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“This makes the brand a visual association with limited associated emotional tags.”

I’m curious as to why you would say this. Brands like Apple and Starbucks do not seem to have LIMITED associated emotional tags.

I wonder if our different takes on this may stem from different definitions of “brands.”

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1. Good point. Management should be looking at customer needs, competitive analysis, and market opportunities as context for a branding strategy.

2. Agreed. This brings up two points. 1)The need for conscientious hiring processes versus flippant hiring practices. 2)The need for strong internal communications (includes employee training)

3. Yes, customer experience architecture is an industry in and of itself. Yet I would argue it can be complex by nature, but complicated by our ineptitude. And though there are facets that cannot be managed, the manageable aspects should be attended. If it seems too complicated to manage, maybe the processes of management should be rethought.

4. My definition of public is “non-purchasers”. These are the ones yet to be brought into the fold. I do believe that one must keep in mind how to cultivate relationship with current customers while developing opportunities with future customers. (sometimes THROUGH current customers - Word of Mouth)

5. The idea of brand evolution is basically to rattle any concept of brands being chiseled into stone. I want to ensure business owners and managers do not expect that they can “create” their brand once and for all. It must be re-evaluated and managed in an ongoing fashion.

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Thanks for the good wishes. This is an older post, so I’ve actually included this information in a few different presentations. It has been received very well so far.

I have no problem with others presenting competing ideas, so feel free to drop in anytime and share your thoughts.

Thanks.

1. Management must first recognize the customer, the customer need and then define the brand based on that need. Customers define competition and this should be addressed with their primary needs in mind. Then management should identify the brand association with the customer or market segment need after adequately defining it through a series of processes.

2. All employees are customers and by their perception of the management and internal experience and other associations will extend the brand as part of their overall perceived experience or destroy it. Employee customers can be hell fire advocates of the company as a whole or just a part (a particular product). But your right they need to buy in to the perception whether real or perceived on their part. The employee customer is the hardest to sell and will be the last to defend the brand. Their experience is based on direct real information and direct emotional inputs. The structure of their buy in is very different than that of the external customer. It must first be recognized that most employee customers (internal customers) are somewhat self serving.

3. The Customers experience is multi faceted and somewhat complicated. Only a portion of their experience can be engineered or managed. In this position the brand isn’t necessarily something that can be experienced like trying on a pair of XXX brand shoes to feel their fit and smell the inviting richness of real leather. It is as much a sum of all customer contact points, direct and indirect physical experiences, emotional experiences and visual experiences that often have nothing to do with the product or company at all. It also crosses all departments within the company from warehouse, delivery to billing and sales contacts. It will also include visual and emotional input from a distance not directly involved with the company or brand itself.

Studies have shown that people will not associate with a brand and yet will have interacted with the company and its brand in numerous non-descript ways.

4. The Public? Branding assumes that all potential markets are customers and that brand definition is based on this recognition. The Public and the customer are for all intents and purposes the same. So experiment with and experience fulfill the same roll and are inter- defined.

5. The brand will evolve with time. Well, so do rotten eggs and fine wine, so where do we go from here? The brand evolves as customers define their experience. No experience no brand. If a negative experience takes place then there still is no brand and no evolvement of the brand. The core is and has to be centered on the management of the Customer Experience. If you want more on this go to http://cdccuastomerservice.blogspot.com and http://www.customerdevelopmentcenter.com

You have a start it needs to be redefined and the ideology behind defining the brand changed. Good luck with the client.

Thanks for your comments. What I mean by extending the brand is this. Employees should understand the brand of the company/organization and adopt the brand to how they fulfill their role. An employee should be able to perform their job in an authentic way that fits under the umbrella of the company’s brand. By doing so, they extend the brand from the company to the customer.

When employees fail to extend the brand there is a disconnect between the company and the customer.

However, what do you mean by employees must extend the brand?