Inside, Out Outside, In
3M: Innovation
Disney: Magic
Nordstrom’s: Customer service
At the core of the world’s most valuable brands lies a single strong idea that serves as the compass for everything these organizations do.
The traditional approach to brand positioning has been to analyze consumer needs, evaluate the competitive landscape, and establish a positioning that takes advantage of gaps in both. However, that approach is fraught with dangers—consumers change (and don’t always know what they want, anyway) and markets shift. In the end, by following this approach, you are likely to be left with a positioning that requires continuous reinvention and redefinition—leading to lack of consistency, a confused corporate culture and, ultimately, increased costs.
Every strong brand is built on a solid foundation that is more than the products or services the organization delivers. Brands are built on truth—the truth of what the organization is about and how it creates value for its customers. Getting to this truth requires an “inside-out” approach to understanding the organization and communicating its promise. The heart of an organization’s brand is located in the culture, values, and ethos, not in the fickle marketplace. As Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked the market what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’”
BRANDS ARE BUILT ON THE TRUTH OF WHAT THE ORGANIZATION IS ABOUT AND HOW IT CREATES VALUE FOR ITS CUSTOMERS.
Honestly branded organizations can find long-term benefits in large leaps in development. The best example of the inside-out approach at work in this context is Apple Computer. Apple was founded with a strong vision of the kind of company it would be: innovative, user-centric, and design-focused. Apple experienced great success at the outset, but stumbled as PCs took hold in the ’80s and ’90s. Yet, now it is one of the most powerful brands in the world. What brought Apple back was not an improved product line but rather a complete rethinking of the kinds of things the company could offer its customers—all rooted in the original principles: iMac—the beautifully designed, all—in—one computer; iPod—an MP3 player that continues to reinvent the category, and iTunes- a user—interface philosophy that transcends product lines and manifests itself in hardware and software.
In the short-term, an inside-out approach can lead to better brand delivery across an organization—everyone can “live” the brand, because it’s centered in what they already do. But, brand strategies must guide more than an organization’s communications: They must guide its infrastructure, behavior and, most importantly, the way it drives customer experience. A brand rooted in a deep understanding of the organization’s true promise is one that will be sustainable over a long period of time—through management changes, product line changes, and market shifts. How the positioning is executed and communicated may need to change, but the core of the organization’s value to the marketplace will remain the same.
A disciplined inside-out approach to brand strategy serves as the foundation for more effective brand execution and communication. If you understand the true value your organization provides for its audiences, you can focus on telling and showing them that value over and over again. This approach can also prevent a fundamental disconnect between the brand promise and brand delivery-and avoid a disappointed customer. You may have heard the adage “Good advertising makes a bad product fail faster.” Remember the United Airlines “Rising” advertising campaign from a few years ago? The strategy was to communicate that United understood that travel had become difficult, and they promised to do things better. Unfortunately, United didn’t actually change any of its operating approaches. Gate agents still wouldn’t tell you why you were delayed. The result was more passenger aggravation than if United had just continued to pretend that it didn’t know there was a problem.
Do we think you should forget about the market and customers’ needs? No. But, if you know what your organization stands for-what it’s good at and why customers and oth- ers consider it valuable-you are already more than halfway to establishing a strong, vibrant, leadership brand that will stand the test of time and change.