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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - APRIL 2012
young with a campaign themed, “Not
Your Father’s Oldsmobile.” Clever
line. But now Oldsmobile no longer
discriminates between fathers, sons
or even grandsons. It’s a memory.
Reebok saw an opportunity
to provide the King with a cool/
hip fashion statement. But this
called for re-engineering its DNA
as a company engaged in facili-
tating athletic performance. And
the customer King ran forth with
a loud Swooshing sound as he
switched his loyalties to Nike.
Stephen King was once asked
to comment on a story he had read.
“No,” he moaned. “It’s not a very
good story. Its author was too busy
listening to other voices as closely
as he should have to the one com-
ing from inside.” Therein lies an im-
portant lesson for the ‘marketing
conceptors.’ Instead of beginning
the planning process with a laser
focus on customer needs, know-
ing what your brand stands for first
can inoculate the brand against
any temptations the King can use
to entice a brand towards treachery.
There is nothing wrong with
listening to the voice of the consum-
er. In fact, it is encouraged. But
blindly relinquishing to an overes-
timated assessment of the King’s
power can be disastrous. What your
brand stands for is your story, not
the customer King’s. And your story
can’t be created as a result of do-
ing what the King wants done. Ad-
mittedly, this is a challenging pre-
scription since what a brand stands
for is not always readily apparent.
FINDING YOUR “X”
F
INDING YOUR STORY
is like
looking at
one of those direc-
tories at the shop-
ping mall. To
eliminate confu-
sion about where
you are standing
relative to all the
other stores, a big
“X “ calls out You
Are Here! Nobody
knows where the
brand’s “X” is bet-
ter than management. That “X”
equates to the brand’s reason for
being. And unless the entire or-
ganization is reading the same
map, the brand’s story becomes
inconsistent. But leadership that
throws up its hands surrender-
ing to the voice of the consumer
King isn’t leadership. It’s follow-
ership. Besides the f ickle and
sometimes unpredictable nature
of the King’s demands, “let’s put
the “X” where the King wants it
to be,” can lead to disingenuous
claims, transparent motives and
consumer distrust. The brand’s
“X” has to be found and passion-
ately pursued, not obsequiously
created.
Successful brands like Apple,
Nike, Southwest Airlines have no
trouble agreeing on where their
“X” is. This has a lot to do with
explaining their
success. In his
recent book en-
titled Grow, Jim
Stengel
found
that 50 brands,
with well-defined
“ideals,” includ-
ing those that I
just mentioned,
o u t p e r f o r me d
the S&P by 400%
over the last 1o
years. For many brands however,
knowing what their ideal is requires
a certain amount of excavation. It’s
a process that must give the brand’s
voice more significance than the
consumer’s. Consequently, it’s a
process that requires a great deal of
courage. Becausewhenundertaken,
the brand commits to overthrowing
the once almighty customer King in
order to claim its rightful thrown.
One of the ways to plan this
excavation is to think of the brand
in human terms, as the hero of its
own story. It’s important to know
the hero’s capabilities, functions
and skill set. But analysis has to go
beyond your basic SWOT. It has to
get at the brand’s motivation. Mo-
tives, however described, always re-
veal underlying beliefs and values.
Heroes do what they do because of
what they believe. Ultimately, and
in the long run, enduring customer
relationships are more a function of
shared values then desired product
functions. Furthermore, playing the
USP game is ephemeral given com-
petition’s ability to innovate or copy
those same differences over time.
Admittedly, finding the brand’s
“X” can be challenging given the
impact the discovery can have on
a brand’s culture. Something will
change. But that change will bring
about a better alignment of everyone
associated with selling the brand.
Furthermore, ultimately regarding
purpose as the route to profits in-
stead of a regarding profits as the
ultimate purpose will strengthen
relationships with the consumer.
Long live the brand King.
This article has been adapted from
Jim Signorelli’s new book, Sto-
ryBranding: Creating Standout
Brands Through The Power of Story
(Greenleaf 2012). To download a
free chapter, visit,
Jim is the
CEO of ESW Partners, a marketing
company based in Chicago, Illinois.
“Successful brands like
Apple, Nike, Southwest
Airlines have no trouble
agreeing on where their
“X” is. This has a lot to
do with explaining their
success.”
MARKETING