere. In 2006 a revised product, called the Pampers Cloth Like & Dry, was soft, effective and half the cost of U.S. versions. But still, sales lagged. The problem was that Chinese consumers were not motivated by dryness or convenience. They did not see a problem that would merit changing their existing habits. But a solution was on the horizon.

P&G was in the midst of in-depth research on consumers that revealed that the quality of a baby’s sleep and its impact on the future development of the baby was a real concern for many parents. This was coupled with the insight that a sleeping baby tended to stimulate a mother’s thoughts of the baby’s future. A study was then commissioned to the Beijing Children’s Hospital’s Sleep Research Center that revealed that babies wearing Pampers fell asleep 30% faster, slept an extra 30 minutes every night, and had 50% less disruption throughout the night.

“Look for a new benefit, application or segment to define a subcategory that will consist primarily of new customers.”

In 2007, Pampers launched the “Golden Sleep” campaign, which included extensive advertising, mass carnivals and in-store campaigns in urban areas. The objective was to frame disposable diapers as aides to quality sleep and to communicate the research data from the Sleep Research Center. The cornerstone of the campaign was getting women to post a picture of their baby sleeping on the Pampers website that would be incorporated into a huge photomontage. Can you imagine the appeal of a sleeping baby? The hook was their goal of beating the Guinness World Record for the largest photomontage in the world. They got over 200,000 responses and indeed used over 100,000 of them to break the Guinness World Record with a 7,000 square foot photomontage that was hung in a retail store in Shanghai.

Sales went up 55% but, more importantly, the category exploded. From 2006 to 2011 the baby disposable diapers market grew to nearly 3 billion, and it’s much larger today. And Pampers continues to be the market leader.

A pioneer in energy drinks three decades ago, Red Bull is now the world sales leader with estimated 2012 fiscal sales of over $3 billion, profits over $400 million, and a 43% leading US dollar market. To establish a new category in the face of Coke and Pepsi and then hold it for decades is very impressive.

Four observations about Red Bull’s unique approach to brand building:

1. Red Bull’s brand building is largely based on associating its brand with an amazingly wide range of people, teams and events.
2. Red Bull believes in owning teams and events rather than being one of several sponsors.
3. Because of this ownership model, they can and have turned this buzz machine into a profit center.
4. Their on-brand activities reflect two very different personalities that live side by side.

The scope of Red Bull activities is overwhelming. It gets involved in a wide mix of sports such as wakeboarding and motorcycle racing, dozens of Red Bull music events, sponsoring athletes such as motocross racer Ashley Fiolek, teams such as the New York Red Bulls soccer team and much, much more. The Red Bull website has entertainment features such as the Red Bull Soapbox Racer video game, weekly rock music bulletins on the Rock Report, plus sections on movies and TV shows as well. The list of their entertainment features goes on and on and is captured on their Facebook Page, which has more than 37 million followers. With well over 100 potential points of contact, Red Bull will connect to their target market many times, in multiple ways. And more importantly, Red Bull becomes a big part of their customers’ lives.

Red Bull believes in owning teams and events so that they have control over the content and the cost. They do not subscribe to the normal sponsorship model where they would have their name attached to an entity they do not control. They own two professional soccer teams, two Formula One car racing teams, the Red Bull X-Fighters (freestyle motocross) World Tour, the Red Bull Air Race (an international series of air races in which competitors have to navigate a challenging obstacle course in the fastest time), the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series and much more. Even when Red Bull backs an athlete, they get involved; it is not about a logo on a shirt. Their four-year association with Shawn White, who ultimately won a gold medal in snowboarding at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, involved building a half-pipe training facility in Silverton, CO, complete with support staff to help him train.

And then there is “The World’s Biggest Jump.” In mid-October 2012, well over 10 million watched Felix Baumgartner rise more than 24 miles above the New Mexico desert in the 55-story ultra-thin helium “Red Bull Stratos” balloon, jump off, and reach 830 mph during a 9-minute fall, setting records for both the height of the jump and the speed of descent. Since then, more than 33 million have watched the YouTube video. With the pre-jump and post-jump news features, videos and documentaries there could have been over a billion quality impressions, which meant an incredible ROI, even though the cost might have exceeded $40 million.

Its ability to stage sporting and music events and manage special athletes means that its rich library of video content will always be fresh and will always be expanding. The Red Bull Media House, launched in 2007, creates and markets new and existing content through TV, mobile, digital, audio and print. For example, the 2011 film The Art of Flight showed hundreds of don’t- -try-it-even-in-your-dreams sequences. There are partnership deals such as the one with NBC, the Red Bull Signature Series, which is made up of 15 events spaced out throughout the year. The brand’s magazine, Red Bulletin has a global distribution of 4.8 million. The media presence is extensive and includes the Red Bull TV channel in Europe and Red Bull documentaries elsewhere. There are versions of content in any length and form. The Red Bull mission, to fascinate, is compelling to content users and audience members alike.

“And more importantly, Red Bull becomes a big part of their customer’s lives.”

Although all the activities are around high energy, there are two brand personalities that live side-by-side. One is the serious athlete excelling in difficult challenges. The other is a fun-loving, humorous, whimsical personality as represented by much of their “Red Bull gives you wings” advertising and humorous cartoon videos on their website.

And have you seen a Red Bull Flugtag? It’s a contest that challenges teams of everyday people to build homemade, human-powered flying machines and pilot them off a 30-foot high deck above a water landing. Entrants are judged not only for their flight’s distance but for the creativity and showmanship of the designs and the people operating them. There are designs stimulated by flamboyant kites, by space-age vehicles and by entities that are, for lack of a better expression, hard to describe.

The first Flugtag took place in Vienna, Austria in 1992, and since then more than 35 Flugtags have been held around the world, attracting up to 300,000 spectators. The record for the farthest flight-to-date currently stands at 207 feet set in 2010 at Flugtag Minneapolis/St. Paul. It is just one representative of the whimsical Red Bull brand personality.

What are the most impressive brand-building efforts in the last 15 years? In constructing such a list, it would be hard to leave out Dove. A $200 million soap brand in the early 1990s has grown into a brand that has been estimated to be worth nearly $4 billion dollars today. They play in an intensively competitive arena with large, smart and established competitors. And in my view, the Dove brand-building effort played a big role in their success story.

Have you seen the latest from the Dove ongoing “Campaign for Real Beauty” that originated in Brazil and was done by Ogilvy & Mather in 2004? A forensic sketch artist draws 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 who has observed the women. 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. The tagline? “You are more beautiful than you think.”  The first two versions of these videos each got over 35 million views within two weeks of being posted to YouTube. Thirty-five million!!

Dove’s success is, of course, driven in large part by a business strategy that involved brand extensions, product innovation and geographic expansion. The Dove^® Campaign for Real Beauty set out to make women aware that they have real beauty that is not based on the common standard of a young, model-thin body with excessive makeup. The goal was to make a fundamental change in the way that women are perceived and in the way they view themselves. 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 particular model was, for example, “Fat or Fab” or “Wrinkled or Wonderful”, with the results of the votes dynamically updated.

The Real Beauty campaign involves substantive programs with girls as the prominent target. Since 2002, Dove has been collaborating with Girl Scouts of the USA to promote self-esteem and leadership programming among tween and teenage girls with programs like uniquely ME! and It’s Your Story – Tell It! An annual Dove Self-Esteem Weekend, started in 2010, aims to inspire moms and mentors to talk to girls in their lives about beauty, confidence and self-esteem supported by discussion aids. The goal is to reach 15 million girls global about self-esteem awareness by 2015.

The Real Beauty campaign resonates at several levels. It connects with an issue of deep concern within the customer base, their appearance and self-confidence. Additionally, it addresses the insecurity and self-esteem issues of young women to which customers could empathize. It strikes a chord. It provides a higher purpose to the brand and a shared interest with customers.

The impact for some of Dove’s efforts has been estimated to be 30 times their expenditure. One of its ads, Evolution, showed how much effort goes behind creating the “model look” and won advertising awards as well as created unpaid exposure estimated to be worth over $150 million. There are anecdotes about dramatic sales increases tied to the campaign and surveys showing that those aware of the effort are more likely to use and recommend Dove products. But the creation of a huge business base is the best evidence to its impact.

“The goal was not to avoid being disliked but to connect to the target.”

The campaign has had its critics, though. In part, this scrutiny has been stimulated by and is a testament to its success and visibility. But during a panel discussion at the WEF at Davos once, Phil Knight dismissed critics to some controversial Nike ads by saying that the goal was not to avoid being disliked but to connect to the target. Exactly.

Dove’s success is, of course, driven in large part by a business strategy that involved brand extensions, product innovation and geographic expansion. The energized brand with its higher purpose and clear value propositions supported by branded innovations simply amplified a remarkable business strategy.

The extension strategy was to leverage the moisturizer 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 deposits lipids, Vitamin E and other nutrients 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. 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 some 80 countries. However, the business strategy would not have had its remarkable success without the brand-building effort to support the offerings and to drive the higher Real Beauty purpose.

My last blog post, “Three Models of How a Brand Personality Impacts,” discussed three ways in which a brand personality can impact customers and the marketplace. And its reception, measured by views and comments, indicated that brand personality is a highly sought after and intriguing concept. Many recognized brand personality as a key brand vision lever for brands that are facing dynamic markets and a fragmented media presence. A brand personality can be a crucially important driver of self-expressive benefits, brand-customer relationships and the communication of functional benefits.

If a brand strategist wants to explore the potential of creating or enhancing a brand personality, then they have to address one basic question.

What should my brand personality be?

One place to start is by deciding which personality elements should be on the table. My advice? To start with an established brand personality scale designed to span products, much like the scale developed by my daughter, Jennifer Aaker. It contains 15 traits organized into five factors as follows:

• Sincerity—down-to-earth, hones, wholesome, cheerful
• Excitement—daring, spirited, imaginative, up-to-date
• Competence—reliable, intelligent, successful
• Sophistication—upper class, charming
• Ruggedness—outdoorsy, tough

This can provide one checklist. Which of these 15 traits or variants would work?

A second source of ideas comes from looking at other brands inside or even outside of your category that are admired or relevant and ask some basic questions. What is their personality? How strong is it? How was it created and maintained? In what way does it enhance the brand or the marketing program? An airline like Emirates, for example, could look at hotels, financial services firms or online retailers for brand personalities that stand out and are advancing a business strategy or brand.

“A brand personality can be a crucially important driver of self-expressive benefits, brand-customer relationships and the communication of functional benefits.”

A third vehicle is to look at the “three models…” concept from my last post and examine whether any of these three could be relevant in your business context. They can be the source of ideas for brand personality elements as well as serve as criteria to select from.

Finally, the brands and their offering could be appraised to see what personality elements, if any, are already prevalent. What elements could be compatible with existing image and relationships? It is much easier and less contrived to build on an existing or embryonic brand personality than to try to create one from scratch.

What is the worst thing you can say about a person? That they have no personality. Who wants to spend time with someone who is so boring that they are described as having no personality? It’s better to be a jerk; at least you will be interesting. Having a personality is equally helpful to brands.

Not all brands have a personality, or at least don’t have a strong, distinctive personality. Those that do have a significant advantage in terms of standing out from the crowd, having a message and supporting a relationship with customers. Personality is an important dimension of brand equity because, like human personality, it is both differentiating and enduring. Once established it will provide benefits (or harm) over a long time horizon. Creating or supporting a personality should be part of the brand vision discussion.

The power of brand personality can be seen by conceptualizing three models of how personality impacts:

The Self-Expression Model

People express their own or idealized selves in part by the brands that they buy and use. Using Apple’s MacBook expresses for some a non-corporate, creative self-based in part on the perception that Apple-as-a-person is an unpretentious, irreverent and somewhat off-the-wall person. The use of Betty Crocker expresses the homey, maternal, nurturing side of some of its users because Betty Crocker-as-a-person is a mother figure who is traditional, small-town, and all-American, a person that cares about cooking and about her family. Wearing the Nike brand is a personal representation of an active lifestyle personality for many. Nike-as-a-person is exciting, provocative, spirited, cool, innovative, aggressive, and into health and fitness. A brand can serve as a person’s personal statement even if that person were stranded on a desert island.

“Personality is an important dimension of brand equity because, like human personality, it is both differentiating and enduring.”

The self-expressive power of the brand can depend on the context. One study suggested that a brand personality can transform the use experience by creating feelings during use. Respondents were asked to project themselves into one of two scenarios. One involved a break after a daytime hike on a mountain, while the other was during a small evening barbecue with close friends. During the scene, the beer served was either Coors or Löwenbräu. Coors, with its outdoorsy, active, healthy personality, created feelings of “warmth,” “friendliness,” and “wholesomeness” in the mountain setting, but not in the barbecue setting. In contrast, Lowenbrau, with a warm, social personality, the reverse was true.

A brand can serve as a person’s personal statement even if that person were stranded on a desert island. However, there are socially visible or “badge” brands, particularly for statement products like cars and clothes, that have substantial social impact and thus enhance to a self-expressive brand role. Driving a Prius or Mercedes provides a self-expressive benefit that is extenuated by an awareness that others will observe.

The Relationship Basis Model

A trustworthy, dependable, conservative personality might be boring but might nonetheless reflect characteristics valued in a financial advisor, a lawn service, or an auto brand such as Volvo. The concept of a relationship between a brand and a person, analogous to that between two people, provides a different perspective on how brand personality might work. For example, consider the following relationship metaphors:

• A weekend fun companion: Pepsi might be better than Coke if perceived as a fun, energetic, social person.
• An old-fashioned mother: A down-to-earth, honest, genuine, reliable, always there for you personality brand like Campbell’s Soup or Pepto Bismol might fit.
• A well-liked and respected family member: Warm, sentimental, family oriented, and traditional personality linked to growing up. Think of brands such as Hallmark, Kodak and even Coke.
• A person who you respect as a teacher, minister or business leader: An accomplished, talented and competent person as represented by IBM or the Wall Street Journal.
• A boss who exercises power or a rich relative: A pretentious, wealthy, condescending personality perhaps reflecting the personality of BMW, Mercedes or Lexus (with gold trim).
• A companion for an outdoor adventure: An athletic, rugged, and outdoorsy personality such as Nike or Wells Fargo.

Think of a brand relationship that involves two-way communication. What might a brand say to you? One customer segment who perceived a credit card brand as sophisticated, educated, a world traveler and confident believed that the card would make comments like:

-“My job is to help you get accepted,” and

-You have good taste.”

A second, “intimidated” segment who considered the same credit card brand to be sophisticated and classy but snobbish, aloof and condescending believed the card-as-a-person would make comments such as:

-“I’m so well known and established that I can do what I want.” and

-“If I were going to dinner, I would not include you in the party.”

The user segments had remarkably similar perceptions of the brand, but the attitude of the brand toward the customer was a big discriminator and the relationship metaphor helped provide that insight.

The Functional Benefit Representation Model

A brand personality can also be a vehicle for representing and cueing functional benefits and brand attributes. It can be easier to create a personality that implies a functional benefit than to communicate convincingly that a functional benefit exists directly. Further, it is harder to attack a personality than a functional benefit. Consider:

• The Harley Davidson-as-a-person rugged, macho, America-loving, freedom-seeking individual who is willing to break out from confining society norms of dress and behavior suggests that the product is powerful and is a bike with substance.
• The Hallmark-as-person is sincere, sentimental, warm, genuine, wholesome and ageless as well as being competent and imaginative. This says a lot about the Hallmark offerings.
• The Benetton-as-a-person is daring, trendy, exciting, provocative, spirited and imaginative, and this affects people’s perceptions of Benetton and its stores.
• Michelin as reflected by the Michelin Man has a strong, enthusiastic, energetic personality that suggests a tire with strength and energy.
• Wells Fargo, as represented by the stagecoach, reflects an independent, cowboy type that delivers reliably. Although competitors may actually deliver superior reliability and safety of assets, because of the stagecoach, Wells wins the battle for perceptions.
• The Energizer rabbit is an energetic, upbeat, indefatigable personality who never runs out of energy–just as the battery runs longer than others.

Most brand strategists focus on developing points of difference that will give consumers good reasons to prefer their brand. The key to winning is assumed to be differentiation.

Points of Parity vs Points of Differentiation: What’s the Difference?

Points of differentiation is a phrase used to describe the areas where brands differentiate themselves from others. Many strategists believe that this is the way to come out on top in terms of brand preference.

On the other hand, we also have points of parity. Points of parity are elements that a brand needs in order to be considered in the eyes of the consumer. This is where a brand may have similarities to others—leading consumers to believe that brand is “good enough” to be included in the conversation.

If there is a must-have dimension on which your brand is perceived to inadequately deliver, your brand will not be considered. You will not be a player, which means you have no chance of winning—no matter how compelling your point of differentiation is. It will not compensate for a fatal liability.

The solution? Change that liability into a point of parity (POP). In other words, change that liability so that on that dimension the brand is good enough to no longer exclude it from the conversation. The point of parity concept provides another perspective on how to make or keep a brand relevant. In this post, I’ll discuss two different points of parity you should consider experimenting with.

Category Points of Parity

A category point of parity means that the brand offers necessary category features. A bank will not be suitable, for example, unless it offers adequate ATM service. At first, some German car manufacturers resisted adding cup holders, believing that car purists would not want such distractions in their cars. But this became a “must-have” for many and they eventually had to add them.

Jaguar executives saw their brand as being irrelevant to those that wanted four-wheel drive. When that group hit 50 percent of purchases in their top geographic markets, Jaguar introduced an all-wheel-drive model. These vehicles were intended not to be superior to others but rather good enough to eliminate, for most buyers, the reason to exclude Jaguar from consideration.

“Change that liability so that on that dimension the brand is good enough to no longer exclude it from the conversation.”

Competitive Points of Parity

A competitive point of parity is designed to negate a competitor’s point of difference. A common brand problem is when the quality of the offering is not adequate in comparison to the competition. In the 90s, Hyundai made inferior quality cars. But even in 2000, after fixing their quality problem, people still shunned the brand because of the bad quality perception. It took years, but through a variety of programs and communication channels, Hyundai found ways to communicate their increased quality levels and gained quality parity. Their quality was perceived to be good enough that attention could turn to points of difference such as price, styling, gas mileage and warranty.

Case in Point: McDonalds

McDonald’s had a competitive parity problem when it began losing customers concerned with healthy eating. They were vetoing the brand altogether. So, they began to offer grilled chicken sandwiches, a variety of salads, fruit smoothies, a choice of apples in the kids’ Happy Meals and started making their signature fries with dramatically reduced “bad” fat. The goal was not to make McDonald’s a destination for the healthy-eating segment but to create enough parity to reduce the number of customers who wouldn’t even consider the brand.

They then ran into another competitive parity problem. The success of Starbucks was a serious threat to their breakfast and other off-hours business. But it was also an opportunity. The advent of McCafé in 2007, with a line that included cappuccinos and lattés, changed the competitive landscape. McDonald’s was not aspiring to be better than Starbucks; the goal was to be close enough to the Starbucks experience to create a point of parity with respect to quality. The result was that a segment of the Starbucks base started to include McDonald’s in their consideration set.