Is Your Value Proposition Aligned with Your Customers' Values?

There are many stories of organizations utterly committed to a particular value proposition, confident in their knowledge of their constituents and highly disciplined in how and what they communicate about themselves. So what makes these organizations engage branding consultants?

In most cases, the answer is simple: lack of results. Something doesn’t resonate, doesn’t bring the leads, inquiries, closes. This problem is most often understood as the consequence of lack of awareness. “If they knew about us, they would be interested,” our clients say. Or, “If they understood that they had a problem, they would see us as the solution.”

These assertions may be accurate; in fact, they generally are accurate. Few organizations have sufficient resources to generate all of the awareness they need. And those on the cutting edge of an industry certainly experience the challenge of generating demand for something that hasn’t existed prior.

Branding solves the first problem, lack of awareness, on a tangent. Great branding doesn’t create awareness. It stands out and differentiates, however much or little the organization has to spend on awareness-generating activity.

By the same token, great branding can speak to something the target market already knows, and turn an assumption or belief on its ear to generate a new insight and lead to a new action.

What makes this all occur?

One simple thing: the ability to learn from the customer himself. Time and again, customer research has revealed to us unexpected deviance from closely held beliefs. The single-sex school learns that its constituents truly value this aspect of their education—or not. The technology company whose core product is envisioned to support online collaboration hears from its users that they want better print drivers. The consumer goods manufacturer discovers that its “secret ingredient” is most compelling when that ingredient’s identity is front and center—because there is fundamental dissatisfaction with competitive products in the category.

Market research can be simple or complex. Much depends on the circumstances. But first and foremost: market insight is essential. It doesn’t come from sales alone; it doesn’t come from anecdotes alone. Market insight comes from eagerness to engage and willingness to see beyond one’s own assumptions. With market insight in hand, the organization can make informed decisions about how it wants to present itself—how to wrap its own value proposition around its constituents’ values.

   

Is It Good Enough to Play to Your Strengths?

Earlier this week we saw the final episode of “Ellen’s Design Challenge,” the new HGTV show in which six talented furniture designers compete in a series of design and construction elimination contests. I am not endorsing the show, which in its first season had its moments but could use some refining; however, it was interesting and fun to see the designers and carpenters work together and create some extremely impressive pieces.

As someone working in a creative field, however, I do feel compelled to comment on the ending of the show. If you didn’t see it, in the final episode the judges had narrowed the field to two designers, and chose the winner. However, a week later—prior to the show being aired, and thanks to an “anonymous tip”—it was discovered that the winner’s final entry looked similar to a piece designed by someone else not on the show. With a terse statement that the winner had “not met the requirements” of the challenge, the network disqualified him and awarded the $100,000 prize to the runner-up.

I don’t know if the winner had ever seen this other piece. I do know, however, that creative people take cues from a lot of sources, and I find that very defensible. Picasso himself once suggested that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” I’m not remotely suggesting that the winner stole someone else’s ideas; rather, that this is a complex topic and one that deserves more consideration than it seems to have received. I assume this is why the network has been so interestingly close-mouthed about what occurred, while viewers everywhere have been taking the show to task for the decision and for their treatment of the original winner.

Anyway, in their deliberations the judges spoke at length about the differences between the designers—he, a seasoned pro with a very particular style and a very niche market for it; she, a somewhat younger designer whose work was considered more eclectic. They talked approvingly about her willingness to push herself in many directions. They talked admiringly about his proficiency and strong sense of himself and his work.

And then one of the judges characterized the seasoned designer as someone prone to “retreating to what’s comfortable.”

There is a video of this conversation online, but the potentially most interesting comment was edited out. Which is this: another judge said, in defense of the seasoned designer, something to the effect of, “There’s nothing wrong with knowing whom you are, knowing your strengths, and going with them.”

We are living in a world where expectations of knowledge workers, and marketers are no exception, are changing. Certain proficiencies are foregone conclusions; certain proclivities are valued over others. As a more “seasoned” type, I watch this with some amusement and some sadness.

Is going to what one knows, trusts and has found success with really “retreating?” What does this mean? Consultants, for example, are hired for expertise, which is developed over time. Most of us have a set of core beliefs, processes and practices upon which we rely. That is the value that we bring to our clients.

[On the other hand, there are a bunch of “truisms” in marketing that are exhausted and no longer useful. Deferring time and again to certain media (does every single thing one does require a print piece in the age of the Web?), phrases (“with the click of a mouse” being my favorite), or characteristics of populations of any kind signals a lack of real-world context.]

One of my most esteemed colleagues recently opted out of the job market, saying that he wasn’t comfortable in the social media world, didn’t really believe in it, and felt that nobody would take him seriously as a marketer without that skill set. He knows who he is, knows what he can do, and even knows its value. But he no longer has confidence that others will value it equally. This is worse than retreat. It is defeat.

Everyone, and certainly every worker in a creative field, assembles a toolbox of references. Some are consciously developed, and some are derived from observation consciously and unconsciously. In any case, the toolbox represents the assets that allow us to engage, discover, diagnose, and contribute our ideas.

Creative people understand, of course, that tools must be carefully maintained. They need to be adjusted, burnished, polished and sharpened. And, they need to be complemented and enhanced with new tools and references that make practice all the more rewarding, and the results of the work richer and more relevant over time.

If the designer in question had no original ideas, no unique vision, no contribution of a particular sensibility and expertise, then I would agree with the characterization of “retreat.” But, win or lose, everyone agreed that he had all of those things. And I would argue that it is precisely the existence of his references that make his work so special.

It’s not a question of retreat. It’s one of having built a strong foundation on which to grow.

We're All the Customer Experience

This post is adapted from a Facebook reflection that I wrote on December 21, 2014.

Gentle lessons in humility occur at the most surprising moments!

A few days before Christmas I braved the crowds in Target to get something relatively inconsequential (please don't ask me why I did this), but in doing so I passed through the aisles (and aisles. and aisles.) of Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, cards, etc. I happened to notice an employee attempting to organize the gift bags, and I also noted that the paper plate and napkin display was a shambles. Something about this (my penchant for order? my distaste for chaos? my sympathy for a young person doing her best against what would turn out to be significant odds?) inspired me to offer to help. So with her somewhat disbelieving assent, I put down my things and organized the plates and napkins. 

It took ONE HOUR. As I was doing it I found an opened battery package with the batteries missing (of course), a bag of Starbucks coffee, something made of glass, and all manner of related and unrelated items. I watched a woman roll her cart right over a package of plates that had fallen on the floor. And I watched a woman pick out a package of napkins from one of my displays, look at it, and toss it back on the shelf.

Her husband looked at me and said, "You're trying to clean this up and we're just messing it up again." So I just smiled, as the Target employee kept on doing. But here's what I was thinking: 

1. This is an interesting way to get qualified for a job. I got offered one on the spot!

Customer experience is something we read about and talk about. Designing robust and meaningful customer experiences is part of my job. Yet here was something I hadn’t considered.

2. Behind every customer experience is a chain that starts (or ends) with a product that is on the shelf. But every day and night, people like the Target employee I helped have the experience of how we treat that product AND our regard, or disregard, for their time and effort in stocking and displaying it. 

So, in fact, customer experience should not the job of the provider alone. We all have the ability, or responsibility, to contribute to a good one. Do you cheer at a sporting event? You are part of the experience. Do you dance at a wedding? You’re adding to the general sense of joy and celebration. Do you put the napkins back? You’re making it possible for someone else to find and enjoy them. And for a store employee to do something more productive.

In general, I am good about this ... but I'm sure that I can do better. And I hope that, if you have never considered this before, you will do the same.